NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST FOUR

March 14, 2022

Johnny Jones

Joirdon Karl Nicholas

Brison Gresham

UD Arena

Texas Southern Tigers

Media Conference

THE MODERATOR: This is the press conference for the First Four as we introduce the champions of the Southwestern Athletic Conference, Texas Southern University at the center of the table is Brison Gresham, and at the end of the table is Joirdon Karl Nicholas. Questions for Brison Gresham or Joirdon Karl Nicholas.

Q. How was the trip here and how does it feel now that you guys have arrived? What are you kind of -- just feelings been here in Dayton?

BRISON GRESHAM: Actually, our trip was amazing, I should say. It was a nice smooth trip, private plane, I can't complain. What was your second question? My bad.

Q. How are you feeling?

BRISON GRESHAM: I'm feeling good, thankful, blessed. I'm just happy to be here, to be honest.

JOIRDON KARL NICHOLAS: It's exciting to be here again, running it back and coming back from last year. It's a better environment because you know not the whole COVID stress thing and everything, but it was a good experience. We have some young guys never experienced that. So it was good coming down here to Ohio, being able to experience all this.

THE MODERATOR: Other questions for Brison and Joirdon.

Q. You have an experienced roster. How do you feel that will help you guys this year? You got that experience last year. What does that do for you going into this tournament?

JOIRDON KARL NICHOLAS: It means a lot. We added a few pieces, including Brison right here. Brison went to the Final Four last year. Other than going last year, I've been to the tournament. We have PJ Henry, he went to the tournament. And we also just have a lot of experience.

So it helps because when you're in a dogfight or you're coming from behind, we're not giving up. We have a lot of leadership. So we can hold each other accountable. So it helps us in the long run, for sure.

BRISON GRESHAM: I think the experience helps us a lot because it's 68 teams, and I feel like a lot of people don't understand how hard it is to win a game, especially in March Madness. I think all the experience we have right now it's a favor in our hands.

THE MODERATOR: We have a question via Zoom.

Q. I know you guys, it's been a pretty tough 24 hours, getting caught up about your opponent. Just tell me what do you know about them, what do they do best and what concerns about the Islanders?

BRISON GRESHAM: We just actually watched film on them. I can tell you one thing, they play hard for sure. It's going to be a good game, competitive-wise. They have a very good core group of guards and bigs, so it'll be a good game. I know they play hard.

JOIRDON KARL NICHOLAS: For sure. If you punch a ticket you're definitely a good team. So we respect them. I wouldn't say we're concerned or fear anything. We don't fear nobody. So we're going to the drawing board. We're watching film on them. They definitely do play hard. They have a lot of good pieces. But we're ready to play, because we also do play hard, too.

Q. You guys this is something that TSU does every year, they schedule that tough non-conference schedule. And just talk -- this is for both of you -- how does that help you to get where you are now when you're playing teams? And also you guys have to be really confident about winning the tournament, and also what y'all did to Florida this year.

JOIRDON KARL NICHOLAS: It helps us a lot. At the beginning of the year we were meshing together. We had a lot of guys come back but we also had a lot of big pieces to add to the team. It was a learning experience. It taught us a lot about ourselves.

We were able to tell where we were at during the year, and what kind of competition we can play with. And it was a good learning experience, to where we started to where we are now, it definitely played off.

In the Florida game, I just think that's an example of how good we can be and also how we played in our last two games in the conference tournament. I just feel like the possibilities are endless, if we can just lock down and play like that. So that's the biggest thing from the schedule.

BRISON GRESHAM: To add on to what he was saying, I'll say like the competitiveness of our non-conference schedule, it brings -- like road games bring teams together but losing on the road was different for us. I feel like it built our character and molded this team together. I feel like our non-conference schedule literally molded this team together.

Q. After making the tournament last year, how do you use that experience to springboard you into this year's tournament?

BRISON GRESHAM: I'll say just like the things that I learned from last tournament was just like the small things, like the small things will get you beat, a small thing can help you win a game. That's something that I can add to for this year's team.

JOIRDON KARL NICHOLAS: It helps a lot, because you get put in this position and then some guys get nervous or it's their first time here. So definitely being here a couple times and just having guys that have been here a couple times, it helps because, like I said, the other question, when you're down or you hit a little adversity, it's easy to overcome when you have that type of leadership.

Q. It was a tough start to your guys' season. And in December you find your guys beating a ranked Florida at the time. Explain your highs and lows of the season and what got you here?

