In this installment of this basketball epic Dan Peter's talks about the Three "I's" , Lance McAlister talks about hustling beer with Butler's all-time leading scorer and Richard Skinner talks about the money behind college sports. All of this and much, much more!

By Bill "CigarBoy" Kintner

BK: About rule changes. Are we going to see the three-point line moved back? Are we going to see the way they figure graduation tweaked?

RS: You really want the three-point line moved back.

BK: Yeah. But is there a really good chance of it happening? What do you think?

LM: It was considered for a time, like a year ago if I remember. And they always tabled it for a moment. I've always thought the three-point line should be a specialty shot. It should be for special shooters. Again, I think Glenn Rice, I think Steve Alford, Reggie Miller - guys like that. I don't think everybody on the team should be jacking up threes. And look at the distance. Guys look at it and say, "Oh no, it can't be that hard. I'm going to hoist it up. Again I understand the percentage if you make this vs. that field goal. It shouldn't be a shot used on one out of every three shots. It should be more specialized.

RS: Well, you know, it's funny. You watch games from 15-18 years ago when there was no three-point line. It's funny; you watch guys make passes back from out 16-17 feet. They weren't thinking about shooting the jump shot against the 2-3 zone. Everybody played the 2-3 zone and so there's a pass out of that. So the rule change should be go back because now they just stand at the line. It's a pitch back and that's become as much a part of the offense. Your offense is and Dan will correct me on this, I'm sure, you're offense is lay-up, dunk, or three-point shot. That's your offense. That's all offense is anymore.

DP: Yeah.

RS: And so back in that day, come off a curl and shoot a 12-foot jump shot. Come off a curl and shoot a shot in the lane. The other one is the wider lane because nobody calls a three-second anymore. So you know what? Widen the lane, force them out wider and make it a tougher thing to post up because now you've got guys that are so much bigger and stronger. You post up closer to the basket; you're not going to get stopped. If you're 6'11" and the guy who's guarding you is 6'8" you are going to turn and get scored on. There's nothing you can do about that. So you can't incorporate that and the other part is - and he'll disagree (referring to Lance), and probably Dan will too. I love the idea of you want to spread the floor, run your offense for a minute and a half, two minutes. Fine. It allows ball handling, it allows passing, it allows cutting. It allows all the things that make basketball beautiful. Nobody wants to see a 43-40 game. But you know what we're getting? 55-50 games. We're getting guys who can't score anyway. So, you know what? Take the shot clock out of it. You want to spread the court and go to town.

DP: You're talking about the trapezoid lane. Well, I don't think - how many guys do we have now that can score with their back to the basket?

RS: There's enough though, Dan.

DP: (Disagreeing) Hmmm...

RS: You know what? I guess it's because I covered Kentucky when Marquis Estill and Jamaal Magloire were there and they just caught the ball, turned, and said, "You know what? Guard me. And in that league there were 6'8", 6'9" guys who couldn't guard those guys. So you know what? You make the lane a little wider; they're out another step or so. It makes them have another skill.

DP: No doubt. But that's why the game today...if you've got good guards, you're gonna be in games. You don't need to throw into the block because those guys can penetrate and dunk that. You mentioned Pitino and Louisville. They don't really post guys up. That post guy is standing almost out of bounds sometimes. They rely on verbal penetration, hoping that guy will help up and then they dump down to a 6'7 guy who's just dunking the thing. But, back to the basket, if you get a guy, obviously, like Shaq. How does Shaq score? The only guy he's not bigger than is Yao Ming.

RS: But he still overpowers him. I mean, he's so much stronger. He turns and goes "ha, ha."

DP: He does, but there's only one Yao Ming. There's only one Shaq. I don't know I'm not sure I'm in favor of it, but I think it will eventually come...

RS: I brought up the shot clock. Do you like the shot clock or not? I'm not a big shot clock guy.

