Kentucky basketball notebook: Brown's NBA joke, rival players impressed with UK

By LARRY VAUGHT

LOUISVILLE — Veteran SMU coach Larry Brown knows what it takes to win a national championship and has been friends with Kentucky coach John Calipari since Calipari worked on his staff at Kansas.

Both teams are playing here in the NCAA Tournament — though not in the same bracket — and Brown insisted Wednesday he didn’t want to “put any pressure on John” going into the tourney as the No. 1 overall seed.

“I feel real close to him. I'm so proud of what he's done,” said Brown of UK’s 34-0 mark. “I think they'd honestly make the playoffs in the Eastern Conference if they were in the NBA.”

Brown was joking on the NBA angle — even thought Calipari did mention earlier that he expected the “Lakers” to be in UK’s NCAA bracket. However, he was not joking about what UK has accomplished.

“I follow basketball. I'm a junkie. The thing people forget, it's not easy to coach great players. It's probably harder to deal with parents that could have great players,” Brown said. “But I've been so impressed with the way they defend and the way they share the ball and the way they don't have an ego.”

He said Kentucky’s play reminded him of the way Jerry Tarkanian had great teams play at Nevada-Las Vegas.

“Tark was so underrated in my mind about what he did on the defensive end and how he got kids committed to do what they did best. For the sake of the team, and I think John's been able to do that,” Brown said. “But you have to be lucky. You don't win a championship unless special things happen.

“My first year at UCLA, we make the layup (by Tyus Edney to beat Missouri in the second round), we win the national championship. When I was at Kansas, if Archie Marshall doesn't go down with a knee injury, we might have won three. You've just got to be fortunate.

“But I think in order for somebody to beat Kentucky, Kentucky has to play as poorly as they can possibly play, and somebody else has to play great because they defend so well. They rebound the ball so well, and he's got them playing as a team. It's going to be a test for anybody.”

Cat talk: Iowa State did not play Kentucky during the regular season and could only meet UK in the Final Four. However, since the Cyclones are playing at Louisville’s Yum! Center like UK in the NCAA, Iowa State players were asked their thoughts on Kentucky possibly going undefeated.

“To go undefeated, it just shows you that they've got a great coaching staff, and they've got tremendous players down there. Right now they're 31-0 (actually 34-00), I think,” Iowa State’s Mone Morris said. “I just think they're a great team. They're trying to get that championship just like everybody else. It's going to be pretty tough.”

Teammates Georges Niang was even more impressed by Kentucky.

“I think it's really impressive, especially with the young group that they have, to stay focused with all the media attention they have and the fact that they're locked in every day coming to work and not having big egos. I think it's extremely impressive,” he said. “I feel like they're just like every other team. They're just looking to win the national championship, win as many championships as they can, and right now they're doing a pretty good job at that.”