With his team heading to the Sweet 16, senior UConn guard Shabazz Napier took a shot at some Q&A with Post columnist Steve Serby.
Q: The Garden will be filled with UConn fans, you’ve got New Yorkers on your team, you’ll be New York’s team on Friday night against Iowa State.
A: Oh yeah, I mean, it’ll be cool. Definitely the more fans we have on our side, it’s much easier in the sense of the pressure’s relieved. You go into a game, and you have the support of people that you need, it’s gonna take a lot of pressure. It should be fun.
Q: Do you think that will be an advantage for you guys?
A: There’s just 16 teams left. Of course you want to get an advantage, but all 16 teams have been through a lot, and at this stage, I doubt anybody’s gonna be scared because we have more fans, you know (chuckle)?
Q: Why is your team a dangerous team right now?
A: Because everybody on our team is able to contribute, in ways that people didn’t think they were able to.
Q: Iowa State knocked you out of the NCAA Tournament in the first round two years ago.
A: They kinda ran us out of the gym (77-64). They kinda put a hurtin’ on us. They’re still a great team. They’re here for a reason. They’re not no slouch. DeAndre Kane is the motor of that team. … Almost every night, it looks like he’s gonna get a triple-double.
Q: Is that a source of motivation for you?
A: No, I have a different team and they have a different team. I don’t think about the past, I just play what’s ahead of me. It’s 16 teams left, and no one’s a slouch.
Q: They love shooting 3s.
A: Villanova shot some 3s, Cincinnati shoots 3s, but at the end of the day, we gotta defend the 3 and rebound. The biggest problem for us is always rebounding, so that’s what we have to do.
Q: Describe the first time you played at the Garden.
A: I just remember when I walked in I just felt the tradition. When I watched it on TV, everything is so dark besides the court, everything’s so dim besides the court, and when I was actually there playing, I could only see the first 10 rows, if that, and then everything else in the background was so dark. It was kinda like a stage, and I thought that was really cool.
Q: What’s your favorite Garden memory?
A: Definitely the five games, five days [to win the 2011 Big East tournament]. Especially Kemba Walker playing tremendously well — the Pittsburgh game [a 76-74 quarterfinal win], that big moment when he knocked that down, definitely up there.
Q: Describe what it’s like playing on that court.
A: The court’s not different — the hoops are the same — it’s just the atmosphere that’s different.
Q: In what way?
A: It’s more electrifying. … You’re playing on one of the all-time best places to play basketball. It feels like what basketball was meant to be for — performance. It’s like a big performance. Playing on that court, it’s only right that you play as hard as you can, ’cause it’s in the sense of being disrespectful of not playing your hardest ’cause that’s the court that many people dream of playing on. You can date back to the guys who played on that court that I looked up to — Michael Jordan, [Julius] Erving and all them guys played on that court, Magic [Johnson] … a lot of those guys that you see on clips of all-time greats.
Q: What would it mean to cut down the nets at the Garden to advance to the Final Four?
A: It would mean a lot, because at the end of the day, the biggest goal for us is to cut down the nets in Dallas. It’s not gonna be easy. … We gotta go through a great Iowa State team, they’re playing so well right now. … I can’t stress it enough, it’s a mecca.
Q: Describe the moment standing on the ladder and it’s your turn to cut down the net after beating Butler at Reliant Stadium in Houston for the 2011 national title.
A: We cut down the nets in Maui, we cut down the nets [after] the five-games-five-days [in the Big East tournament], and we cut down the nets in Regionals, and then we cut down the nets again. So it kinda was repetitive (smile), I didn’t feel no big difference in ’em all. I just felt like, “Here we go again, cutting down another set of nets.”
Q: How about when you heard “One Shining Moment”?
A: That’s when I actually realized the beauty of it. Of course winning it and seeing all the confetti come down, it’s a beautiful feeling. It just shows you what you can get out of it if you just continue to work hard each and every day.
Q: Describe your on-court mentality.
A: It depends. I can be passive, I could be aggressive. It just kinda depends on what my team needs at that moment. Sometimes it’s hard for me to decide when to be aggressive, when to be passive, because I’m unselfish but my teammates want me to score, want me to do things. And I know if I’m not aggressive, at the same time I’m being unselfish ’cause it’s something my team needs. It just kinda depends on the moment.
Q: What’s the biggest thing you learned from being Kemba’s teammate?
A: All the intangibles, the things that made him who he was, being a leader, being strong-headed, understanding the game within itself. Little things that didn’t really show up on the stat sheet.
Q: Did he give you any piece of advice when he left for the NBA?
A: He didn’t leave no manual down [for] me to read, but each and every day, I learned something new from him. You just learn through watching.