DP: Well...again, the better the talent, the more possessions you want. So if I've got the most talent, I'm probably going to win because you've got to shoot the ball. You know, people think the shot clock...the shot clock really helps the team who is really good on defense, but it also helps the team that's bad because you only got to stand back there for 25 seconds. By the time they get the ball back over the half-court, if you can just get your hand up and rebound it, they're gonna shoot. I think the shot clock leads to a lot of bad shots. Watch a game. Some of the shots kids take - it's ugly basketball. I was not opposed to the shot clock; I mean the 45-second shot clock. You had the chance to work the ball to get a good shot. But 35 seconds? You're gonna have to shoot it. The team with the most penalties...

RS: The funny part is with 35 - if you press, which teams don't anymore you get the ball across the 23, 24...suddenly, you're at NBA level across that court. Get to your offense one time in ten seconds. Suddenly you go, "All right. Isolate this guy and try to take a shot. The 45 at least lets you run through your offense one more time and see what you've got.

DP: Well, I agree with you on that. You look at a college game and what's happening. It's becoming more like the pro game. It's one-on-one or pick and roll. That's what it's evolved to.

BK: Let's talk a little bit about conference realignment. We've seen an awful lot. Is it all done? Is more coming? And is it driven mostly from football.

DP: It's all about money.

RS: Which is all about football.

DP: Which is all about football because you know what? When the NCAA meets, they always screw around with basketball, right? They're always changing this, changing that. Do you ever see them ever mess with football? They're not going to tell Alabama, Notre Dame...they're not going to tell those people what to do with their football. It's not happening. They are not going to mess around with football. Let's face it. One school in this country, this year, forced realignment of six leagues. And that's Miami. And it was all about money because when they played Ohio State for the national championship, they played the national championship game in football. I believe they played the national championship in - or their team made it to the finals, I want to say in baseball. I think their women's team did really good. They had another team; they lost money that year. When you get $13 million, how are you losing money? They lost $1 million in their athletic department. So Miami said, "Hey, we only get $13 million (or whatever it was) or however much the Big east gave them, $9million, if we get to the national championship game or the BCS game. If we don't get to that, they're not guaranteeing any money." Miami's saying, "We can't run our athletic department like that." So they started looking at alternatives. Where can we go to balance the books and run the thing? They came to the conclusion, in terms of the ACC. And that forced the realignment of really six leagues. I think it's six leagues.

LM: Look at how Mickey Mouse Conference-USA became when they sold their soul for football and went traipsing all over the country - 13 different states. Our schools in 13 states putting basketball games on Friday nights just because they wanted football deals on the TV side. They made the basketball teams play on Fridays. It was ridiculous and it was all generated from the beginning of football. And it cost the game of basketball. It just reduced it to, well, it was the laughing stock.

DP: It became, initially it started out as a metropolitan league based on basketball. Now it's a southern league, basketball and football.

RS: Football's always controlled it. No matter how you slice it, football's always going to get the bigger piece of the pie. Even though the NCAA tournament is probably more popular than anything that football can put out there, money probably doesn't dictate that part of it. But the bottom line is that football still dictates that no matter how you slice it, football is going to control the money part of that. That's what it comes down to, money. Bottom line is money.

DP: Well, it is money. But let me ask you this question. How much money does football generate for the NCAA?

RS: You know what? I don't know the answer to that, Dan. Obviously you asked it because, I think, you know.

DP: I'm just asking how much, percentage-wise, of their budget?

RS: Percentage-wise of their total budget? I'll say at least 40 percent

BK: We've got to get Lance in on this. What do you think it is?

LM: Sixty.

DP: Try zero. They don't get a dime. The NCAA doesn't get a dime from football. Seventy-five and I'm gonna use somewhere around 74-75% of the total NCAA budget comes from the men's basketball tournament, period. Now I'll ask you another question...

RS: What's the budget for schools?

DP: I said the NCAA.

RS: I know you did.

DP: Now, I could massage my answer. (BK chuckles.)

RS: No, he's right. He phrased it right. You phrased it right.

