NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - TCU VS SETON HALL

March 17, 2022

Jamie Dixon

Emmanuel Miller

Chuck O'Bannon

Mike Miles Jr.

Viejas Arena

TCU Horned Frogs

Media Conference

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by TCU.

Q. You're here. What's it been like the last, I don't know, 18 hours of getting here and getting settled in?

EMANUEL MILLER: Excited to take it in. We have juniors, seniors on the team but in a sense we're all freshmen because this is our first time. We're all just trying to take it in but at the same time staying disciplined to the fact that we're here to win we're here to compete, here to go far in this tournament and we have to take it one game at a time.

The Seton Hall game coming up tomorrow is what we've been focusing on for the past two days, past three days, actually, just preparing ourselves mentally, physically so we're capable to get this W.

Q. About your tie to the tournament with your dad, your uncle and all that, how cool is it to be a part of that tradition to get up and down the road like your relatives?

CHUCK O'BANNON, JR: Growing up, always looked up to them. So being in this position is just a blessing, nothing more.

Q. Emanuel and Mike, I believe both of you won gold medals before. So as you know what it takes to win it all, what does it take to win it all?

MIKE MILES JR.: It's hard. It's not easy to win the biggest prize everybody going for. You've got to stay together throughout everything, everything ain't going to go your way in a game. You've got to stay focused in the main goal and that's what we're looking to do.

EMANUEL MILLER: It's definitely not hard. We're going to be going up against the best players and coaches in the country. To win this thing it's going to take a complete team effort and we know that we're brothers and we've got each other's back to do so.

Q. Mike, what's your take on Seton Hall after studying them for a few days? And it looks like they're a physical team. Are you expecting a pretty physical matchup, much like you guys had in Big 12 play?

MIKE MILES JR.: Yeah, we're expecting, they want to win just as much as we do. They're big, strong, everyone in their starting lineup is 6'6" or taller. We know it's not going to be easy. They're a good team. It's nothing we haven't seen before in the conference we're coming from. So we're going to be ready.

Q. Damion, Seton Hall thrives off of points off turnovers. How important is it for you guys, who have kind of struggled with turnovers sometimes this year, to take care of the ball, especially in transition?

DAMION BAUGH: We don't think of that. We're just going to go out and play our game. Everything will take care of itself.

Q. Mike, you guys got some rest. You guys had some guys who needed to heal up. How are you guys feeling as you get ready for this?

MIKE MILES JR.: I wouldn't say 100 percent, but those couple of days did give us some time to get ready for our hardest game of the season, the most important game of the season coming up. I won't say everybody's 100 percent. We all still got nagging injuries, something that's bothering us. But that's no excuse. We're still going to go out and play like we don't have injuries because we know how important it is to the team. My ankle good.

Q. You all like to get to the rim but you haven't necessarily seen a rim protector like Obiagu for them. Do you change your game, do anything differently with a 7'2" guy sitting there in the middle of the lane. Emanuel?

EMANUEL MILLER: Good question. Yeah, we've gone up against a 7-footer but the mentality for each and every player is still to be aggressive. No matter who is in the paint, we have to have the mentality that we'll get a bucket. Yeah, he's taller. We've got to do a better job playing on two feet, finding open guys, but I think we're all going to be pretty aggressive.

MIKE MILES JR.: Like Eman said, it's going to be a challenge. But that doesn't change the way we play. We're all very capable of getting to the rim and finishing. For me, I'm going there just like I always do. Obviously I don't want to get my shot blocked, but I'm going to challenge them and just play my game. I don't have to change anything.

EMANUEL MILLER: It's going to be very important to play off of two feet. Pump fake. Get him off his feet. Play around him. That's what we need to focus on.

DAMION BAUGH: Same thing they said.

Q. Emanuel, obviously the NCAA Tournament has lofty dreams and aspirations for players. I'm just curious how it's felt the last couple of days, knowing that this is going to be an NCAA Tournament appearance for you.

EMANUEL MILLER: It's like a dream come true. But this is only the first step, part of my dream. My dream is to win it all. And I think playing Seton Hall first is the first step.

But being with my team on Selection Sunday, having that feeling that, damn, we really made this. We're really going to be in the tournament playing against the best players. It's been a dream. It's been thrilling, to say the least, just because we know how hard we've worked from since summer, and we know what we're capable of doing.

To finally be able to showcase it on the biggest stage in NCAA basketball, with millions of people watching from back home, it's a great feeling. It's a great feeling.

Q. Mike, you guys looked pretty locked in right now. Just talk about the way that intensity has grown for you guys over these last few days as you've been getting ready for this game.

MIKE MILES JR.: We are locked in right now. You know, the coaches has been on us the past couple of days in practice. We don't have no choice but to be locked in. Like I said, this is the biggest game of our life coming up. We've got to take it as serious as anything. That's what we're doing. We're practicing hard. We're scouting them hard. We want to go win the whole thing, but we can't do it without beating Seton Hall.

Q. Mike, how do your wrists feel right now? Do you think they've progressed since you reinjured them back in January?

MIKE MILES JR.: The left one is good. The right one still gives me problems, still hurts. But I've been playing through it for about two months now. So it's not going to change anything.

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Coach Dixon.

COACH DIXON: Obviously excited to be here. I think this is the spot we wanted to go, San Diego, because of our connection and so many students that we have from California, especially Southern California and San Diego specifically. So we're excited to be here. We'll have a big contingent, got some alumni events set up already. So we're looking forward to it.

Obviously playing a great team in Seton Hall, a program I'm obviously familiar with, played against, coached against a number of games over my career. And so I know the program. Know Kevin very well, too. Good friends. Go way back. And just excited about what he's done at Seton Hall. I remember when he got the job there, coming from Iona. So we go way back.

