Coach [John] Wooden used seven players at UCLA. Coach [Denny] Crum used to say, 'The more moving parts you have, the greater the chance you have for a breakdown.' I think there's a lot of veracity to that.

One of our main motivations has to be that we want to finish strong. As I tell the players all the time, people remember the last thing you did. And we're getting to the point where it's the last thing we're going to do.

You should have gone with coach to the Final Four. He would stop to talk to John Wooden, and he would talk to a fan. And you couldn't tell the difference.

What Coach Wooden did was so special.

Be true to yourself, help others, make each day your masterpiece, make friendship a fine art, drink deeply from good books – especially the Bible, build a shelter against a rainy day, give thanks for your blessings and pray for guidance every day.

We knew he was a very good player, and obviously he showed that to us again. We didn't do a good job of finding Rice. When we did find him, we sort of looked at him while he handed us a 3. We went man-to-man in the second half because of his shooting ability.