I decided it’s in my interest to forgo my college eligibility and enter the NBA draft.

My whole life, I’ve had two dreams. The first was to hear my name called on graduation day. The second was to hear my name called for the NBA Draft.

I could have never imagined I’d be given the opportunity to play NBA basketball so early. But coach Davis and his staff have done a great job of helping me to get to this point so far, they have me ahead of schedule.

I realize in no way am I a finished basketball product. I know I must develop in order to meet the demands of NBA basketball.

But there’s no looking back now. Nothing in this life is guaranteed. All I can do is work as hard as possible and let God take care of the rest.

I want the university and IU basketball fans understands that I didn’t make this decision in haste.

I promised my parents that I would receive my degree.

It will be the happiest day of my life when I walk down the aisle and great my mother. She’s been my biggest supporter, my biggest fan through this all. She’s always been there for me.

My father, he’s been there for me, my grandmother, my little brother, all my friends, they’ve always supported me. But when it came down to it my mother supported me the most.

And I’m sure even in my absence she’ll continue to be the biggest IU fan in the world.

I want to reiterate that I declare my intentions to get my degree sooner or later. I always want to be a positive influence to my brother, Justin. Always show him how important school is, and how important it is to work hard in school and do well and have good grades.

I want to be able to look back at him and show him I did get my college degree.

My academic advisor, Amelia Noel, has done a great job in my two years here helping me with my academics to this point. And we’ve talked and we have a plan for me to get my degree sooner or later, and we’re working hard to put me in a position to be able to achieve that goal.

Before I take any questions, I want to thank several people. First of all, I want to thank God and my family. All my cousins, my uncles, my family up here, they’ve all supported me through this and have done a great job of being with me and guiding me.

I want to thank all my coaches – Greg Elkins, Jack Cody, Rich Hankins, (inaudible) and Coach Pryor. They’re my AAU coaches, they’ve done a great job, and made me a great player, and my important a better person.

My high school coach, Tom McKinney, I met with him earlier today, a talked with him, told him my decision, and he supported me.

Everything that I’ve done throughout my four years in high school and my two years here, he’s always supported me and had nothing but the best interest for me and my family, and I really appreciate that from him. In my opinion, I couldn’t have had a better high school coach.

I want to thank my girlfriend. These last two years, she’s been with me and really kept me focused on basketball these last two years. Lastly, and most importantly, I want to thank my teammates from the last two years. When everyone else counted us out, when everybody else didn’t think we could do it, we always believed. We believed in each other.

This last year has been one of the best in my life. This team that I’ve been a part of, has overcome so much. And no matter what anybody says or does, they can’t take that away from us – what this team achieved.

I’ll always be an Indiana basketball fan, and help the university in anyway possible.

I think Jarrad Odle, Dane Fife and myself can leave Indiana with our heads high, knowing we helped restore Indiana’s basketball tradition to where it needs to be.

Coach Davis has always said that no one person is bigger than Indiana basketball, and that includes me.

I’m not leaving the program empty handed. IU has one of the best coaching staffs in the country, and with the players returning, and those coming in, IU will again compete for a national title.

I want to thank everyone from coming.

I will have an agent.

I will. You don’t really know until it comes to it, but you have a decision about whether you will play. But I will go to Chicago.

I did go fishing. I talked with my father. My dad is someone I can always count on. He’s always done so much for me as far as talking to me and being with me. This weekend, it was important for me to get a chance to talk with him, and now I have his full support. It was one of the most important things to me.

I talked to Kirk earlier this year, but I didn’t really talk to him about this because everyone’s situation is different.

I felt pretty strongly about it. Last year it came down to the wire. Last year was a lot closer, it really came down to the wire about as far as what I wanted to do.

But this year, I had full intentions if I was able to have a good year, and be able to put myself in a position where I felt I could go in the draft where I wanted to, I’d try to explore that option.

You can’t really know as far as where you want to go. All you can do is come out and work hard and get to the spot where you want to go.

I wasn’t trying to prove anything to anybody else. My dad made a very good point to me – the best way to prepare for something is on the job. And to prepare my body, myself for the NBA, the best way for me to do that is on the job.

Like I said, I know there are a lot of things I need to do to become a more complete basketball player and make an impact in the NBA. But I feel like I can do that while I’m playing in the NBA.

It’s about a dream. I’m not a hardship case or nothing like that. It’s a dream I’ve had – to play against the best basketball players in the world every game.

