A Few Minutes With Brian Asbury

Dec. 28, 2005

Q: What part of Miami-Dade County did you grow up in?
A: I grew up in South Miami.

Q: What is it like to play not only in South Florida, but literally a few blocks from where you grew up?
A: It’s very exciting because your friends and family have the ability to come over and see you play.

Q: How many times a week do you go home?
A: Once a week to get a haircut.

Q: When did you notice you were on the brink of something special on the basketball court?
A: It started when I first got to high school, especially my 10th grade year. I started working out, and was working out constantly in the summertime. By the time I actually got to play, everything seemed to come easily.

Q: Why did you choose to come to Miami?
A: I chose to come here because of the great coaches that they have. Coach Haith came in and turned the team around, and Miami is part of the ACC, which is a great conference.

Q: What was it about coach Haith that made you want to come to Miami?
A: He makes you feel like you are part of his family, and that is what you become once you get here. He wants to get to know you and your background. He makes you feel comfortable and let’s you know what he’s expecting from you.

Q: Who else recruited you besides Miami?
A: Mostly Florida, Florida State and Clemson.

Q: What’s the toughest part of college been so far?
A: The hardest part of college has been balancing both school work and what you need to learn on the basketball court.

Q: If you’re not playing basketball in 10 years, what are you doing?
A: I want to be working with kids, teaching.

Q: What’s something unique that others will be surprised to learn?
A: That I’m very funny. Most people think I’m a quiet person until they get to know me.

Q: What do you do in your spare time to get away from school and basketball?
A: Sleep and play video games.

Q: What do you like to play?
A: NBA Live…Well now since I’m on NCAA March Madness I play that.

Q: What’s it like being in a video game?
A: It’s exciting because you can make yourself the star player on the team. Before you used to play with your favorite player but now you can chose yourself.

Q: Are you in the starting lineup when you play video games?
A: Oh yeah!

Q: Who’s getting some extra bench minutes because of that?
A: Rob Hite. But it’s nothing personal, we just play the same position.

Q: What’s in your CD player right now? Why?
A: Right now Young Jeezy. He’s new but he speaks about everything that I grew up around, so I can relate.

Q: Who’s the greatest entertainer of all time? Who would you pay to go see?
A: In a movie, I would pay to go see Martin Lawrence. Basketball court: Kobe Bryant. Football field: It’d probably be Reggie Bush.

Q: What’s the last book you read?
A: “The Man Without a Face” by Isabelle Holland

Q: You’re mayor of Miami-Dade County for a day, what are you doing?
A: I’m throwing a big block party for all of Miami-Dade County.

Q: How did you get the nickname “B-Smooth”?
A: One of my close friends from high school gave me that nickname. I used to be called “AB” but he got tired of that and said he was going to call me “B-Smooth” because of the way I play.

Q: Does coach Haith call you “B-Smooth”?
A: Oh no. He calls me Brian or B. Asbury.

Q: Between yourself, Jimmy Graham, Denis Clemente and Adrian Thomas, who’s the chief of the freshman tribe?
A: Probably Jimmy because he’s the biggest.

Q: Is there one moment when you realized you were competing on a totallydifferent level?
A: Oh yeah. It was when we went to go play Michigan. We practiced the night before in their arena and I thought, `this is a big gym.’ Then the next night we went out there to play and the same gym was now full of people. I never experience anything like that in high school.