JOIRDON KARL NICHOLAS: You know, everybody knows we started, like, 0-7. And a lot of that was just us learning each other, I would like to say. If you are paying attention to the games, they were close games. A few of them we did get beat bad, but a lot of them was just learning experiences. I like to say we just ran out of time.

So it helps because, like, you go 0-7 and then you beat a ranked 20 team Florida. And it just shows you, like, all right, we can compete, it's not a fluke. You know what I'm saying? Everything we've been working together is coming together. That win did help us because after that we went on a nice little run and we just started to feel ourselves a little bit more.

BRISON GRESHAM: I feel like the win over No. 20 Florida, I felt like it was just pride. We got tired of losing. And like everybody's human. You keep getting beat up, you're going to fight back sooner or later.

Q. I've seen your league on TV. Just talk about the -- people don't realize -- but talk about the atmosphere at those games. And then talk about the SWAC in general.

BRISON GRESHAM: For sure. I'm happy that you said that. I play basketball a lot for different conferences, and I can tell you one thing, the SWAC is literally underrated. It may not have a lot of talent, but you're going to get guys every game that play hard, hard, hard.

JOIRDON KARL NICHOLAS: I also have been to two other conferences. And I think this is the best. Just the atmosphere in the games, from the coaches to the coaching staff, to the people on campus. Everybody shows love and everybody's just into it.

As far as the talent, you're going to get everybody's best, especially us being champs, everybody want to beat the champs. So we're getting everybody's best. And it's a league that's slept on. But I don't think it should be, because it's a lot of talent there. And sometimes it gets overlooked.

Q. After that 0-7 start, is there one person or something somebody said or something somebody did, one thing that changed from that start to where you are here today?

JOIRDON KARL NICHOLAS: I just think it was a matter of timing, and it was good timing. Like I said in that 0-7 run, we were just learning each other. And we learned each other. So it was just perfect timing, good timing. So I think all that had a good part in that.

But we were talking to each other every day. We were uplifting each other, we never got down. We never started getting on ourselves or being discouraged or anything. We just kept putting our head down, getting to work, practicing hard and just putting the pieces together.

BRISON GRESHAM: I felt like our pride kicked in. Like I said once before, I feel we were tired of losing. We stepped up really as a team.

Q. Joirdon mentioned your Final Four appearance with Houston. What was your experience like for you? And we're all learning about you guys right now. What brought you to Texas Southern? Could you tell us a little bit about that transition? Your Final Four experience last year with Houston and just kind of what you took from that?

BRISON GRESHAM: It's kind of -- it was exciting. It's like once-in-a-lifetime type of thing. I was kind of mad, I wouldn't say mad, but I was sad it was in the bubble. I didn't get to experience the full crowd, I should say.

But one thing I can take from leaving Houston and coming to this team was just, like, kind of like my role. I'm still like a role player here, but I feel my role as a leader, I had to step up as a leader on this team. And I feel like it's kind of like a good thing.

Q. Tell us about your coach, Johnny Jones. I've heard a lot about him?

JOIRDON KARL NICHOLAS: First I'd like to say he's a great man before a coach. He gave me the opportunity to come to Texas Southern to play for him. He's an outstanding coach, too. He's an unbelievable leader. He pushes us. I like to say he's a player's coach. He understands us.

He's been there. He played for LSU. He's coached NBA guys. So we all look up to him. He does a lot for us, you know what I'm saying? He helps us out. He talks to us on and off the court. So it's definitely a close relationship.

BRISON GRESHAM: To add on what Joirdon was saying, I'll say he was just a good guy. Outside of coaching, he's very family-oriented. When you're looking for coaches, that's the type of things you really look for. Especially in this type of business, a lot of coaches are just strictly business guys.

I'll say he's definitely family-oriented. He treats his players like his family. And another thing I can add on to it, you could talk to him about anything, not just basketball. Like if you had a lot of things on your mind, you just give him a call. He'll help you out with a lot of life experiences.

Q. We've touched on your road games and how that's different, and then also the swag of the conference. But what's important to you all to try to bring that all here? What's the thing that you make sure you take from Texas and bring it to all your road games, especially here?

BRISON GRESHAM: I'll say our toughness, our toughness. And to add on to what you was saying, I'll say our swag, too. We've got a little swag when we're playing on court. Show a little attitude. It's good to show emotions sometimes, especially in today's game.

JOIRDON KARL NICHOLAS: I would say we're tough. Like I said, we're a league that's slept on. But I feel like we're representing for the league and everybody is looked over. So toughness. Like you said, swag. Like Brison said, we do have the attitude and stuff.

