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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 13, 2019

Kansas City, Missouri

TCU 73, Oklahoma State 70

THE MODERATOR: The TCU Horned Frogs have arrived in the interview room. We have Coach Jamie Dixon and we will have three student-athletes, Desmond Bane, Kouat Noi and Alex Robinson. Coach, we will turn to you first for an opening statement. Congratulations on your victory tonight.

JAMIE DIXON: Thank you. It's a great win for us obviously getting 20 wins and for our seniors an opportunity again to play against one of the teams that won the league. Excited about how we played. Obviously, first half we did exactly what we wanted to do. But as you know, they're a tough team, playing well, Oklahoma State and came back and battled, not at all surprised by that. I think I could have done a better job of sustaining our aggressiveness both offensively and defensively, so put that on me for their comeback. I thought we moved the ball the first half and got a change to the other side of the floor against their defense, but defensively is what we got going and obviously shot 35%, outrebounded by 2. That's where everybody is best. It's a great win for us and certainly an opportunity to go play tomorrow.

Q. Desmond, take us through that last 3-pointer and what you kinda saw and how you guys kept your composure when they were making the late charge?
DESMOND BANE: We've been here before, as far as keeping our composure. We've got a lot of guys that have played a lot of those games and on my last play I got downhill and I kicked it down to him and he kicked it back to me and I was open and just shot it.

Q. Guys, for all of you, what was the thought when the lead was shrinking down? How were you trying to stay together and trying to get through and get that win?
KOUAT NOI: We just wanted to keep the momentum going, un, get stops and that's what we did and we came back with the win.

ALEX ROBINSON: What Kouat said. We just wanted to stay locked in and made sure we stayed together. We knew they were making a run. We wanted to make sure we stopped it and turned it around.

DESMOND BANE: For sure. A team like that they're going to hit shots and part of it was our defense and part of it was them hitting shots, but we kept our composure and was able to finish it out.

Q. Alex, you guys had a be 21-point lead. But your offense stagnated down the stretch. How much was Yor Anei and the way he protected the rim. I think he got 4 blocks in the last 7 minutes.
ALEX ROBINSON: He did a great job of staying down and getting blocks and I felt like a lot of it was us on the stagnant part we weren't moving and cutting it and that's on us and he's a great defense player and he's going to make a lot of noise in this league.

Q. Kouat, you were able to score 14 in the first half, 20 in the game. After only scoring 4 over the last week what allowed you to snap out of your shooting slump today?
KOUAT NOI: Like we said earlier, passing the ball, moving the ball. I give credit to my teammates for helping me when I was open and that's how it happened.

Q. For all of you guys, short turnaround for K-State and with the depth how do you guys think you will be able to bounce back tomorrow?
DESMOND BANE: Thanks to Coach Dixon we practiced hard every day and there is nothing like it. We'll be ready.

KOUAT NOI: What was the question again?

Q. The short turnaround and the depth you guys have, coming back tomorrow?
KOUAT NOI: We're going to be ready to play tomorrow for sure.

ALEX ROBINSON: Yeah, yeah, yeah what Kouat and Des said. We'll be ready. We've been here before. We have a lot of experience. So this is nothing new to us and we will be ready to go.

Q. For all of you, how much does Dean Wade likely not playing for K-State tomorrow affect the way you go into this game against Kansas State?
DESMOND BANE: Every team in the league is good so you prepare and think the same way regardless who is going to be out there. We're here all high, major basketball players so we gotta prepare the same way we would as if he was playing.

ALEX ROBINSON: Yeah, what Des said.

DESMOND BANE: Hey, bra!

ALEX ROBINSON: It's true. We're going to prepare for them like we prepare for any team, whether Dean Wade plays or not, we still need to prepare for Kansas State. They beat us twice so we need to come out and play hard.

Q. Since it will be what Des says, I will ask Des, what did K-State do well against you guys? You struggled to score against them in the two matches earlier. What can you guys do to combat that and get a little more offense?
DESMOND BANE: They're a good defense team. As soon as we played them we made a few adjustments. And we didn't have this guy the first time we played them. But they got us at home so we gotta come out and play harder than them tomorrow from start to finish.