DP: Now let me ask you this question: What's the second moneymaker for the NCAA? I'll give you guys all two guesses.

BK: Baseball.

DP: Nope.

LM: Volleyball.

DP: Nope.

RS: School or television?

BK: He just likes to watch the girls.

DP: I said the biggest moneymaker.

RS: For the NCAA?

DP: For the NCAA budget?

RS: (Contemplates for a few seconds.) Wow!

BK: Hockey?

RS: Soccer.

DP: Soccer. Hockey generates a lot, but it's a high number. Not your second biggest money-maker.

RS: Women's basketball.

DP: Yeah, right. (All laugh)

RS: Don't quote him on that. Don't quote him on that.

DP: This was a couple of years ago. I don't know if it's true today, but a couple of years ago the licensing of the words "Final Four." So think about that. Your number 1 and number 2 things really came from the men's basketball tournament.

RS: I believe it. I don't deny that.

BK: Let's talk a little bit about, I'm going to use UC since we have a UC Coach here, UC has a reputation with the black uniforms being intimidating, not graduating players, not having very smart players. That's kind of the perception around the country. How does UC (using UC as an example) get that reputation? Where's that start? How is it built?

RS: Lance McAlister knows that, I think.

DP: I don't know. Let's hear what Lance has to say about it.

LM: I think it started, the perception started back with the final four run of '92 and what became the media's perception. The perception was like, "Look at the roster. They've got a bunch of JUCO players. Look at the muscle, look at the uniforms. They're JUCO players, which mean they're obviously bad kids. They have a lot of muscle, which means they push, shove, and knock people down. And they've got black uniforms so they want to be intimidating." They've become the outlaw program and people run with it. There's too many people - and I lay this on the media - there's been too many people who have been lazy over the years and they never bother to look beyond that. I put together a packet on my own of all the players whom graduated, the percentage for UC, and what the guys are doing now. And I send it out to the media members who drop the throwaway line about UC being the program that doesn't graduate any players. I sent it to Greg Couch of the Sun Times, to Dan Le Batard of the Miami Herald. Anybody, who writes it, I send the whole packet to them. It's three pages long with successes, the percentages, the team GPA, and the academic honors for the players. Because there are too many people who are just lazy. And it's easy to go, "Oh yeah, I heard that's the rebel program that doesn't graduate. So I'll just write that with out checking the facts."

RS: Right, wrong, or indifferent, the NCAA numbers dictate that UC wasn't very good. The NCAA numbers have been proven to be very, very poor.

LM: That's something else I'd change.

RS: You're right. The NCAA numbers have been proven to be very, very poor. Yet they don't correct that fact. If you're a bad program, you don't graduate players. Whether your numbers work or not, your program's labeled a bad program. Take Oklahoma for example, Kelvin Sampson got labeled as a bad program. Zero graduation rate. Kelvin Sampson is usually a pretty upstanding guy. I think he wants to have good kids, he wants to graduate players, but based on the formula he's gotten a zero - which is wrong.

LM: Here's another problem. And you know how selective the media is, the Louisville Courier Journal last weekend did a study comparing the graduation rate of Kentucky's football and basketball, Louisville's football and basketball. And the Kentucky rate over the past four years is like 24%. Now I accept the system is stupid and it reflects poorly, but it's very interesting that I have not seen any other media outlet pick up that story and say Kentucky didn't graduate a player during the ‘96-‘97-'98 national appearances. Yet if anything is released on UC about that...You know why? Because East Coast to West Coast everybody picks it up. Nobody picked up this story on Kentucky's graduation rate.

RS: Here's the funny part - and Dan's going to go crazy over this - Bob (Huggins) is not perceived as a good guy. He's perceived as the bad guy. The uniforms are perceived as "bad guy." Black uniforms perceived as bad guys. And they play up to some of that. That's not a knock on Bob, not a knock on uniforms, it's not a knock on what's played up. But it is what it is, hence the image of UC as a bunch of black uniformed thugs with a coach who doesn't care. A renegade coach who suddenly doesn't care about his kids graduating. It's a bad perception, but it's a perception.