But I wouldn't even call it attitude we're just very passionate about the game. That takes over when we get to playing. So y'all are going to see tomorrow what type of energy we're going to bring.

Q. I've seen you guys play for a few years now and everything, but there's a lot of people on the Zoom call that aren't familiar with TSU basketball. How would you describe y'all's type of play and what do you guys do best?

JOIRDON KARL NICHOLAS: Fast, run and gun, defense. Real good defense. I feel like that's what we like to pride ourselves on is defense, rebounding and just being strong and tough. So that's what we pride ourselves on. We got real, into the offseason, we got real serious about that this year. So we like to say level five, that's what we like to say. So just really level five about everything we do.

BRISON GRESHAM: To add on to what he was saying, just our toughness, really. Honestly, our toughness, just competing at a high level. I feel like we can play with anybody in the country if we compete at a level five level.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

At this time we'd like to welcome the head coach of the Texas Southern Tigers, Johnny Jones.

Q. You guys got out to a rough start to the season. Really came on late. What do you think was the difference? Was there, just what were you seeing down the stretch from your team that maybe you weren't seeing early on?

COACH JONES: For us, we play each year the toughest, sometimes No. 1 strength of schedule in the country, because of the teams that we wind up playing. It's generally Gonzaga. We'd go to Baylor, you name it.

So the top part of our schedule is against more of the Power Five type schools, and in general you get into conference play and it's more of teams that are generally built like us at the end of the day.

But our deal and our focus, even playing those Power Five schools during the non-conference, when we're generating funds and everything to help at the end of the day with their program, our focus is mostly about are we getting better playing against stiff competition, what improvements have we made from game to game. And if we're able to show improvements, that's a huge sign at the end of the day for us.

We were 0-7, the guys hadn't lost their way. They were still extremely focused throughout the year. We end up knocking off a top-20 team in Florida at their place. And that let them know at the time that the guys were still in a good place at the end of the day. So that was not long after that we're starting to get into conference play.

But learned a long time ago just from church, one of my pastors used the term, sometimes you win and sometimes you learn. And as long as you're learning you never lose.

So we did a lot of learning at the beginning of the year. And so we're fortunate to stay locked in and focus on the big picture and getting ready. And we're fortunate to be sitting here today.

Q. Coach, when I talked to you almost 24 hours ago, you just found out who you're playing. Didn't have much chance to find out about your opponent. Last 24 hours, what have you learned about them?

COACH JONES: Luckily just familiar with the program because obviously they're sitting there in the state of Texas. We scrimmaged them, not this coach, but the prior coach a couple of times over the last couple of two or three years. So this is obviously a different team.

But we've learned a lot about them. I'm very familiar with the conference that they're in and so I follow their scores really throughout the year. I'm familiar with the head coach and the great job he's done there Creighton. He was an assistant there, in the state Division I school in Texas prior to when I was a head coach of the previous school, for instance, the University of North Texas. So very familiar with them.

I know they have very good guards. They play extremely fast in terms of motion. They rebound the basketball as well. And they are very good up-tempo-style basketball team. So they like to get to the free-throw line because of how fast they play. But they do a great job sharing the basketball. I think they're averaging about 15 assists a game. So they're a very balanced basketball team. And they've won their conference.

And people are trying to tell me that they wind up coming in fourth place in the conference but they wind up winning the tournament. I remind people, we came in third place a year ago in our conference and wind up winning the championship as well.

So when teams are playing well at the right time, I think that's got to be a focus on them. And I think they're one of those teams that have won maybe seven out of eight or eight out of nine of their last games.

Q. So you're coming off your winning your conference. How do you use the momentum, winning a conference, coming in? Selection Sunday was a few days ago, it's been a quick turnaround. How do you use that momentum in here tomorrow?

COACH JONES: The big thing is you want to be playing well at the right time. The right time is when you're talking about February and March. You want to make sure that your team is trending the right way and peaking at the right time.

And so our conference tournament, I think, is a great sign of that. And when you're playing well at the right time we're fortunate that we had the bye. We played on Wednesday, had Thursday off. Other teams had to play that Thursday and then come back and play on that Friday, where we picked it back up.

And I thought our team continued to get better trending the right way. And we want to make sure we utilize that. Playing this early game, it's not like we have to wait until the end of the week, we just finished playing on Saturday. Now we've got to turn around and play tomorrow. And our guys should still be intact. And as coach I hadn't had a chance to confuse them that much. So we can get back on the court and play.

