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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: DETROITMarch 15, 2018Jamie DixonKenrich WilliamsAhmed HamdyVladimir BrodzianskyDetroit, Michigan THE MODERATOR: We're joined by TCU student-athletes Vlad Brodziansky, Kenrich Williams and Ahmed Hamdy. Q. Just what can you say about Jamie Dixon as a head coach and what he's done for this program and how he's helped you to this point and back in the tournament? KENRICH WILLIAMS: I think he's a great coach. What he brought for our program is a winning mentality coming from Pitt. He's been to the tournament many years. So he brought that back to TCU. And he was able to come in and teach us some things and really just guide us to get here at this point where we're at right now. Q. First impressions of Detroit, the weather, anything jump out at you? KENRICH WILLIAMS: It's cold. It's way different from Texas. AHMED HAMDY: It was snowing today. Q. It was snowing or snow on the ground? AHMED HAMDY: It was a little snow. VLADIMIR BRODZIANSKY: Cold, but, you know, like home. Q. Ahmed, you're the only Frog with NCAA experience. Have you talked to your teammates about that and what to expect and how to prepare at all? AHMED HAMDY: I talk to them all the time. I said it's the most fun part of the season. I told them, like, we need to make it to the NCAA Tournament, because they're a lot of fun. And we're going to enjoy it a lot. And that's what happened. We played hard and we competed and we came here. Q. Kenrich, what does Desmond Bane do for you all in how well he shoots from 3? What does that give you, besides the obvious? He's a weapon offensively. But as far as spreading the floor out. KENRICH WILLIAMS: Definitely spreads the floor. Desmond is a great player for our team. He brings the scoring in. He brings energy to the lineup. He's got better -- I can tell you he's gotten better from last year to this year, transitioning. I think he just feels more comfortable out there. And he's able to shoot it out there with confidence and just play his game. Q. Ahmed, have you detected Kouat becoming more and more at ease out on the floor? And do you see an improvement from him from early in the year? AHMED HAMDY: Yeah, for sure. I mean, he improved a lot since we started this season. Like, he became more, like, comfortable playing the game, playing his game, you know. He didn't put a lot of pressure on himself. Probably he did at the beginning of the season because he's a freshman. It's his first time playing. But once the season started going, he started playing, like, more comfortable, and we had more chemistry with the team and stuff. That's why he started making shots, and then start playing good. Q. Vlad, playing Syracuse coming into that play-in game, did you have a preference as to who you played? And now that you know it is Syracuse, does that mean a little something extra special with the tradition they have? VLADIMIR BRODZIANSKY: I really didn't have a preference. We were talking about it with a few teammates. We were just saying whoever comes we have to play. We really didn't want to choose who we wanted to play because it was out of our hands. Q. Did a group of you get together and watch the game? KENRICH WILLIAMS: We watched it in our rooms because it came on kind of late last night. So we watched it in our rooms. And Coach texted, saying we're going to be playing Syracuse. Q. Do you get the sense, have you talked to your teammates, did everybody watch it? Or did some people go see a movie or something? KENRICH WILLIAMS: No, we all stayed in the room last night and watched it. We're focused on Syracuse right now. We were focused on Syracuse whenever they won the game. That was our main goal. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Coach, we'll start with an opening statement. COACH DIXON: Great to see Jim here to support the Horned Frogs, to make the trip. But excited to be here for our guys. It's obviously a new experience for our program, and I'm very excited to get them here. Good practice today as far as light. But we'll get some shots up today and get ready for Syracuse. Quick turnaround as far as knowing who we're playing for us. So really unique and first time I've been through it. We're playing the winner of the play-in game. So certainly something that a little different. You get some time, but not time to focus on just one team. And then obviously for us it's an exciting time for TCU and getting to the tournament. And so exciting, I think our band's at the shoot-around and our cheerleaders are at shoot-around. I don't know if that's been done but first time I've seen it. Excited to be here and looking forward to playing a really good team. Q. Coach, obviously with TCU, a little bit different than Pittsburgh in the tournament, but the guy on the other side, Jim Boeheim, and Syracuse you know all too well. What you can say about getting that matchup? COACH DIXON: Obviously the Pittsburgh/Syracuse matchup was a rivalry and historic games. And so many great matchups and so many, over such a long period of time. But I joked with somebody earlier that maybe we can start up this Syracuse/TCU rivalry and get that going, the Northeast versus the Southwest and see how that carries. But certainly, obviously, I have great respect for Coach Boeheim, and we can talk basketball and different things, but as I mentioned earlier, with Coach, I mean when I went to Pittsburgh as associate head coach, I knew Coach Hopkins, was friends with him. Through that, I think, we became pretty close with Coach Boeheim when Ben and I came that way. And then there was Jim Zezetich (phonetic), some of you guys know, a Syracuse guy who's lived in Pittsburgh, was a good friend. Through that, seemed like we were closer attached to those guys right away. Once I became head coach, he was really forthcoming and welcoming, I should say, to me when I became a head coach -- young, I think I was 36. Similar to him in a lot of ways, taking over the program. And I think similar in that they didn't want to give him the job either and they didn't want to give me the job either, but we kind of got it at the same time. Always looked to him with great respect because he'd been at a place for so long and certainly something that I was able to do too as well. And very proud of that. But the thing I remember most is how he reached out to us and reached out to me. And I watched him how he was involved in other outside activities, whether it be the Coaches Vs. Cancer, he got us involved in that, me and my family and my wife Jacqueline and his wife Juli. They communicated on how to get that started and running that. NABC, I think I got the approval from him that I could be on the NABC, I got the okay. I think that helped. Jim knows how that stuff works, the politics. And all different things. And I often joked