LM: You know who could have fixed this perception and I don't blame Huggs? I lay this on Sports Information because they should have been ahead of this. It shouldn't have taken this long to get the inside cover of the media guide listing all the pictures. They should've never allowed Huggs to walk into that press conference at the NCAA tournament against Stanford. If anybody who had a brain in that Sports Info department knew the media was going to ask, "Compare your graduation rates with Stanford." There should have been packets standing this high for them to hand out to the media. "Oh, you want the answer to that question? There's our actual numbers." And they left Huggs out there to dry sitting there answering questions, defending his graduation rate with no defense. He shouldn't have to do that. It should be Sports Information.

DP: Let me ask you this question. I'm going to give you a scenario; just tell me yes or no. I know a guy, he raised six kids, had a full-time job. Of his six kids, five of them went to college, but it took him fourteen years to get his undergraduate degree. Is that guy a success or a failure?

BK: Success.

LM: Success.

RS: He's an absolute success.

DP: According to the NCAA, he'd be a failure. And that's my father. Then my father spent another four years on his master's degree. And when I went to Youngstown State for the interview, I'll never forget - the third question asked - the guy says, "Coach, can I ask you a question?" I said, "Sure, go ahead." He goes, "How many players have you graduated?" I said, "None." Well, it's dead silence. Now you've got fifteen people in this room; you could cut the tension with a knife. And I looked at the guy; I just sat there and looked at him for about twenty seconds. I said, "Sir, do you mind if I ask you a question?" He goes, "No." I looked right at him and I said, "Now, who graduated you?" He goes, "Well, I graduated myself." I said, "My point exactly." You know what? I didn't go to school on a basketball scholarship. I had to pay my way through school. It was up to me. It was my responsibility to graduate. I said, "Is it my responsibility as a coach to graduate kids? I don't think so. Now it is my responsibility to provide an environment where they have every opportunity to receive a degree. I've got to make sure I'm doing everything I can to help that individual get a degree." Well, if you think about it - and you mentioned Stanford, okay? How many kids who are accepted into Stanford flunk out?

RS: A small percentage.

DP: Very small. As a matter of fact, if I'm not mistaken, do they give grades?

RS: I think they do.

DP: Do they?

RS: I would assume yes.

DP: How many kids do you think flunk out of Princeton, Harvard, and those places?

RS: A small percentage, again.

DP: A small percentage.

RS: If you're getting in, you're going to succeed.

DP: That's right. So, you know what? I think some of this is - don't get me wrong because I, again, have been at every level. When I was a head coach, 100 percent of the kids I recruited were not going to play beyond the four years of college. So education obviously was very important to me, especially with my background with my parents being teachers. And especially after what my father did to make sure he provided for us and knowing what he had to do. I think I'll never forget, I was at a clinic many years ago and John Chaney was there. And he says, "You know fellas, I'm going to tell you guys when a school wins they say "Oh they've got dummies and they're not graduating kids." He said, "You'd better be careful what you ask for." Here we are twenty years later and look what you've got. So I think a lot of it is perception about a program. I mean, I'm in a place the other day, I swear I was stunned. I was. This guy walked up to me and says, "Coach, I'm such and such and I coach (some school over in Indiana)." He goes, "Listen, I got six white kids you need to coach." And I looked at the guy and I said, "What?" He goes, "Listen, I love UC, I love following you guys, but there's a bad perception of us there." He goes because we don't "have any white kids on the team."

RS: So what?

DP: And what I said to him was, "We try to recruit white kids, but when we go out to recruit, it's not white/black. It's who's the best player." Now when we try to recruit white kids we can't get them because of everybody's perception that bad guys don't graduate and all this stuff. And it's so far from the truth; I mean it's unbelievable.

BK: Let me switch around to the ACC. No one digs on them and everyone thinks they graduate all their players in the ACC. They get a totally free ride. Why is that?