I’ve had a really good opportunity to kind of live this dream out. My family, they don’t really need money or anything like that (Jeffries father looks at him, and draws laughter). Well, my dad might feel a little different, but it’s not like that.

I really didn’t make a decision, but I felt pretty strongly, but I didn’t really think about it, or talk to anybody about that, because I didn’t want it to be a distraction to my team or myself. But I knew in the back of my mind, that when I got through the season, that I’d look at the option and it was probably what I wanted to do.

I think that plays into anybody’s decision. Even if I hadn’t gotten hurt this season, that’s something you have to look at as far as your basketball because there is that chance to get hurt.

People always say the NBA is going to be there. But college is always going to be there, also. So if you have the opportunity to live out your dream and really develop as a basketball player, you have to look at that option.

I think it did influence it a lot. My hopes and desires were to win a national title were there, but I look at Jason Williams, and he had the same desire to come back to school and win a national title, and they happened to get beat. He had a great year, but nothing in life is guaranteed.

Whenever you have the opportunity to come out and realize a dream that you want and achieve something, you have to look at that option and go for it the best you can.

It didn’t. I didn’t play as well as I would have liked, but I played as hard as I could. I don’t tknow if you can base your decision on one or two games. I would have loved to have come out and scored 20 points and win a national title, but it didn’t happen. So I can’t worry about that.

I’m probably going to sign in the next couple of days.

I talked to him after the game, and I told him how good a player he was, and that there was no doubt the best player in the country and don’t let anyone take that away from you. People are going to criticize, he can’t hit big free throws, people are going to criticize, just like I’ll get criticism for what I’m doing.

But when it comes down to it, you have to do what’s in your best interest and what you feel is going to help your family the most.

I really don’t know. You’re ging to have people tell you that you can’t go here, you can’t go there, but it’s a confidence issue. I feel confident that if I’m able to play in the workouts like I want to, I’ll go in a pretty high draft position.

They’ve given me numbers. I don’t care to go into that. But there are numbers I feel confident I can achieve if I come out and work hard in my workouts.

I don’t know if I can relaly tell you the position I expect to play right now. But I feel like, because of how I can play basketball, different positions, I know the game, I’ll be able to come in and kind of develop a position in the NBA that fits me best for the team I’m with.

The trend to go in without an agne,t I think, is for a lot of players who are questionable first round picks. A lot of players who know they’re going to be first round picks, who know they’re going to go close to the draft spot they would like, sign agents.

The trend is to delcare and come back, but that’s for guys who are testing the waters and seeing. I kind of did that last year, I tested, asked questions, and I didn’t declare or anything.

This year, I decided out of the gates, that if I did declare, that I would not come back.

No, I definitely wouldn’t be happy. But, with the work ethic I have and the work ethic Kirk has, I guarantee you Kirk’s a better basketball player now just from working against the best players in the world for a year than he was last year.

Kirk will play in the NBA for a long time.

He was able to develop in the NBA, and like I said, it’s kind of like on the job training.

It would be tough if I missed out on a season, but at a certain point you have to make a decision for yourself and your family, and you can’t really base a whole lo t-

I would love to be with this team for another two years. But I also feel like this is an opportunity for me to play in the NBA now, and I want to take advantage of that.

I think Duke does that. Duke does a very good job of that. I was talking to my father when we went fishing this weekend. Coach K said something to the effect of, is it a rebuilding year, do you rebuild every year. If you’re able to recruit and get the players, the top players, you don’t rebuild, you reload.

You have players who leave early, and you reload. The next year, you bring in players of that caliber out of high school, and reload every year and have a really good team.

We talked to Coach Davis Wednesday about it.

I think definitely for Jeff newton and George. It’s kind of the case I had last year, I had to step up for us to be a good basketball team everything fell on me.

For this university, and this team, I know Jeff and George will both step up next year and they’ll be a very good team.

If you put in an opportunity where you have to do something, most guys who are real good basketball players come up and do that, and both those guys are very good players, and they’ll do that.

Jeff really understood. I talked probably more to Jeff and Donald, they’re probably my best friends on the team, and I talked to those guys a lot. Jeff knew what I was thinking the whole year. He knows how close I came to going last year.

Certain guys on the team, like Coverdale, would talk to me about staying here or there, A.J. Moye would once in a while. Everybody else pretty much understood the situation I had and the opportunity I had to kind of live out my dream.

And they all have the same dream, so it’s tough for other guys – just like when Kirk went last year, as soon as you hear that you’re a first-round pick after the year you had, you’d be crazy not to go.