Q. What's the difference between this team this year compared to last year's team that went to the First Four, won that game, played Michigan. What's the main difference between these two teams?

COACH JONES: The main difference, I think, with this basketball team, we had a couple of pieces that we lost from last year's team and one of our starters, but we feel like we gained, through the transfer market, one of those guys in Brison Gresham, who started for Houston 19 games last year. Played 17 minutes a game.

He's with us now as a post guy at 6'9". And unbelievable size and strength. That's what we were lacking, I think, against a good Michigan team -- I think No. 1 seed Michigan team a year ago -- our inside play, to be able to battle with those guys. I think our inside presence that we have would be the big difference from a year ago to this year's team, which is a strong positive for us.

Q. Going back to that Florida win, was there anything that happened right before that, anything you had said to the guys that kind of you think made a difference in that game? Or just what was the difference in that one? And just expand on that a little bit.

COACH JONES: Our focus, especially during the early games in the, one of our mottos was make sure that we finish everything we do on the floor, be rebounding or screening, action or whatever it is. Just make sure that you're finishing everything strong.

I think these guys did a great job of, I would say, staying focused, especially after setbacks, whatever, that we had. And going into that game we wanted to make sure we were continuing to improve. And the way that we kind of grade ourselves, it's important to play as hard as we can every second, every play and finishing plays every second every play.

I thought in that game we came out maybe every second, every play, things went our way. We got to the 50/50 balls. We made the tough plays. We made the tough shots. We did all the little things that made the big difference and for us to go in at halftime that way. Obviously know you've got 20 minutes left to go back out there.

And then we got off to a great start there in the second half. So I thought everything just aligned for us in that game at the end of the day.

But the beauty about it, we've got a couple of guys that are still left on this team, couple of years ago -- and always going to all these games, now playing at Oregon, we were able to win there before and they were a rated team. We've won at Baylor. We've won at Texas A&M.

So we've had those things happen to us. And you tell these guys, you don't know which one of those games is going to be a getable game for us if we're not playing as hard as we possibly can. So they were able to do that in that game.

And we came close. Although we didn't win some of those games, we were 0-7 coming up to that point. We came extremely close, maybe Washington and a couple of other places that we played early in the season, just wasn't able to get over that hump.

Q. You have a rotation of 10 players, and I think they all average at least 13 minutes a game, and no one plays more than 25. Have anybody scored double figure -- they're all capable of scoring. Talk about the team chemistry and how unselfish the guys are to make this all work?

COACH JONES: Thanks. I think that was one of the challenges coming into the season especially with the core guys we had returning from last year. Didn't have the addition of two new guys in PJ Henry who started or played at Hartford last year and played 32 minutes at point guard against a Baylor team that won the national championship.

Bringing that corps guys in, didn't want guys to get into practice and settle and just try get in a rut in terms of just finding their position. So we've had over 17 or 18 different starting lineups throughout the year.

And I think our guys understood the focus that they needed to have meaning that they could impact our game so they could maybe start next game. So therefore their practice habits and everything was the same. They were great. Guys competed. It was extremely competitive. And if they weren't starting they were looking for the opportunity to get into the game to impact the game the right way.

So it cut down on the pouting and guessing and all the other stuff from our basketball team. So I think as a unit, it helped them become even closer, the chemistry has been great on our basketball team. And with that rotation of 10 guys on any given night, any of those guys are very capable of going out and having big games.

Although we didn't have any guy on our team, although we won the conference championship last year and went to the tournament, we had zero guys on the all-conference team this year. They didn't make first team or second team. And that may have been because we didn't have anybody scoring in double figures.

Unfortunately it may have hurt our guys in terms of some people voting, but at the end of the day I'm glad I've got a great group of guys who were focused on the big picture. It wasn't about individual accolades. It was about their team and I think that's the reason that we were sitting here today because they're more motivated at the end of the day about what they could do as a group, more so than individuals.

Q. You're a seasoned team. Looking at the roster I see all these seniors and grad students. You've got experienced players. With experienced players and also the fact that you guys played in this First Four a year ago and won it, I think your confidence level has to be pretty high. And the fact that you have experienced players helps you so much more.

COACH JONES: The thing is, on senior night, we had nine guys come out that needed to be celebrated. And if you're sitting there in the stands and you're a fan, you're trying to figure out, wow, how is this team going to look next year. You've got all these seniors. Well, only four of those guys are leaving the team that doesn't have any more eligibility because of the COVID -- they allowed them to come back and play an additional year. Five of those guys will be back with us.