DP: I'll tell you what. I love what Lance just said because the media, the PR work of the league, you think Duke - come on boys - Duke is the lily clean program all the way around. Plus, consider whom you have driving the ACC PR machine, media-wise: Billy Packer, Dick Vitale.

RS: Yeah, but in their defense, they do a good job.

LM: But they look the other way for that conference, specifically.

DP: It's not even mentioned, the ACC. Is it ever mentioned? It's not...I think we do a big injustice to a lot of kids by saying, "That kid's dumb" because he's at this school, a junior college, or he transferred from a school for whatever reason. Hey, we all have personal problems in our lifetime. We all at different times, mature in different areas. Sometimes it may be when you're nineteen; sometimes it might not be until you are forty. I've got friends that are fifty years old. I'm going to tell you what now. They're as immature as a ten-year-old kid is! But you know what? They're not in the public eye. No one cares about it. But if you are UC basketball, I mean by gosh in this town, you do one thing and they think you've got a bunch of bad guys. And so we get raked over the coals for anything.

LM: Last week when I had Scott Germander on, I asked him specifically, "Could you address the perception of junior college players as troublemakers. Could you address Jihad Mohammed, specifically his character?" And it goes back to the perception that if you're a JUCO player, you don't have good grades, you have been in trouble with the law, and you must have done this. Nobody wants to consider that you were shorter at the time. Your skills weren't as good. Maybe you wanted to stay closer to home at the time. Maybe you didn't have an offer at the time. It's always the conclusion that JUCO carries the connotation that he's a bad guy.

RS: Lack of homework again.

DP: Or maybe that kid at that time, in his background, in his family or wherever he lives, education is about the tenth thing on their list of importance.

RS: Which isn't right. But you're right.

DP: I was raised in a family where education was important. I was raised in a family where you're going to go to class. You were going to do what you're supposed to do. You know what? You didn't have to worry about your principal or your teacher or your coach. Because when you walked home, your father was standing there and he wasn't really happy about life. (All laugh.) Other kids, you know, they're worried about surviving - where's the next meal coming from? Is my kid dodging bullets? You know, a lot of times education, in that background, is not a priority. It's just not.

BK: Let's talk about the coaching profession. It's changed a lot. And you've got coaches being canned right and left. You have a bad year. You graduate all your players. You have good students who are good citizens. They graduate; they get out and do good things. But you have a bad year or two and you get fired. Is there more pressure to win, generate revenue and all the other things that are associated with winning than there was fifteen years ago?

RS: It is far and away the most hypocritical situation ever. Here's why. They don't care what you graduate. They don't care if you are a good guy, if your kids are good guys. They care about one thing: winning. Because it brings in revenue. It still comes back to business. And so at the end of the day no matter how you slice it, if you win - you can cheat and win, you can cut corners and win - as long as you win and don't get caught, nobody cares. You graduate your guys...I still remember Deloss Dodds, the AD at Texas fired John Mackovic. He said, "John Mackovic is the best person I've ever known." He graduates his kids and guess what? You're fired. So that's all that matters. And there are plenty of coaches who can do both. If you can do both, good for you. But you know what? You're judged based on whether you win or not. Period! End of story.

LM: Richard knows we run into this in this city, in what we do. That's how the fan's attitude has changed and how there's no longer an appreciation for the journey of the regular season.

RS: Right.

LM: It's the final destination. Nobody cares about game 1 to game 25 or whatever the regular season is, and the journey along the way. It's: "What did you do in March?" It's almost like people skip over and go straight to March, get to the Sweet 16, and get to the Elite Eight. That's all they care about and nobody remembers what regular season records are anymore or if you win your conference regular season tournament. We forget that all the time on radio. No appreciation for the regular season any longer.

DP: So basically what you're saying is money.

RS: Right....absolutely Dan.

