“The week before I went to school, it was nothing. After the championship on Monday, going to class on Wednesday, I couldn’t make it a block without people getting out of their cars, asking for autographs, stopping to take pictures. Literally, I couldn’t make it to class. I went back to my dorm, called Coach (Matta) and I’m like, ‘I literally can’t make it to class. I’m overwhelmed.’ That’s when I knew it was about to happen.
“(But) I wanted to stay. We were that close. You think about all the times (Conley and I) won in high school, in AAU, in eighth grade. You think about our high school years, we barely lost 10 games. We probably lost three in AAU. It’s less than 15 games from sixth grade, seventh grade, up to college. I wanted to win. But I went and talked about that to Coach, and he was like, ‘Ha. Get the f— out of here.’ It was like a soft laugh. ‘He was like, ‘You can’t do that, brother. I can’t do that to your family. I can’t do that to you.’ When you’re put in this position, you have to take advantage of that. I am thankful for the people around me. My life changed after that.”
