Quotes from Steve Alford

I've been in basketball a long time, and nobody is more of a competitor than I am.

You control what you do offensively, defensively. You're controlling who you play, how you want to play.

Jabari Parker is one of the best, if not the best, I've seen on tape. He's so hard to guard. You've got to guard from 23 feet. He can shoot it, or he can go one-on-one from there. He can post. He's so fast and long.

Fans will come if you have a good product.

It's all about persevering. You know you're going to be tested. If you keep your eyes fixed on Christ, He's going to reward you.

We try to stress the little things because little things lead to big things.

If you keep your eyes fixed on Christ, He's going to reward you.

Sometimes it's forgotten that players are coming to college to get a degree.

A freshman has only about 25% of his degree completed. They go off to play professional basketball, and to assume they will come back and get the degree done five, six, seven years later, I don't see that happening.

My children see me being coach enough. I gotta make sure they see me being dad.

I just go back to my roots. I was literally born 26 miles from Martinsville High School where Coach Wooden grew up, and then my dad coached there for four years.

There are certain people in our business that you don't replace - Bob Knight, Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzyewski, and you don't replace John Wooden, either.

It's been an unbelievable thing for me to walk Bruin Walk and walk past Coach Wooden's statue, a guy that when I was in elementary school, it's Coach Wooden winning his final championship, his 10th in 12 years.

I never in my wildest dreams thought I would get even one play at Indiana, let alone 25 years later, walk Bruin Walk, walk UCLA where Coach Wooden built his legacy.

I don't know anything about the hotel business.

The majority of the Big Ten towns are college towns. The colleges are kind of what run the towns.

I feel blessed that I had an opportunity to be in the Big Ten for four years as a player and be in the Big Ten as a coach for eight years. To get 12 years in a conference like the Big Ten - it's a first-class league with great towns and great fans.

I got to work for some great administrators at great institutions, and I had an opportunity to coach great players. Iowa is no different.

I've said all along it's a humbling experience being at UCLA. Extremely proud, extremely blessed to be at an institution with all this tradition.

That first group of Manchester players allowed me to enjoy coaching at a very young age that motivated me to do it. If it wasn't good, I might have made a career change.

I never dreamed I would coach at UCLA. It was not one of those things in my coaching career I thought would happen. It's a tremendous blessing, and I'm going to make the most of it.

There are very few LeBron James and Kobe Bryants.

When I was a freshman and sophomore, I got booed every time I was put in the game. Then, in my junior and senior years, my dad got booed every time he took me out.

The two places that I had most imprinted in my mind and in my memory were UCLA and Indiana. To play at one and coach at the other is unbelievable.