DP: I'm telling you now. The guy that follows Bob Huggins at Cincinnati - God bless that guy - he better put 13,176 in the seats or that guy won't be around long. And he can graduate all of them. Best example I can give you is Bob Davey. Notre Dame graduated every player. 100% graduation rate in Bob Davey's tenure at Notre Dame as a football coach.

RS: And guess what? Bob Davey got fired. Because you know why? In the end, he couldn't win enough. The funny part is they talk about graduation. Hey talk about integrity. They talk about good kids. You know what? You aren't going to keep your job. They care about one thing. You've got to win. I care about that; Lance cares about that. Well, I shouldn't say that it's not fair because there's more to it than that. But you know what? If you're a coach, you're making a living - they don't care what you graduate. They don't care what your kids look like. You're gonna do one thing. You're going to take kids to help you win. I don't blame coaches for that.

DP: I'm at Walsh College. I'm young; I'm 26 years old. The dean of students is the guy who hired myself and he hired Bob Huggins. The guy was a 4.0 student in college. We're at a game and he leans over to me and he says, "I don't care if that kid can read or write at all. I want to be entertained." I was stunned! I was like "You were a 4.0 student?." He goes, "I told you I didn't pay $5.00 to watch a guy who can tell me about Einstein's Theory of Relativity." And it's true.

RS: And that's paying five bucks. Can you imagine when you're paying twenty-five bucks?

DP: So unfortunately, like a lot of things about the NCAA, there's too much hypocrisy in the whole thing.

RS: Oh, there's no question. And you know what? The worst part, Lance and I are the first ones to hop on coaches who don't graduate players, don't do things the right way. It is what it is. But at the end of the day, I feel so sorry because, you know, the alumni don't care. You think the Kentucky alumni care that Tubby Smith is a good guy and graduates players? No! They care that he got bounced by UAB in the round of 32. That's all they care about. You think that UC's alum's care whether Bob Huggins graduates players or has good kids? No; they care that Illinois blew them out in the second round. That's all anybody cares about. Even the Xavier alumni - do you think that they care that their team got to the round of eight? Yeah they do. They care about that a lot more than they care about if they have good kids. Nobody cares about the good kids, graduation, etc. They care that at the end of the day, we win basketball games.

BK: Let's talk a little bit about recruiting. Is there any integrity left in recruiting? What's going on right now in recruiting?

DP: You better get some players. (All laugh.) It comes down to this:. if you don't have players, you're not going to win. You look at the contracts that head basketball coaches are getting. The stakes are so high. I mean, you're talking a ton of money now for coaching a game, having a good way to earn a living. It's fun and it's hard, it's work. But guys will take chances. They don't care, like Richard just said, if they get caught then they're in trouble. But if they don't get caught, they're in pretty good shape. Recruiting is ugly. A lot of guys - you talk about integrity - you've got a lot of guys in the business that are not real good guys in a lot of cases. Now there are a lot of them that are very good guys. But you'd better understand that you better win - and the only way you're going to win is if you have players. I talked to Dave Balza ( coach, Florida Gulf Coast University) today. And he was asking me about "What do you think? When you went to St. Joe's, you know, blah, blah, blah..." And I just said to him, because I tell him I'm an assistant and that you better hire an assistant that's willing to get out there, beat the bushes and really work at recruiting because if you don't have players, Dave, you're not going to win. You might be a great coach, I don't know, I have no idea. But if you don't have players, you'll never have the opportunity to see if you're a great coach. To me, the two things: recruiting and scheduling will determine if your program's successful. Now what determines if your season is successful are what I call the three "I's": injury, ineligibility, and insubordination. If you think about it, recruiting is the name of the game - and in terms, you better have some players. And I think that anybody who's ever won (you know, Bob Knight, Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Bear Bryant, Woody Hayes, Vince Lombardi) those guys all have one thing in common........good players.

BK: Lefty Driesell talked about scheduling with me. I think I did one of the last interviews before he retired. But he talked about when he first started, he would schedule a game, " we play you at your place, you play us at our place." And everybody would do that. Now it's because of budgetary constraints, if you're big enough you don't go on the road unless it's for TV. And if you're a Butler, then you can't get anyone good to come to your place.

