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Not that Gordon Hayward needed any reminder, but Butler coach Brad Stevens delivered one Saturday in a text message to his former star. There would always be something special about the next stop on Hayward's NBA workout tour.
"Take in that air," Stevens wrote. "It's good memories there."
Barely two months after Butler left EnergySolutions Arena having upset Syracuse and Kansas State to win the West Regional and complete a Cinderella run to the Final Four, Hayward returned to Utah on Sunday to work out for the Jazz.
"I love that gym," said Hayward, who keeps a strand of the nets that Butler cut down from what could be his future NBA home in a desk drawer back at his family's home in Brownsburg, Ind., outside of Indianapolis.
Had Butler not reached the NCAA championship game, where it suffered a heartbreaking 61-59 loss to Duke, Hayward surely wouldn't have found himself back in Utah so soon, having declared for the draft after his sophomore season.
Between his play last summer on the U.S.'s gold-medal winning team at the under-19 world championships in New Zealand and the exposure he received during Butler's run this season, Hayward found his draft stock soaring.
He worked out Sunday along with Wake Forest's Al-Farouq Aminu, Kansas' Xavier Henry, Nevada's Luke Babbitt and Texas' Damion James — all expected to be first-round draft picks, if not lottery picks — for a Jazz team that owns the No. 9 pick.
After Butler's inspirational run, Hayward said he was prepared for the realities of NBA life. He's already worked out for three teams in Toronto, the L.A. Clippers and Golden State that finished a combined 56 games below .500 last season.
"It's tough just because Butler's such a great place," Hayward said. "They've got great people there and they do things the right way, so you're leaving not only your teammates and your coaches but some of your best friends.
"And then growing up there, I'm home pretty much. So that's the only tough thing for me. But when you've got to look at playing basketball for a job and competing against the best day in and day out, it's pretty cool, it's pretty fun."
Hayward projects to play shooting guard or small forward in the NBA — "I've always grown up playing on the wing and so being on the perimeter is what I'm most comfortable doing," he said — but he measures 6-foot-8 and 207 pounds.
For comparison sake, Deron Williams is listed at 207 pounds as a point guard. Jazz general manager Kevin O'Connor said Hayward would have to get bigger and stronger but noted that Andrei Kirilenko came to the Jazz weighing 215 pounds.
Hayward is regarded as a shooter, even though he shot just 29.4 percent from three-point range last season, grew up playing point guard and said his lateral quickness might come as a surprise given his background as a former tennis player.
He worked out Saturday for Golden State before visiting Utah and next will head to Miami, which holds the No. 18 pick.
"On one hand, it's crazy and hectic and you're going from one place to another," Hayward said, "but then on the other, you're only going to do this once, so you might as well enjoy it."
As for Butler's run, Hayward said the most lasting memory was losing in the championship game, with the Bulldogs' 25-game winning streak coming to an end.
Hayward had two shots in the final seconds to beat Duke, a baseline fadeaway that he thought was going in "for sure," as well as a half-court heave at the buzzer that nearly banked in. Both missed, though, and Butler's storybook ending was dashed.
"The half-court shot, from my angle, it looked like I threw it way too hard," Hayward said. "I wasn't trying to bank it, so it banked and kind of hit the rim and was closer than I thought."
Should Carlos Boozer return to the Jazz as a free agent, Hayward added he would have no problem sharing a locker room with a Duke product. "I've let that get past me," he said.