Brad Stevens '99 Takes Time to Talk with WGRE as Buildup to Final Four Continues
March 31, 2010
March 31, 2010, Greencastle, Ind. — "As much as possible, Stevens is trying to keep a regular routine for his coaches and players, which is both well-intentioned and completely hopeless," reports today's Indianapolis Star on Brad Stevens, head men's basketball coach at Butler University. The column by Bob Kravitz notes that as he prepares for Saturday's Final Four game against Michigan State, Stevens -- a 1999 graduate of DePauw University -- is trying to retain a sense of normalcy for his team. "If you want to know about Stevens, consider, on Monday, he did the student radio station at his alma mater, DePauw," writes Kravitz.
Stevens' interview with WGRE will air tomorrow (Thursday) at 5 p.m. The station can be heard on 91.5 
FM or via this link.
Kravitz notes that Butler players will be attending classes Thursday and Friday. "I have no way of confirming this as fact, but I've got to believe Butler is the first team in the storied history of the Final Four whose players will be required to go to class the day before the national semifinal game," he notes.
Read more at IndyStar.com.
A Star story by Phillip B. Wilson describes how the 33-year-old Stevens engages in "trash talk" with his Butler players -- including Shelvin Mack and Matt Howard -- when he takes them on in a game of H-O-R-S-E. "Mack is unaware of Stevens' scoring exploits, which included an [Zionsville High School] Eagles' record 26.8-point average in 24 games as a senior in 1994-95. Stevens was also a standout Division III player at DePauw. Mack says he would love to see video evidence."
Stevens humorously insists he never boasts of his playing days. He tells the newspaper, "First of all, (Howard has) never heard anything from me about Zionsville or DePauw.
He'll only hear from me when we do our shooting games. And I've won a lot more than he has. He needs to back his words up a little bit."
That article can be accessed here.
National, regional and local media outlets continue to feature Stevens as Saturday's game approaches, including the New York Times and USA Today. Many of the pieces note that Stevens, who majored in economics at DePauw, took a marketing job at Eli Lilly & Co. after graduating only to be drawn into coaching, first as a volunteer assistant. He was named Butler's head coach on April 5, 2007.
Bill Fenlon, who coached Stevens and is DePauw's all-time winningest men's basketball coach, tells ESPN.com in a story posted today, "I think a lot of people thought about having him drug-tested when he decided to get into coaching." About a decade ago, Fenlon offered Stevens this advice: "If you do it and it doesn't work out, Eli Lilly isn't going anywhere. You're only 24 years old. You're still young. But when you're 34 years old and have a wife and children, a mortgage and car payments, you might be thinking, 'Wow, I 
wish I had tried that.' You don't want to look back and think, 'Boy, I wish I had tried it.'"
"As for Stevens, few can argue with the job he has done," opines the Times' Pete Thamel. "His record in three seasons is 88-14. He is cut from a new-age mold, building a program on four-year players, using statistical analysis and doing most of his recruiting in this basketball-rich state with a few tanks of unleaded."
"With his cerebral approach, Stevens, who studied in economics in college, showed his strength as a tactician in the West Region," adds today's Washington Post.
According to FOX Sports, "Stevens was the all-time leading scorer at Zionsville High in Indiana who spurned a D-I offer to play for Bill Fenlon at DePauw University. "Cerebral was how Fenlon and others close to Stevens have described him. Prepared. Methodical." Fenlon states, "He was pretty driven, a guy who took school and everything pretty seriously."
ESPN's Mark Schlabach notes, "Stevens will become the youngest man to coach in the Final Four since a 32-year-old Bob Knight guided Indiana to the national semifinals in 1973. And if Butler can win two more games, Stevens will become the youngest coach to guide his team to a national championship since 31-year-old Branch McCracken led Indiana to the 1940 NCAA title."
A January 2008 article described Brad Stevens as "the model of a student-athlete." In November 2009, Stevens told the Star that his DePauw experience taught him to "think creatively." Read more here or access an online profile of Brad Stevens.
Butler and DePauw opened the 2009-10 season with an exhibition game at Hinkle Fieldhouse on November 1, 2009. Video highlights can be seen here: 
[Download Video: "DePauw-Butler Highlights" - 9004kb] with details in this story.