DP: Well, Davidson called me the other day and Davidson said, "Hey, we just signed Thomas Sander". I said "Good, he's a good kid. I think he will do a good job for you guys." He goes, "Well, we were thinking about...would you guys be looking for a game?" I said, "Yeah, we're looking for two; we need two guaranteed games." He said, "Well, we don't take guaranteed games." I said, "Coach, don't take this wrong, but we don't go out on the road because we lose at least $150,000 every time we go on the road. If he wants to come to our place at any time in his career, he is more than welcome. But I promise you, we're never coming to Charlotte to play you guys." Because again, what's it come down to? Money.

BK: With UC, you only go out on the road for non-conference games if it's TV. Is that right?

DP: For the most part, I'd say that is correct. Yes. You know we ended up, a couple of years ago, short a game and Scott Drew said, "We'll play you two for one, but you got to come to our place." Well, in no time in the five years since I've been there would Cincinnati have done that. If we could have we'd have got someone else but it was late in the year - we couldn't get anybody. So I said yes. That's why. Think of this. We went to Valpo last year. That's not going to happen again.

BK: That's because they were available on the one day you had open, right?

DP: We would have tried to rearrange our schedule. I meant to play somebody, but they didn't want to play. They said they would do it. Greg Kampe from Oakland. I ran into him at the final four. He said, "I'll tell you what. I play you two for one and when you come to our place, we'll pay you $40,000 - if you'll book two for one." I said, "Greg, we won't do that." I said, "It's a heck of a deal." You know, if you think about it, we should be able to beat Oakland no matter where we play. But he knows at home he's pretty good. He's played Missouri tough - had a chance to beat Missouri. Missouri was fortunate enough to win. Didn't they beat Michigan one year?

RS: They came close. They almost beat them. They were good, though.

BK: They beat Detroit one year; I know that.

RS: Yeah.

DP: Think about it. It comes back to one thing. Money. So scheduling...like this year, we got a lot of crap about our schedule. You know I suppose I had a lot to do with it. But I looked, last year we won seventeen games. Now you know, for UC, that's a disaster now. And I said to Huggs, "We better win some games because we got the same guys. We need to get some confidence. Let's get some confidence. We'll have a high enough RPI with our league schedule to get in the tournament. Well, it just so happened once again, in the end with that schedule we put together, our RPI (overall) is still very high. It was, I don't know, 25th in the country or something. And so you'd better be careful how you schedule. You know whom you're playing because if you don't and you lose, there aren't many guys that have contracts like, say Huggs has. They can't afford it; they can't take that chance. I'll call certain guys and say, "Coach, I have to win some games." I understand; believe me I understand.

RS: It's funny because I think UConn scheduled okay, but Georgia Tech's schedule is very soft. Besides pre-season and NIT and they still got to the national title game. So I mean, who knows what happens with a team, schedule-wise?

DP: Two years ago I looked at the teams in the country and I'm looking at schedules. This is when I was putting together the schedule from last year. And I took it to our Athletic Director, Mr. Goin and I said to him, "Listen; I want to show you something." And I went down a team with a non-conference schedule. I can't remember the exact team. I said, "Look these teams are terrible." I said, "but they ended up 3rd or 4th in the country in terms of strength of schedule." And what they did in the tournament...it was basically Pittsburgh last year. It was Pittsburgh's schedule last year. Their schedule, because of their league, was good enough to get them in the tournament. They ended up winning games, got some confidence. They started winning. And you can say whatever you want, but when you're losing and you're trying to build, at first, they just want to win some ball games. Then as you start to win, you're going to start to get people following, people excited. You'll start putting fannies in the seats. Now you can hope you'll get better kids, you can maybe upgrade your schedule a bit, but you better be careful.

BK: I have all this basketball brain power here. I want to have you each tell me one funny basketball story.

