SAN ANTONIO -- One second, someone asked the UCLA players about the Final Four theme song, "One Shining Moment." The next, star freshman center Kevin Love was singing at the podium.

"The ball is tipped ... "

"As you can see, I didn't get the singing gene from my Uncle Mike," Love said, grinning.

That would be Mike Love, lead singer of the Beach Boys.

That gets Love almost as much attention as his fabulous season, which earned him first-team All-America status, the Pac-10 Player of the Year award and comparisons to former UCLA great Bill Walton. He and his teammates will take on Memphis tonight in the first national semifinal game.

"It's not something we talk a lot about in the locker room," Love said of his Beach Boys connection. "I'm not even sure [teammate] Nikola Dragovic and the two guys on our team from Cameroon even know who the Beach Boys are.

"It wasn't that big of a deal when I was growing up in Oregon, either. It rains there like nine months out of the year.

"But once I got down to Southern California and started realizing what California girls are all about, I knew it was pretty neat."

Give Love credit for having fun with it. Asked last week when he last spoke to his uncle, he said, "Just the other day ... I needed some good vibrations."

Memphis coach John Calipari is a big fan of UCLA coach Ben Howland -- and not just because Howland has led UCLA to three consecutive Final Fours.

Calipari loves the way Howland coaches defense.

"The first thing he did was change the culture of how they're going to play," Calipari said yesterday. "Do you know how hard that is? Especially in this day and age when kids are hearing how good they are and that they do nothing wrong?

"All of a sudden, you're going to UCLA, one of the most-storied programs, and you're going to guard. If you don't guard, you're not playing. You're going to be physical. You're going to rebound, be tough. We're not going to play as fast you want to play. We're going to grind it out, set screens, win ...

"For him to do that in L.A., it just blows me away."

Calipari on the great tradition of the UCLA and Memphis programs: "Between the two of us, we've won 11 national titles."

Calipari didn't mention that UCLA won all 11.

North Carolina coach Roy Williams on how Kansas fans might forgive him if their Jayhawks beat North Carolina tonight: "Guys, I'd rather them not forgive me."

The best player in either game tonight might be Memphis freshman point guard Derrick Rose. Howland has compared him to NBA great Jason Kidd and predicted he would be no lower than the No. 2 pick in the NBA draft this summer. Many have speculated that Rose would have jumped right to the pros out of his Chicago high school if not for the 2005 NBA rule that forces players to be at least 19 and one year removed from their high school graduation to play in the league.

Said a humble Rose: "I am not ready for the NBA right now. I'm glad they made that rule. I need to improve on my ballhandling, my basketball I.Q., being a more vocal leader."

UCLA junior guard Darren Collison on the essence of the Final Four after his team came up just short of a championship the past two seasons: "This is a business trip. It's not about the Final Four. It's about the Final One. We want to be the final one."

Like father, like son

Keno Davis, who capped his first season as a head coach by leading Drake to its first NCAA appearance since 1971, was selected The Associated Press college basketball coach of the year yesterday.

Davis, 36, and his father, Tom Davis, whom he succeeded at Drake, are the first father and son to win the national coach of the year award. Tom Davis was at Iowa when he won it in 1987.