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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: DETROITMarch 16, 2018Jamie DixonAhmed HamdyKenrich WilliamsVladimir BrodzianskyDetroit, Michigan Syracuse - 57, TCU - 52 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by TCU. Coach, an opening statement. COACH DIXON: We have our three seniors up here and -- as I told them I told them in the locker room -- I can't tell them how much, how thankful I am, how appreciative I am, how appreciative the school is for what they've done in changing a program and getting it to a tournament and how they've handled themselves on the floor and off the floor. So we've created a program to be proud of, and these guys are the main reasons, because you need senior leadership on and off the floor. I can't thank them enough. I told them that in the locker room. And I thought we'd be playing more, but we didn't get it done tonight. And we didn't play as well as I had thought we would. And with that said, congratulations to Syracuse. But we simply just didn't get it done and that is on us. But I can't tell them how much and how proud I am for what they've done for our program and going forward here. And this is a step in the right direction for us going forward. Q. Kenrich, how tough is this? I know you don't ever want to lose a game, but the excitement that you guys had going into this tournament, expecting to win some games, how tough is it? KENRICH WILLIAMS: It's tough. Because we just didn't want to be continually getting in the tournament, we wanted to make a run, win some games. But we came up short and it's tough. And it's going to be tough for a while for me and the seniors, the rest of the seniors. Q. Vlad, you came on strong in the second half. What was changing? Did you guys change up the game plan a little bit or how did that happen? VLAD BRODZIANSKY: I didn't want my career to be over. So I was trying to help the team to win. Q. You guys had a great season. What can you take away from that? KENRICH WILLIAMS: You can take away -- we kind of made history this year getting in the tournament for the first time in 20 years. I mean, I learned a lot on and off the court, learned a lot from my teammates, from the coaches, from Coach Dixon. And so, yeah. Q. Kenrich, you went on an 8-0 run to close out the half. What allowed you guys to take the lead entering the half? KENRICH WILLIAMS: I think we got a few buckets in transition. We got a few stops late in the half. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Coach. Q. The shooting struggles from outside the last three or four games, anything you can put your finger on? COACH DIXON: Good defensive teams, I think that's part of it. If you look at the teams we've played, I think slower-tempo teams. And, you know, you're not going to shoot, we're probably not going to shoot 50 percent against them. What they do -- you've got to get second shots, you've got to get put-backs. I think that's one of the things that hurt us and keep your turnovers low. The field goal percentage, obviously 34 in the second half, that's going to get you in trouble. But there was the other things, too. I mean, free throws, makes, shoot them at a higher rate, 64 percent. Obviously, putbacks and second shots, as I said, we had to outrebound them. You're probably not going to shoot as high a percentage, but you've got to do the other things, and we didn't do those things. Q. Rebounding, it sort of improved when Ahmed was put in there. Is that a give and take? You have him in there for defensive purposes, rebounding purposes but he's not going to score as much? COACH DIXON: It's an interesting thing. We probably -- and in looking at it, we got, obviously, Vlad at 13 points, so we could point at different things. But he came with some nice rebounds. Defensively, did some pretty good things defensively for us. I'm happy with the production we got out of that spot. There's no question. We'd been getting good production all year long. We had some guys not play as well down the stretch, and this game included. And I hope that they're going to have their best games in the NCAA Tournament. But we didn't. And that's offense and defense. So we got good production out of them. This was a game we could have played them both together. But that hadn't been our best team all year long. So looked at possibly doing, talked about it afterwards but obviously if you know that the other guys aren't going to be as productive, it obviously gives you -- with Kouat getting off and getting a couple 3s early. You feel pretty good about how he's playing, but it didn't continue. You can look at it different ways. But again we hadn't played those guys together much at all. Q. Do you think that there was any benefit to Syracuse having played, with TCU having such a long layoff since their last competition? COACH DIXON: I mean, I could look at it -- obviously you get the time to prepare. We don't really get an advantage because we don't know who we're playing. So it's a unique setup in that regard. But, you know, we had plenty of days to prepare. And we worked on Syracuse's zone and their plays, things we'd all seen before. But we just -- we didn't get -- our play wasn't as good the last couple of weeks, the last three games. But, again, we played really good defensively teams. They slowed the tempo down. And I guess we're going to have to get used to playing against that type of style in certain situations, or at least winning against that type of style. And we didn't. So that's disappointing. They did it differently, being in the 2-3 zone. But they're obviously very patient on offense and they want low-scoring games. It affected our offense to some degree but we've seen that before. Q. You guys have had a great season. What's the most positive thing that you can take away from the season? COACH DIXON: I think for us the positive is what we've done. We haven't been to the tournament in 20 years, as people have reminded us. So as I spoke about our three seniors, they came to a place that hadn't been there. So it's a special thing to break a 20-year drought. I think it's the longest Power Five streak in the country to be broken. So that's hard to do. And they did it. And they should be proud of that. Right now they're not going to feel that. They're going to be solely disappointment in the loss. But the season gave us -- we created a lot of fans, a lot of interest in Fort Worth and I think we created a great future going forward here of how to handle things on and off the floor and how to put together a great program and high character kids. Q. You talked about building off of that. Do you use this loss as something to build upon and going into next season, to work harder and capitalize on the mistakes you may have made in this game? COACH DIXON: And I think the last couple of games. We were on a nice run, we won the last four. But we didn't do as good a job down the stretch. And offensively we had some struggles, which obviously hasn't been an issue with us all year long. We've been as good as there is offensively. Defense got better down the stretch, a lot better, and even we saw it tonight, we hold them to 36 percent from the field. But at the end of the day, you've got to find ways to make plays down the stretch. We had our opportunities and we didn't. So it doesn't feel like it right now, but we'll look back at some point and say this is a dramatic -- we don't use the word rebuild, but, again, it's a dramatic step in the right direction for us going forward. We've got a great group coming back, a lot of guys with a lot of experience now. I guess, as I told them, this must be part of the process, playing in the NCAA Tournament and not playing to your level. Simply put, we didn't play to our level. And that hopefully prepares us for going forward next year. I know we worked hard. But almost too excited, almost too much emotion in warmups and all day long. So maybe that caught up with us. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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