So that experience that we've got on this basketball team with those nine seniors and these other guys that have graduated, it means a lot. And it's one of the reasons that we sit in the position here because several of those guys were on that team a year ago.

And at the end of the day I thought I was going to lose those guys because they had the opportunity because they'd already graduated to leave. And either go and transfer and go play in another program. If they felt like the mission was accomplished and they'd done what they needed to at Texas Southern to go play professionally.

My son is one of those players as well. And he and his friends and teammates wind up going on social media and putting the hashtag "runitback." Meaning they were all going to return and do this again. They weren't going to leave. They weren't transferring out. They wanted to come back and see if they could go back to back.

And as a coach, I couldn't have been more excited, because, one, it cut down on recruiting and me worrying with those guys coming back. And we had a great core and they did a great job of coming back and being focused and worrying about the right things.

Q. You led me to this question, but talk about having a chance to coach your son.

COACH JONES: It's been unique. When I hung up my sneakers back in '84, '85 as a point guard and off shooting guard at LSU, I've been coaching ever since. Dale Brown hired me as an assistant. I sat on the sidelines for 13 years. I was assistant coach before leaving there in '97.

I've been coaching -- my son was born in '98, and still coaching. So I've been a Division I basketball coach his entire life. I never had a chance to be part of -- like his AAU programs and any of those things and had a chance to be around where you could obviously kick it around and work on individual skill work in the gym. But to be able to be there on the sideline and coach him and his buddies, never had that experience.

When this opportunity presented itself, it was like a dream come true. It was something that I've always wanted and wished would happen. And I think obviously God put us in a unique situation here because I left Baton Rouge. And I've been the head coach there at LSU and going to the University of Nevada with one of my former assistants and we played out there. Went to the Sweet 16. And then I got this job and my son decided not to stay at Nevada. He winded up coming with me.

It's been a special four years. Not only did he really only have three years left but because of COVID he had an opportunity to play for me for four years like a regular student. So it's been great and kind of an emotional time for me on senior night, his last home game there. But it's been a blessing. I'm just fortunate that we've been able to win because we won three state championships in high school, went out to Nevada.

We went to the Sweet 16 and I'll be danged if I was the only coach who didn't win a championship. It was good last year. Took a lot of pressure off and for us to repeat to come back this year, and according to him it's all him it has nothing to do with me. So he told me he brought that winning to us. So it's been great coaching him.

Q. After finding out you're making the tournament and you're playing Corpus Christi, how fast after they announce that do you guys go over tape and look film of Corpus Christi, is it almost instant or do you wait and celebrate or is it always back to work?

COACH JONES: Actually we had a little celebration party where we were watching the brackets be released. And right afterwards as a team, when the last team was announced, we got up, hugged the guys, told them we would see them in the morning and would give them the information that they needed. We went straight back to the office, downloaded the games, whatever, that we needed. I gave the scout to one of our coaches that was going to have it, the other two assistants, to look at it and the video guy with us. We immediately got to it and tried to get as much extensive information as we possibly could on the phone and watching these guys and then just getting back with each other and trying to find out what we've seen and what was the positives and negatives and start putting together a game plan.

Yes, when the game comes as quick as it did, like you said, yesterday, and you're playing on tomorrow, it's pretty quick turnaround against an opponent that you're not familiar with. But I guess that's the beauty, really, of what we do. And so it's a crash course for us, and we're excited to have the opportunity to do that.

Q. Wanted to ask you a little bit about being an HBCU, with you coming back in the tournament two years in a row now, with a lot of attention, of course, a lot of needed attention on HBCU programs. Could you just talk about that and what it means to represent?

COACH JONES: I'll tell you, it was exciting for us last year. And good thing for me. Been there in Baton Rouge for the number of years I've been there and familiar with Southern University, which is another HBCU there in Baton Rouge.

And knowing Ben Jobe and the other coaches and for me being around their program, when the opportunity presented itself, I knew exactly what I was getting into there in Houston because I was familiar with Texas Southern. Primarily because of Mike Davis, head coach there and having a chance to play against each other. But for me to be here, sitting in this seat and the job that Mike had done, tradition there at Texas Southern University, for us to come into the tournament and win a game last year during the tournament, it was great. We're excited to think Norfolk State winded up winning that night as well.

I think one of the good things so we can continue to try to change the narrative and the conversation if we can continue to put good teams together, make a great showing, continue to make a great showing in the tournament, that some great things can happen for us.

So our job is to make sure that we're representing all the HBCUs in the right fashion and in the right way when that opportunity presents itself.