Q: Sum up what made Kemba, Kemba?
A: The player he was the person he was outside. He enjoyed life and he enjoyed playing basketball. When you’re enjoying playing basketball, good things come to you.
Q: The difference between the way Coach Kevin Ollie motivates and Coach Jim Calhoun motivated?
A: I don’t think there’s too much of a difference. Coach Calhoun was much more stern, and everyone knew it. Coach Ollie is not so stern. … He wants the job done the right way, just like Coach Calhoun did. But he’ll give you a couple of mistakes unlike Coach Calhoun. Coach Ollie is more understanding of those situations. Coach Calhoun was the type of guy that would dig down deep in you and try to make you … not crush you, but he would see how strong you are, till you just had enough. A lot of guys didn’t understand it. I always had a great relationship with Coach [Calhoun], he would always try to push me and by doing that it was just digging deep and seeing where my pride was at, and then I would just play as strong as I possibly can. If you’re playing with effort, you’re gonna make mistakes, they’re not gonna fault you for making mistakes. They’re gonna deal with that, ’cause at the end of the day, if you play with effort, you’ll bring a lot to the table.
Q: Describe being recruited by Coach Calhoun.
A: He actually came to one of my games. … Me and my teammates all saw him, and I was in the layup line, and I shot a 3, and I airballed it. And I’m like, “Oops, there goes my chances.”
Q: What’s the key to leadership?
A: I don’t know more than people think I do. I’m a leader ’cause my teammates believe in me, and you need people to believe in you to be a leader.
Q: What’s your favorite tattoo?
A: It’s a Serenity quote (left arm). Growing up, my mother [Carmen Velasquez] used to say this all the time: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can change and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Q: What drives you?
A: My mom, without a question. She’s the person that gets me up in the morning. Growing up, seeing everybody else’s family, and I didn’t have a father, and I saw how happy everybody else’s family was, and they had more than I had, and my mother always made it seem like we had a lot. But I knew deep down inside, we didn’t have a lot. It just pushed me to want to be the best I can possibly be in whatever I do. She made me play basketball at a very young age, at 5 ¹/₂ , and it just stayed with me.
Q: Do you have a relationship with your father now?
A: No.
Q: Does it bother you?
A: It bothered me, but I’m old enough now, and my mother’s always been my father. I feel like she played that role tremendously well, and she continues to do so.
Q: How was she able to raise three children?
A: She had a job, but sometimes she didn’t. We were on welfare, we had food stamps, just stuff like that. Anything that she was able to do for us, she did. Anything I was able to do to get my family a plate of food or something, I was gonna do it.
Q: Life wasn’t easy growing up, in other words.
A: Yeah. Just like any other family that lives in the urban area [Mission Hill in Roxbury, Mass.]. We’re not given anything. Sometimes you gotta take it. That’s how it was.
Q: Describe Mission Hill.
A: Not full of bad things, not full of good things. It’s no different from any other guy that lived in the inner city that was known for drugs and violence. It occurred almost every single day.
Q: Do you become almost numb to it?
A: Sadly, yeah you do. But at the end of the day, I had the outlet of playing basketball. I had something that got my mind off of it. I had something that moved me away from it. On the court I felt safe. That was kinda my safe haven.
Q: Who were players you grew up watching?
A: Chauncey Billups, I thought he was one of the best point guards coming up in my time … Jason Kidd … [Rajon] Rondo, Chris Paul, Tony Parker. And Allen Iverson — that was one of the biggest guys that made my idea of playing in the NBA. Everyone thought he was so little, but he played with so much heart. Any guy that’s under 6-1 is gonna tell you that he was their inspiration. I thought I was like the next A.I. (chuckle), growing up, that’s what it’s all about.
Q: Three dinner guests?
A: Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Malcolm X — his last name is Shabazz. … It’s kinda funny, ’cause they kinda had different points of view in the sense Martin Luther and Ghandi were kinda quite similar in non-violent [way], and Malcolm X was kind of a violent man because he felt like that was the way to go out.
Q: Favorite meal?
A: Grilled chicken caesar wrap.
Q: You’ll be getting a Sociology degree.
A: I want to go into coaching, and I want to understand why people do certain thing,s and sociology’s kinda the study of behavior. I want to understand what makes men and women accept certain things in life.
Q: What will graduation day mean to you?
A: Going across the stage and accepting your degree, you work so hard for it. It means a lot to my mother. Anything that means something to her means a lot to me.
Q: What do you want your legacy at UConn to be?
A: I just want people to know that no matter what happened, I gave ’em my best. I don’t want to be known for stats. I want to be known for a great person, someone who believed in this university, someone who was loyal, someone who just gave ’em my all.