This Time, Butler's The Favorite

Every morning, the fine folks at Sports Radio Interviews sift through the a.m. drive-time chatter to bring you the best interviews with coaches, players, and personalities across the sports landscape. Today: Brad Stevens on his gameplan for VCU.

Brad Stevens joined Dan Patrick to talk about how Butler is going to defend the three-point shot against VCU, if he gets scared watching VCU on film, whether their experience from last year's Final Four will benefit his team in any way, and Butler will beat VCU if…

How Butler is going to defend the three-point shot against VCU: "So, all you have to do is stop them from shooting threes? Easier said than done. I think one of the things you are talking about is you better guard them with a huge sense of urgency because they are rolling like maybe no other team I can remember in the NCAA Tournament, probably rolling as much as North Carolina was two years ago when they won it."

If he gets scared watching a team as good as VCU on film: "First and foremost you look at them with a lot of respect and a lot of passion for the game of basketball. I like seeing basketball played in a way in which teams move the basketball, they share it, they play together, they care about one thing, they try to make each other better, that is what you see with the VCU team, it is just a fun, fun group to watch. So first and foremost you respect it and you admire it. Yeah it certainly gets your attention with the way they are rolling, they are shooting 45% from three in the NCAA Tournament, a remarkable, remarkable statistic, and I think it is because they are not only great shooters but they have drawn such great energy from their play on both ends of the floor."

Whether their experience from last year's Final Four will benefit his team in any way: "Well I think where it helps is in your week of preparation, you know I have been able to close my door and watch film. I have been able to spend time with my family when I have a minute, you know, assistants same way. Our guys have been able to manage the media requests and everything else in such a way that they are still students first, and that is a hard thing to do. You have already missed a bunch of classes in a row in the last three weeks and the thing that kind of gets lost in the shuffle is how hard it is to catch up as a student-athlete when you miss this kind of class. So my biggest thing for this week was to have a sense of normalcy, but really, really get caught up in everything you are doing before we left for Houston and then hopefully we come prepared and play well."

Butler will beat VCU if… "We win possessions. I know it sounds simple but it is a major possession game. I think you talk about things like turnover margin, you talk about things like rebound margin, the team that maximizes each possession at this level and magnitude wins."

This post, written by Tim Gunter, appears courtesy of Sports Radio Interviews. For the complete highlights of the interview, as well as audio, click here.

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