with him that I spent my offseason listening to Jim speak at different events, whether it be the Nike trip, which he pretty much ran that, too. USA Basketball, he got me on that to coach the U.S.A. Team in the world championships. So he got me involved in that. So I would joke and we'd hang out in the Nike trip and we'd talk about different things. And I'd laugh, here we go, I'm listening to him give him the state of the game. So obviously I respect him more so for all the wins and I think everybody knows about that, but all the things he does outside basketball. And invited me in and pointed me in the right way, I think, too. Q. When you look at -- assess Desmond's season. How do you characterize, did he surpass your preseason expectations or how would you characterize the season he's had and what he's brought to -- COACH DIXON: On the way up, getting better, improving. And I'd like to say here we thought he'd be just the guy he is, but you've got to remember he had no Division I scholarships going into his senior year and a guy who obviously we took late. The only high major offer. And he just keeps getting better. He's becoming a better defender. He's becoming a better guy off the dribble, rebounding better. That's the one the last couple of games -- he had seven in our last game. So obviously he had a knack for scoring around the basket, finishing. I think he became a better shooter as a freshman to the point he's a 50 percent 3-point shooter. He's improved in every aspect. And he continues to do so. Great energy, fun kid, great kid, well-liked and well-known on campus. And just the type of kids we want to have, kid representing our university. So it's fun. Proud to see a guy that's done so much, and I kind of respect -- I didn't get much recruitment coming out of high school and TCU took a chance on me, I guess. We took a chance on him, and he's made us look good. Q. When you were at Pitt obviously you went up against Syracuse in the zone. You went up against the Syracuse zone quite a bit. What were your keys to attacking it? And is that going to correlate to tomorrow night when you have kids who haven't seen that Syracuse zone, like maybe your kids at Pitt had? COACH DIXON: The thing about the Syracuse zone, it's changed over the years. I think it changes year to year. You just can't do the same things time and time again. It's morphed. It's changed. The thing we did, and I've told the story before, that when I became the head coach, I realized if you're going to win in the Big East, you want to win championships, you've got to beat Syracuse. And they're going to play the zone, 2-3 zone. But also at that time Louie was Seton Hall, Coach Welsh was at Providence, Pitino was at Louisville. So you were seeing that zone pretty much through the conference, and they're all pretty much disciples of Coach Boeheim. Our belief was you had to be good at it and you weren't going to be good the day before you played them; you had to be good at it from start to finish of your season. We worked on it from October 15th on. And also we practiced it because that was our secondary defense. And so I would watch it and see what they did to implement when we played that defense, but also to help us go against it. So that's -- I think as you see, when they get into the NCAA Tournament and you see teams struggle against it, it's hard to prepare in one day. And you can simulate it in practice, but the thing is, better than anything, probably the best thing he does in basketball is he recruits to his system, recruits to what he does. So we looked at the size of the -- KenPom has the tallest teams. I don't know what the phrase they use -- they rank the tallest teams. Number one in the country in length is Syracuse. 351 teams, they're the tallest guys. So he recruits wings and guards that are big and long. Everybody says that, there's the number to prove it. So he recruits to it. So it's going to be good. And but you have to adjust each year, I think, and I think he adjusts during the game. I remember one game where they changed what they were doing. We were hurting, so we had to change what we were doing too halfway through. And took us a little while. So they adjust and it's just not going to come out. I know everybody thinks he just puts the -- the 2-3 just shows up, but there's adjustments to be made. Q. What can you say about turning TCU around and just where it is at this point? 1998 was the last time. You've been there a couple seasons and back in the tournament. So just what you've seen through these last couple of seasons? COACH DIXON: It's been a lot of fun. Obviously Trent Johnson was a very good coach before. Recruited some really good players. He coached them hard. Had some tough breaks with injuries and things that occurred. So I mean I took over what was probably a better program than people knew. The support from administration has been unwavering and committed, and sometimes we got -- we say this is how it's got to be done and what we need. But Chancellor Boschini and his commitment to me and belief, belief in what we're doing is -- coaches need that. And he gave it to me and so I thank him for that. But, yeah, it's been a process. And, yeah, we never put a timetable on it. The belief was to win and win right away. And I said that at the press conference. You're probably not supposed to say that, but I did. And I wasn't into just give me a five-year plan and -- just I believe you've got to turn it right away and start turning as much as you can, get every guy you can to buy in. And sometimes guys won't. And you move on. But we got a good group and we're lucky. Got high-character guys in our senior class that took to less playing time, less scoring, sacrificing. But the end result was an NIT championship, which was huge for us. Huge for anybody. Because you see the teams playing last night and tonight and going forward, those are all high-powered programs. So it was huge for us and just a great step in getting us better. So it's been -- it seems like it's been quick, but there's been a lot of work put in, a lot of sacrifice. I really call them the four believers, the four seniors. Their numbers -- we've got a big picture on the wall and in our practice facility of those four guys. They're great kids. All graduated and all four are around campus all the time. Couple of them play overseas. But they really believed in what we were doing and sacrificed. And you need things like that and that's hard to do, that's hard to do. So it's been fun and but at the same time we don't want -- I don't want to be the team just here, happy that we reached the NCAA Tournament. We're good enough to win some games and beat some people. But we've got a tough one the first one already. So that's what it is. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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