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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 9, 2017

Kansas City, Missouri

TCU - 85, Kansas - 82

THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by TCU, Coach Jamie Dixon and his three student-athletes, Desmond Bane, Brandon Parrish, Kenrich Williams. Coach, we'll call on you first for an opening statement.

JAMIE DIXON: Thank you very much. Great win for our program, our school, our university and a great win for these guys. Talking about battling and going through a tough stretch, a losing streak, but never stopped believing and kept going, and as I said I thought we were a better team as that stretch went by where we got losses. So all we did today was make free throws down the stretch, and that's what we hadn't done and I think that's growth and I think that's maturity and I'm looking forward to getting ready for tomorrow, and I know these guys are as well.

Proud of 'em because it took everybody. It took the whole team and that's what we didn't use last night and that's what we'll use tomorrow.

Q. Desmond, could you just take me through drawing the shooting foul from Svi and making the three foul shots and what's obviously a hostile building for you today?
DESMOND BANE: For sure. We ran a high-ball screen for one of our better penetrators, Alex Robinson, and I know he likes to throw that drift pass to the corner and I was spotting up, hands-free, ready, and he found me and I shot and luckily I got fouled, stepped to the line, all my teammates came up to me, tried to calm me down, make sure everything was cool and I stepped up to the line and knocked 'em down.

Q. How different was this KU team without Josh Jackson?
BRANDON PARRISH: I mean, they're a good team without missing any single player. They're a team that wins based off their team effort each and every night. Without him it took away one of their dynamic scorers and dynamic rebounders. So we figured if we could defend and be solid on the defensive end and try to make somebody else beat us tonight and it ended up working out for us.

Q. Brandon, of all the guys up there you've been there the longest for this turn-around. I'd like everybody to talk about what this means, but I kinda think maybe it means a little more to you than anybody else up there.
BRANDON PARRISH: Man, this is the win of my career, right here, to be completely honest! It was a lot of times where we would look at things in the media and people would tell us that we were never good enough, we would never be able to get it done. I used to read articles that said me and Karvair Shepherd weren't ever going to be good enough to win in the Big 12, and this is a huge win for us.

This is the high point of my whole career right here and I'm glad to have these guys, my brothers with me to live it up with me.

KENRICH WILLIAMS: Yeah, we've been here -- I've been here for three years, Brandon has been here for four. Our whole careers have been sort of the underdogs so just coming here and making a run is big for us. Of course we had a great year but the year's not over. Looking forward to the next game and moving forward.

Q. Brandon, when you talk about this series of match-ups, what did you guys take from the previous two games you had against KU and were able to work it in and play off of it today?
BRANDON PARRISH: Well, in our previous two we played a good first half in each game and we figured if we came out here this game and put two halves together we could actually get it done. We were down double digits in the first half and we showed so much resilience and responded. By the half we were up 1 and we figured if we came back with the energy that we played with the last 4 minutes of the first half we could make it happen. The sky is the limit for us, and like I said, it worked out for us.

Q. You knew the run was probably coming even though you had the double digit lead in the second half. How did you prepare for that? Especially in this building it's almost like Allen Fieldhouse East, and you knew the crowd was going to get into it as well.
KENRICH WILLIAMS: Of course Kansas is a great team so their fans travel, but Coach told us they're going to make a run, and they came and we responded well to it, and it worked out for us in the end. We really responded well.

BRANDON PARRISH: I mean, like I said, they're the No. 1 team in the nation for a reason. We've seen numerous times where they've been down, down big in the second half and they've come back and found a way to win. So we just wanted to be able to respond each and every time. We knew they were going to make a run, but at the end of the day when they're making runs you've got to continue to make plays. That's what we did, whether it was a three or a strong-finish layup or we got to the line. We just found ways to get it done.

DESMOND BANE: Building off what Brandon and Kenrich said, they're the No. 1 team in the country for a reason, but Coach has been preaching to us to stick together this whole time through this losing streak. That's what we did. They made a run and we stuck together and found a way to make plays down the stretch to get it done.

THE MODERATOR: Okay, guys. We will let you go back to the locker room. Congratulations on the victory. Good luck tomorrow.

Q. Jamie, people will see this result around the nation and say Josh Jackson wasn't there. How much does that diminish the effort today?
JAMIE DIXON: None. Again, everybody has guys that play and don't play, get in foul trouble. We had a number of guys if foul trouble. Every time we've played them we've been in foul ball trouble, amazingly. I think it's how we did it. We're a really good team and we somehow went down the stretch -- we lost games. Really the main difference today was we made free throws down the stretch that we hadn't made. I think if you look at our results and our numbers you can see that. I know in some of the rankings where they would take in the margin of victories, we are ranked pretty high. We're ranked as an NCAA Tournament team. We just lost some games and whether it was youth and we had obviously some strange plays at the end of games that everybody saw on national TV. So I think everybody knows we're a good team that lost some tight games, and, you know, we played 'em two other times and it was the same game, really. But we were ahead in the second half. We were ahead in the second half in both games. This time we talked about how they're going to preach about the rebounding, rebounding, rebounding because we outrebounded them by 8 in the first half, and I'm sure that's what they were talking about, talking about and talking about. Certainly we got it done. They made up some of the margin, but we came out ahead where we needed to be against this team.

