It's all fun and games for Stauskas

— -- ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- There's not a lot you can do to faze Nik Stauskas on the basketball court.

Face-guard the Michigan sophomore guard, limit his touches and make one of the nation's best players look average (which Duke did) and he'll high-five your fans.

Have him play in the national title game, an exhibition against Concordia College or in Saturday's matchup with No. 1 Arizona and he's excited for those 40 minutes all the same.

None of that gets to him.

Because to Stauskas, "it's just hoops."

It's a pretty remarkable sentiment for someone at his level who has dedicated his life to this.

Yes, he was the kid who had just three hours of sunlight after school in Canada and spent two of them shoveling the snow in his driveway so he could use the last hour to get some shots up. Yes, basketball took him away from his family to two prep schools on the U.S. East Coast at 15 years old. And yes, basketball could be how he eventually makes his living. Or not.

"It's not who I am, it's what I do," Stauskas said. "And when you look at it like that, when you realize your life will be good with or without it, then it just becomes something you like to do."

"It is what he loves to do, don't get me wrong," his mother, Ruta, added. "When he's saying it's just hoops it's not that he doesn't care about it. He cares about it so much, but he realizes that it's not life. Hoops is what he loves to do and wants to do.

"But it is just hoops."