Q. Being down 21 points and then having the lead cut back to a tie game and eventually losing the lead, what does it say with your toughness and wherewithal to finish?
KOUAT NOI: Coach is always preaching toughness at every practice, so we knocked it down and got stops toward the end.

THE MODERATOR: Guys, thank you. We will let you go back to the locker room. Congratulations. We will see you tomorrow. Coach?

Q. Two questions, first of all, does this give you a spot in the NCAA Tournament?
JAMIE DIXON: 20 wins in the Big 12, toughest conference in the country and we played a tough nonconference, so I would think so. But you never know what plays out in the other things, but given that's a safe bet in history and I would say as things have played out in history this year, and clearly with the different conferences and our conference clearly being the best we've put ourselves in a good spot.

Q. Kansas State held you to your two lowest scoring games of the season. Talk about playing their defense with short rest?
JAMIE DIXON: Kouat didn't play in that game at their place. It was a close game. We had six guys. This time we will bring out 7, and we will be ready to play. As I told our guys it's an opportunity to play the team that won the league and beat us twice and we're looking at it as a great opportunity. We think we can win two in a row. We think we're playing a little better defense. I think we were very good on offense. They're a team that's dangerous because of the threes and they're going to keep playing and they've been in this position before. It was almost like it was scripted and we just handled it better offensively, and we played really well and I'm good in the last 10 minutes. We've got to handle those things better.

Q. Jamie, going off that, I guess you guys have built big leads and seen 'em come down this season. Is there anything specifically you need to do?
JAMIE DIXON: Sometimes I think we could have played more guys, when I say more guys, more minutes for the other two guys. That might have been something that could have helped us. I thought it was good for us against Texas that we had fresher guys out there, especially our guards. But it just didn't work out that way today. Again, I was not at all surprised. I figured there was no way we could sustain what we were doing in the first half, nobody can. You get a 20-point lead and they're going to make a run. I felt I could have done a period of time job offensively getting us into different things. But, again, you miss free throws, we got some drives to the basket we didn't convert and a lot of it came from there. We're not perfect.

Q. So toward the end of the game obviously the lead was starting to dwindle down. What were you telling your players in the timeouts?
JAMIE DIXON: You know, we just -- I mean, there was obviously it was a long game and we had the big lead, but there was times when you knew they were going to make the run, I thought we could have handled some things, we throw it out of bounds, we have a layup and we use our inside hand and it gets a block when it should have been a layup. We've got to do things better. I think we've done some things better defensively in the last seven, eight days and maybe in this last lesson that we got to finish and sustain and discipline in what we're doing. But I've got to do a better job as far as running plays out of timeouts and we've got to do a better job than that execution and down the stretch. I think that would be a big thing for us. We've got to make some free throws. A lot of times it's been we missed free throws in some of these situations.

It's an interesting thing because Kevin doesn't shoot it well, we want to have him on the floor. But at the same time he's shooting free throws, it's almost a turnover on good offense.

Q. Jamie, came question I asked Alex about the impact on the comeback for Oklahoma?
JAMIE DIXON: He was big, especially in the second half. He got a bunch of layups. At our place he killed us. He made some thoughts. I don't think he's made any since, but he's obviously very good. He plays very hard, makes free throws or at least he does against us. He changed a lot of those shots. I say that we didn't run great offense, but we didn't get layups that we got in the first half that seemed to be shot-blocked late in the game. Give him credit for that. We've got to do a better job. We got a 3-second call so some turn overs and not changed shots by him.

Q. You talked about K-State's defense. What challenges do they have for you guys tomorrow?
JAMIE DIXON: The oldest team in the country, experience is good and both of these teams that won the league, Texas Tech and K-State have played like the oldest teams because they are the oldest teams, both well-coached and defensively they're very good and very physical. Amazed at how physical they are. Kansas State, they push you around, they bang, they reach, they get hands on balls. So those are the things that they do really well, but I think we're a better team know, but, you know, we've got to do it for forty minutes but everybody runs through these things where they can't sustain, forty minutes, play their best basketball. There ain't no blowouts in this thing. It's what it is. It's good teams in the best league.

THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Coach.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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