Q. They're so dynamic with that four-guard lineup that they have. When you take Jackson out and Graham gets hurt for a period of the game, does that allow you to focus a little bit differently more energy on Mason? I know he still scored a lot, but how does that change things?
JAMIE DIXON: Vick made shots the first time we played 'em. Kenrich was in foul trouble. We had all our guys in foul trouble. We had a lot of guys sitting out. Our whole team was in foul trouble, so we had to play through that and it's part of the game. Every time we played them we're in foul trouble, so we're used to -- we were used from the last two games of having guys not being able to play. I think that prepared us, couldn't play Kenrich, Jaylen had to sit out a lot of the second half, had to pull out Alex because of foul trouble. Our guys have been in foul trouble and that's been the case every time we've played them. So it's gotten us ready to play without our guys.

Q. Jamie, how much did you get out of that technical in the first half?
JAMIE DIXON: Compared to what Bill's was, I mean, he got his money's worth. I didn't get mine, that's for sure. It's just part of the game. It's not an easy game to ref, two teams were playing hard, and, you know, it's just part of the game. But I have gotten more T's in this league than I think I got in my whole career.

Q. You guys made a nice run --
JAMIE DIXON: Right after, yeah, and so did they, too, and they made a huge run at our place when he got a technical, too, Bill. Again, I said I've gotten more T's in this league than in the ACC and the Big East combined.

Q. How did that final play unfold from the way you drew it up? What you wanted?
JAMIE DIXON: Yeah, we just ran the same thing as we did the play before. We didn't have a timeout really, so we used it on the first time, saved it for the second. So we ran the same action. They went and helped on Alex at that time and obviously that's a play we work on over and over again and Desmond got to the right spot. I was just hoping he was okay. He got knocked -- he got hit so hard I was wondering if he was going to be able to shoot the free throws. He's the guy we wanted shooting.

Q. I think it was Brandon who talked about Josh Jackson's rebounding presence. With him not in there, do you feel like your guys were more aggressive in terms of attacking the basket, because they knew he wasn't going to be there to crash the boards?
JAMIE DIXON: No, no, I don't think that was any factor at all.

Q. To come back and do this at your alma mater, personally, this win kind of take us through your feelings right now?
JAMIE DIXON: Yeah, I mean, at this point I think that's the first time since the game was over I remembered this was my alma mater. Just the whole ride has been unbelievable. It's been fun, fun for my family, fun to see friends, fun to see guys I've known for 35 years sitting behind our bench, and this is why I did it. I felt if anybody could turn this program around, why not me? We're not there yet. This is one win but we're obviously making progress. The interest is there. The fans are coming and we've gotten better.

This is what you have to establish, winning a game like this when you go through a tough road, tough losses, you're down, you have a lead, you give it away, they go up and then you find a way. So we're just trying to teach that fight, that scrappiness and that emotion.

I think that's really what I've tried to bring to it. You've got to teach fight and never give up and that's kinda, you know, what I've tried to do my whole career. But this place really needed it, I believed, and maybe there is more passion in it because this is my place. I don't know that, but I'm just lucky that Chris hired me and Chancellor Boschini hired me because it was always a dream. I never thought it might happen, and as things turned out all of the sudden it came to a couple of days all of the sudden it was there for me, an opportunity, and I thought for a second it was going to get away. I wouldn't be able to go. But my family is excited and this is just a start. I'm really looking forward to the road.

Q. You've talked about how everybody really contributed to this win, but in particular what you got off the bench from Desmond? What you got off the bench from Brandon? How essential was that, and were you planning to play them as much as you did? Or did they just earn more time as the game went along?
JAMIE DIXON: Foul trouble. I knew we were going to be in foul trouble. You're always in foul trouble against Kansas. You've got to be prepared to do that. Desmond's passing was really good. I worry about him at times with pressure, getting used to it. But he's gotten better over time. He's no longer a freshman, but we needed him because all of our guys were in foul trouble, Kenrich, Jaylen and we went four guards. We wanted to do that more with Kenrich at the 4, but we just haven't been able to do it but my thought was to play Mike. But obviously Desmond played better and earned the minutes. He needs to play more. It makes us better. This is a big -- you know, this is a big step. It's not exactly what he was going against in high school. It's just great to see. How about knocking down those three free throws in that situation. He got buried, obviously, I was wondering if he was going to be able to shoot 'em, like I said. Just big-time play. And Alex hitting the 2 before and as you know, Jimmy, the games we lost really came down to leads that we missed free throws and some strange games, all of the sudden we would be -- so beat the No. 1 team, look at our record overall add these two wins.

I felt this was an NCAA Tournament team that didn't get it done for a stretch there and maybe we had to grow into it and maybe we're growing now rather than two weeks ago.

THE MODERATOR: Coach Dixon, thanks very much, good luck tomorrow.

JAMIE DIXON: By the way this is a great place to have this. You guys do a great job. Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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