TUCSON, Ariz. - Confronted with the notion that he's mellowed in recent years, Bob Knight stopped and as always considered the source.

This time, it wasn't a pesky reporter, but his son Pat, an assistant to his father at Texas Tech who suggested as much Wednesday.

"Pat said that?" Knight asked. "Well, you know, that's nice. That's the first time I've heard him say that."

The notoriously combustible coach fell silent for several seconds.

"I've probably always been a lot more mellow than some of you people have thought," he said, staring down from a platform that put Knight high above the assembled media.

And then came the zinger.

"I've always been fascinated with the use of descriptive phraseology about people whom the phraser knows absolutely nothing," he said, creating a word that doesn't exist.

Mostly though, the 64-year-old Knight came across as more mellow than feisty on the eve of his 27th NCAA tournament.

The Hall of Fame coach hasn't stuck around long enough recently to create a fuss. He has just three wins in his last eight tournaments, having failed to reach the second weekend since 1994.

Which likely doesn't sit well with a coach whose players describe him as ultra competitive.

"They mistake his ambition to win for he yells too much, but it's passion. People don't understand that," said guard Ronald Ross, Tech's leading scorer. "If you're around him every day, you'll just know that he's so passionate for coaching. He really cares about his players."

Asked if mellow is a word he would associate with Knight, Ross smiled and said, "Not when it comes to basketball. When he's just hanging out, he's a pretty mellow guy, but then again, coach ain't the most mellow person in the world."

Knight, who needs 28 wins to surpass Dean Smith's total of 879 Division I career victories, leads sixth-seeded Texas Tech against 11th-seeded UCLA in the first round of the Albuquerque Region on Thursday night.

The Red Raiders (20-10) are making their third NCAA appearance in Knight's four years in Lubbock. UCLA (18-10) is seeded its lowest in a tournament the school has won a record 11 times.

Gonzaga (25-4), the third seed in the same region, meets 14th-seeded Winthrop (27-5) in the night's earlier game. The teams bring the longest current winning streaks into the tournament. Winthrop has won 18 straight; Gonzaga 12.

The day games feature teams from the Austin Region. No. 3 seed Oklahoma (24-7), the Big 12 regular-season champion, plays 14th-seeded Niagara (20-9), making its first NCAA tournament appearance in 35 years.

In the second game, sixth-seeded Utah (27-5) takes on 11th-seeded UTEP (27-7) at Arizona's McKale Center.