Not really. I think it’s feasible it could be in four or five summers. It would probably be around five summers. It’s ahrd to tell right now, until I know how busy my summers are going to be, the regimen, what all I have to do and stuff.

Just not having a lot of worries. Once you get out in the real world, the NBA is a business. College is still, basketball is a little bit of a business, but it’s still basketball. Once you get into the NBA, it’s a business. I think I’ll miss not having to worry about a lot of things.

I’m going to have responsibilities. Like my dad has to pay taxes, pay bills, all that kind of stuff falls on me now.

To be a 20-year old kid and have that, it’s scary once in a while. But like I’ve always said, I have the best family in the world, Ihave the best support in the world. To be able to, if I have a question, call me dad, call my mom, and know they’ll – my dad might take a while to get to where I’m at, because he has to drive.

So if I end up in California somewhere, it might take him 2-3 days to get there, but he’ll be there as fast as he can. And my mom will hop on a plane. My little brother, I’m going to have him come move with me (laughter).

Air travel will be like it was here, it will be easier, because we’ll be on charter planes. We won’t be on the planes where you have to sit like this for three hours. You’ll other guys your size who will be on charter planes.

I’m good now. The only time we were coming back from Penn State – we had to land in Indianapolis, and do all that, so long as it’s not like that, I’m good.

Yeah, I don’t know any teams yet, but I will have individual workouts for teams.

The toughest challenge is the mental part of the game. It’s nothing like – it’s a business. You have to prepare yourself mentally to know it is a business. To come out and be ready to do that and take care of the business aspect.

I have to develop as a player. There are areas of my game that I have to develop. My physical, to be a player in the NBA.

Last year, we asked him to stay, and he said he’d stay. We told him this year he’d be allowed to make the decision. And he’d have the full backing of his family.

I think it will probably be – I’ve had a week off now, I’ll probably take another week, to just kind of workout, and not play a lot of five-on-five. Then once I take that week, I think I’ll start working back.

That’s another reason why I had to make a decision if I did declare for the draft, I wouldn’t come back, because I don’t think it would be fair to the IU fans to have someone kind of declare and think he’s leaving and then come back. I wanted to be sure this was what I wanted to do.

I’ve said the whole time that IU has the best basketball fans in the world, and I’ve experienced that. And I hope they understand I’ve given all I’ve had for these two years at IU.

I’m very proud of him. He’s an amazing son, and I’ve always told him that.

He’s always been very precise in knowing what he wants to do and when he wants to do it. You know me, I love Indiana basketball, and yeah, I’d love to see him stay. But that’s my selfish reasons. But whatever he decides, he knows I’m behind him 100 percent.

Yeah, it’s kind of funny because just about everybody I know in the NBA was in my class, in the class of 2000. Eddie Griffin, Darius Miles, Zach Randolph, Alton Ford, all these guys I know and I’ve talked to, and they were all in my class.

But I also know a lot of guys who have come out early like Kevin Garnett, these guys came out of high school, Al Harrington, Tyrone Lue, all these guys came out early and I talked to all of them about the experience about being a young player and making the transition from kind of being a kid to a grown man.

They just told me you have to come in and get prepared, and work as hard as you can to be preapred for that run through that part of basketball.

Yeah, I was getting asked all the time about what I was going to do, by everybody.

I didn’t want to really make it known, especially because they were asking me that before the tournament. And I didn’t want to have that on people. They were asking me before the first round of the tournament what I was going to do. And the more we kept winning the more the questions kept coming, and it wasn’t even an issue at the time.

I didn’t want my teamamtes to worry about it, my coach to worry about it or myself. It wasn’t something we needed to be concerned with.

The run we had, the experience I had with this team and this year, was unbelievable. To be able to do that –

In my two years at the university I was able to win a Big Ten championship, we fnished runner-up in the NCAA tournament, and I accomplished a lot of things as far as individual goals I wanted to. So it’s been a great year for me.

Coach Davis was very supportive. I think me and him have talked throughout the whole year, so I think he had a pretty good idea.

He was very supportive. He told me if I need anything – I’m going to talk to him all the time. We’re very good friends.

You never know. Maybe he will coach me again some day. I would love to have him as a coach.

Not really. If you want me to be honest, after I stayed last year, I told myself the whole summer and the whole year I was going to prepare myself and play to where I could, that was my goal. That was my driving force – to help this team be the best team it could be, and at the same time, make it so I could be an NBA player.