DP: This is a true story and it's a pretty good story. And you guys will remember this game. We're playing DePaul - Kenyon Martin's senior year. Pete Mickeal's not been playing. He's basically been suspended for the game. Prior to that, Huggs calls the kids into the locker room. Pete's not there and Huggs says, "Fellows, this usually would be an easy decision, but you guys know, there's a lot on the line. There's a number 1 seed, the number 1 rating in the U.S. and I'm going to leave it up to you guys whether we dress Pete or not. Or whether we play him or not." A couple of guys said we should play him - and one of them was Kenny Satterfield. And a couple of guys said no, we shouldn't play him. Kenyon Martin says, "We should not play him; that's the rule around here and that's the rule since I've come here. So everybody needs to step it up." Kenyon said that. So the discussion's going on a bit more. Finally Satterfield says, "Well, yeah, Kenyon." He goes, "Listen, you know this guy was suspended and didn't play this year." And this guy, Satterfield, looks at him and says, "Yeah, Kenyon, but look, those are our only two big guys. Pete's our only three-man." He goes, "We've got to win this game." Well, I'm sitting there thinking, that kid's pretty smart. So a long story short, we decided not to play Pete. So we're warming up before the game.. Huggs is still in the locker room. We come back in from warming up and Huggs says to me, "How do we look?" and I say, "For the first time all year, I think we're nervous." And he looked at me and says, "Hey, listen, anytime you get scared or you get nervous in that game, you look down at the other end of the bench and see who's coaching that team." And he goes, "You'll feel better." Well, we get in the game and we're getting beat. We're getting drilled; we're behind fifteen most of the game. So with about seven minutes or so, Huggs calls a time out. They all come over looking for words of wisdom? He looks at all those guys and he says, "I'm going to tell you one thing right now. If one of you guys shoots the ball before Kenyon touches it, you're out of the game. Kenyon touches the ball every time down the floor. You guys understand because I'm telling you, I'm taking you out if you shoot it." Well, if you remember, Kenyon put on an unbelievable performance. We get down to the very end of the game and we are down one. So we come into the huddle and I think the feeling was they were going to throw it to Richardson on the block. Either he's gonna score or he's gonna force a foul and make the free throw. Well, what do they do? They have a screen across to bring the ball and then they double screen for him going out for a three, you know, to shoot a three. Well, Jermaine Tate, who was really smart, steals the inbound pass, Tate gets the ball and as soon as he got it he threw it to DerMarr Johnson. I mean as soon as he got it. He was like "get it out of my hands" so he threw it to DerMarr. DerMarr goes dribbling down the floor and, if you guys remember, time is running out. DerMarr picks up his dribble and everyone's yelling, "Shoot! Shoot!" because we know the time's running out. So finally, he jumps up, shoots the ball, it goes in and we win the game. So afterwards I said to DerMarr, "DerMarr, what were you thinking about?" And DerMarr looked and he says, " I was thinking about throwing it to Kenyon." (all laugh)

LM: Spring break 1987. We're going to Panama City where we had gone every year at Butler University and we got three of us - me, my roommate, and Chad Tucker, who turns out to be Butler's all-time leading scorer. We loaded up the van with fifteen cases of beer. We were set to go. We get down there. A couple of days in, we're out of beer and out of money. So we turned to the best resource we had - and that was Chad's basketball playing abilities. We started hitting the local playgrounds for pick-up games. Play a game to ten - a case of beer, two cases of beer, three cases, whatever it is. Nobody realizing we had the ultimate ringer in Chad Tucker. He was the 6"8" scoring forward for Butler. He averaged over 20 points per game. By the time we were done in a couple of days we'd made back the beer to a tune of ten cases to go home with. Which is probably a NCAA violation of some sort, but it didn't seem to matter or faze us at the time because we won the beer back from school and just about everybody in Panama City.

RS: I am going to have to owe you one. At this late hour I can't dig one up.

BK: Ok, Richard will just owe us one. Gentleman, that's a wrap.

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