Deniz Kilicli is a man of many talents. Jump shots with his right hand. Hook shots with his left. If he could only find the time to add six or so hours to the day.

“If I had the time, I’d like to be in a band,” the Turk said. “I like to play music. But being a musician and being an athlete takes a lot of time.”

Don’t get it twisted. He still plays his guitar. He still messes around with a band. He’s just not in a band. He will, on occasion, play with guys who are in a band.

“I had a couple interviews with newspaper guys in West Virginia and they said I played guitar,” Kilicli said Thursday. “A bunch of guys in my dorm said, ‘Oh, you play guitar? Come on. We play guitar.'”

Kilicli has an electric — “I don’t have an amp. You can’t have an amp in the dorm.” — and rather likes throwback tunes.

Guns N’ Roses. Led Zeppelin. Def Leppard. Black Sabbath. Almost anything from the 80s.

“He’s pretty good,” said teammate and roommate Dalton Pepper. “He likes classic rock, heavy metal, all that stuff. And around the dorm, it’s like he’s famous.”

Pep doesn’t much mind Kilicli’s hobby, but admits “it isn’t very good when it’s 2:30 in the morning and I’m trying to sleep.”

Ah, but sometimes sleep and Kilicli’s guitar are inseparable.

“Sometimes,” Kilicli said, “before he goes to sleep he says, ‘Dude, play me something. I want to go to sleep.'”

Pepper is, of course, taken aback by this allegation. He smiles and relents. It’s true. It’s cute.

“Sometimes he comes over to the bed and starts playing,” Pepper said. “Soft stuff. He’ll start singning and stuff and I go to sleep.”

For now, sleep can wait. Pepper, Kilicli, Danny Jennings and Casey Mitchell have never been to the NCAA Tournament while their teammates have been there once or twice before.  Of those four who don’t really know what it means, only Kilicli is a little unsure about what it’s supposed to mean.

Oh, he gobbled up the translated versions of Slam Magazine. He got a taste of what to expect during the Big East Tournament when he allowed himself to look into the stands.

“In Turkey I used to wake up at 4 in the morning to watch all-star games at Madison Square Garden,” he said. “Then it hit me. ‘Oh, man, I’m playing in Madison Square Garden.”

As nice as that was, as revealing as it proved to be, this, he knows, is going to be very different.

“I don’t know what it is,” he said. “Everything (else) is new to me and I’ve never been to this before. When we were watching the selection show I was sitting with Cam Thoroughman and Coach and I was like, ‘Man, what is this all about? Why are we second? Wasn’t someone else second? What’s a 15?’ I’m still learning about everything pretty much.”