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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 10, 2017

Kansas City, Missouri

Iowa State - 84, TCU - 63

THE MODERATOR: We're ready to begin with the TCU Horned Frogs, Coach Jamie Dixon. Our two student-athletes are Brandon Parrish and Kenrich Williams. Coach, your thoughts on tonight's game?

JAMIE DIXON: First off, congratulations to Iowa State, obviously they outplayed us, deserved to win. I'm proud of our guys. They played well; we didn't. We looked fatigued, to be honest with you, and I wasn't sure that would be the case. But just how we played and we just didn't seem to respond like I thought we would. Proud of our guys. It's a good run for us and certainly something that we wanted to instill in our program going forward here.

Proud of our seniors. We know that we're going to be playing again and we got to take this as a lesson. I think when our shots didn't go down it affected our defense as most teams and got them outrunning and in transition and the layups, the shots around the basket, the open threes really wore on us, the ones that we missed and I think it really hurt us at the other end and wore us down.

Give them credit. They're playing at a high level, and, you know, they earned it and they deserved it. I wish them luck. I just saw Coach as we were walking through there and I wished them luck going forward.

Q. Brandon, you guys came up here, obviously to try to make a statement, validate yourselves to some degree for postseason. It fell a little bit short tonight from an NCAA standpoint, but what do you guys think you showed here in Kansas City over these three games?
BRANDON PARRISH: I mean, I feel like we just came out and we gave it our all, all three of these games. The last game didn't go our way. We missed a lot of layups, were short on 50 to 60% of our misses. So fatigue played a factor, but we showed our fan base that we are a resilient group of guys who aren't afraid of any team and if we put our minds to it we can achieve anything.

KENRICH WILLIAMS: Similar to what Brandon said. I feel like we showed everybody we can compete with the best teams. We've got a great group of guys, and we're not a team that -- you can't count us out.

Q. Expanding on what Jimmy said, obviously you're going to have more games to come this season, but as the season stands right now, just talk about the steps that you have taken as a program. Where do you think TCU is right now?
BRANDON PARRISH: From my freshman year, us going 0-18 in conference to now, we are eligible for a postseason, a quality postseason at that, just goes to show the -- how this program has evolved. Coach Dixon has brought a new type of energy to the program that we definitely needed and we definitely appreciate him for that, and we just feel like coming in things never were right. We've always been the underdog, but like Kenrich said, we showed that you can't count us out. We're going to come to compete no matter who we're playing against.

KENRICH WILLIAMS: Same thing. We're eligible for postseason. This hasn't been done, the NIT, since 2005. So that's great for our program. This season we just showed resilience and we showed a lot of fight this year.

Q. Coach Dixon touched on it, how much do you think fatigue played a factor today? Did you have dead legs out there today?
BRANDON PARRISH: Nobody wants to make excuses. We don't want to say fatigue was a factor, but when you go out there and missing layups, most of your jump shots are missing short, not running back on defense, not as active on loose balls as we were the two previous games. It was pretty evident, but regardless of fatigue we tried to fight in spite of the outcome, in spite of shots not going our way, I feel like we still gave it our all and just came up short.

KENRICH WILLIAMS: Fatigue can play a factor, but we don't want to make that excuse. I can see it affected most of our team coming in, missing bunnies, easy layups. I was kinda short on a couple shots. I wasn't as active. It's just part of it. Next year we won't have to play so many games. We'll come in a top seed, so we won't have to play four games in a row.

THE MODERATOR: Okay, gentlemen. We will let you go back to the locker room. Great week here in Kansas City. Good luck. Questions for Coach?

Q. Beginning of each half, Deonte Burton took over for Iowa State. What kind of a match-up problem did he give to your guys?
JAMIE DIXON: He hurt us, no question. He hurt us inside. We know he's a driver first, offensive rebounds. I thought they were so much more physical than us around the rim and it was him and Solomon as well. I didn't see that coming, but they just simply overpowered us. In more ways -- they pushed us around the entire game start to finish, so give them credit.

Vladimir, we wanted him to post up closer to the basket and he was continually pushed off the block. You gotta repost, get to the spot, you can't give in and so give them credit.

They certainly, along with Burton and Young, those two guys especially, they were the guys playing most of the game. They were in there 61 minutes between 'em. Simply put, that's where it was. So we didn't get it done, and you got a lot of layups around the basket and got to the foul line. We needed to get to the foul line more. We didn't get any free throws the first half. They did, and that was something we said we had to do. It obviously turned the other way.

Q. As you mentioned, obviously you got more games yet to play. What do you expect on Sunday? Are you anticipating NIT? What's your thoughts as to how you read the tea leaves today?
JAMIE DIXON: I haven't looked at it. I don't know who won games today or what. The only thing I've looked at is the KenPom thing and that had us at 36 or 35. Generally that puts you in the running, a Power Five is going to be in the running. I didn't see the RPI today, if not, we will be in the NIT and a high seed in the NIT and a home game and anticipate, you know, having -- this has been a long time coming and this is a big step for us as a program, huge step.

It's hard to make the NIT with the automatic bids and the automatic bids in the NCAA and the NIT it's hard to make the NIT. There is no losing records. There is no 500 teams. It's 350 teams. It's an accomplishment for our guys. I want to get that across to them. It's huge progress. It's a step. It's a huge step. It's more than one step.

From a year ago when I came here it's a definite step for us and we're going to use that as a positive going forward here. But I like how we fought. We got to learn to -- when they get physical we've got to come back the other way and we've got to do that. Maybe we didn't have the legs, but they had a lot to do with it. Somewhere.

Q. Jamie, you were talking about progress, just looking at this tournament here you played probably more games than most people expected you to play. You have a win over the No. 1 ranked team first time that's happened in school history. How do you evaluate that as part of that building process?
JAMIE DIXON: I think it is a process. You've got to go in and play back-to-back-to-back games, three in a row. You've got to get in that situation, and win, and win close games. You've got to come back like we did. I think -- I compare it to Pitt our second year. Second year we got to the championship game in the Big East Tournament, and that was kind of the -- really that run as we referred to it as the run where we won three games, lost in the championship game and got blown out to be honest, as I remember.

But it got us going into the NIT. We probably weren't an NIT team then. It was a different time. That was kind of a buy yourself in or who you knew thing, but this one is all about earning it nowadays and certainly it's a big step for us.

I think this is a huge thing for us going forward. To beat Kansas, in front of their people and then obviously we know coming here to this tournament playing up here we're going to be playing against home crowds and we certainly saw that the last two nights. That's something we've got to prepare for, get used to and use as motivation at the same time. It's a great event. I'm proud that we got to the semis, and I look forward to coming back again.

Q. Coach, if the NCAA is a guard-oriented tournament like a lot of people say, if Iowa State's three, sometimes four guards playing like they have in the past, what's that mean for Iowa State over the next two weeks plus possibly?
JAMIE DIXON: I think they're playing at a high level. We bet 'em early in the year. I think by 10 and they certainly weren't that good as they were tonight, but that's how this game goes.

You can't get more experienced. They play well together. They're well-coached. They keep it simple. They get the ball in MontÃ© Morris' hands and the other guys move well without the ball. They're good. I think Young may be the difference. His physicality, if he pushes other teams around like he pushed us around, I think he's a huge addition for them as the season progresses. I thought he was -- Deonte Burton got -- I thought Young was really the key tonight. I thought he man-handled our guys, and he's a freshman.

But he pushed us all over the floor and what he did to our guy, No. 10, Vladimir Brodziansky, he simply pushed him all over the place.

THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you very much and good luck next week.

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