But as far as our team, excited for them. We've got obviously a young group. We're not as old as Seton Hall is with all their grad transfers. But we have a group that has a lot of energy, has gotten better as the year has gone on and really has improved offensively, I think, mostly. And defensively, we've ranked high in some categories, but obviously rebounding is our thing and what we do well and what we have to do well tomorrow. Looking forward again to the opportunity to play here in front of a lot of fans.

Q. I asked Damion this but Seton Hall thrives getting points off their opponents' turnovers. You talked all year about trying to get y'all's turnovers down. Does it feel like it needs to culminate for you to win this game?

COACH DIXON: We've been lower, as you know. In the last five games, our numbers have dropped. Pretty good number. It's something again as I talked about our offense being better. We're better because of that. We're a young group. A lot of new players, especially on the perimeter.

We've improved at it and we'll continue. But I think everybody would say the same thing. We come from a league where they force a lot of turnovers, the numbers are high. Our league, in our league we probably have, I think we're second or next to last or last as far as most turnovers in a league. So it's just a league that forces a lot of turnovers, plays that way.

But Seton Hall is someone that does play that. It's a very physical defensive team, older. That's all we've faced all year long in our conference. We're younger, but I think improved.

Q. You talked that your team's gotten better as the season's gone on. What did you think of practice this week? How did you feel they will going into this game?

COACH DIXON: We thought we might be out here in San Diego, looked at the dates. We went Sunday before the Selection Show. We went Monday. We took Tuesday off. I just didn't want to go five straight days, over my years' experience being in the tournament. So that was what we did. I think it worked well for us.

We had a good practice today. We went short this morning. Live stuff, we'll get some shooting up here. But we really tried in some ways simulate the aggressiveness, the physicality that we're expecting from Seton Hall by how we're playing. And we've turned that on and off. And I think that's some of our youth coming into play.

But certainly this is a group that is excited to be here. It's a lively group, a lot of energy. And I think they're excited to be here. And we have obviously a lot of guys that are first time, pretty much everybody is first time being, because we have so many new players, first time being in the tournament. So we only had two returning players this year.

So that's the situation they're in. But they've handled it well. Like I said, today was good. Yesterday was good before we left as far as aggressiveness. Simulating, added some sets. I think that's something that I could mention, too, as well. Some OBs and some things. And we talked about some adjustments defensively.

Q. You talked about your familiarity with Seton Hall and Kevin. It's been a bit. But when you're doing a fast turnover like this, does that help you at all prepare with this team?

COACH DIXON: It was a dig at my age, I guess, (laughter).

So as far as what Seton Hall -- the game has changed. The game's changed in two years. I'd say the game's changed in 10 years. We're in a whole different environment. They've got transfers. I look at their grad transfers from eight different schools, I think. And it's just some people will still seem a little surprised that there's the number of transfers somebody has, but everybody has it.

And we went through the teams in the tournament. It's just amazing how many teams, how many transfers are -- how old the teams are. That's even more remarkable. I look at our team and we're so young at the same time. So there's different challenges with who can get grad students in, who can get transfers with how many units they can come in. So there's all these different challenges. But they've stayed old.

And obviously as the game, that's changed, how the game has played, too. It seems like there's a push to more scoring and now it's become don't call any fouls and don't call travels. It is defensive first in the Big East, after watching some of their games, in a lot of ways. And it's certainly our conferences become that as well.

Q. Have you faced a rim protector this year like Obiagu? Do you go back to Georgetown or LSU? Has there been one? How does it change the game?

COACH DIXON: I think he's probably the best one at it. He's solely, that's his job. But I recruited him six years ago I think when I was at Pitt. I knew him well. That's the thing that, when you say familiarity, Aiken, I remember recruiting him. Obiagu, we went down to Atlanta to recruit him. So there's a familiarity with a lot of their guys on that.

So I did a home visit with Obiagu. It wouldn't have been a home visit, it was on campus. But I remember saying hello to him. But just he's different. There's no question about it. They split time with Samuel and they'll throw the lefty from South Florida in there that we recruited, too. There's another guy we recruited back in the day. That's when I was at TCU. He's no different. I saw him when he was in high school in that regard.

Q. You mentioned the lack of experience you have with a young team, in the NCAA Tournament specifically. And I feel like from the outside it's one of those things where I can feel comfortable about them, but I don't really know until they're going to handle until tip-off actually comes. What do you need to see once tip-off comes to solidify --

COACH DIXON: They're not going to be scared or lack confidence, I know. That much I'm very sure of. We just played Kansas three times in a row in a week. We've played another No. 1 seed in our league. As I told our guys, what we've seen in our league, no one's done what we've done. We had seven games in, I don't know what it is, 15 days or something it was. Almost all of them were ranked and three were number one teams.

So we've seen what the best you can throw at you. And we just got to handle, as I said, the biggest thing, we've got to handle some mistakes, handle some setbacks. Our turnovers, we've still got to guard. We miss a shot, we've got to guard, get back. Those are the things that I think we've had to address throughout the year and handling adversity.

There will be adversity in this game as there is in every game especially playing at this level. So we've got to handle that I think a little better -- continue to handle it better.

Q. Does Seton Hall remind you of anyone in the Big 12?

COACH DIXON: We've said Texas Tech, speaking of how old they are and their physicality. And they do things slightly differently defensively. They don't have the sole rim protector. But that's the thing, the pure age of the team and physicality too.

They run probably more sets offensively. But it becomes a lot of mid post. We talked about that as a similarity. Posting of guards, other guys, just not their big guy. And Texas is similar like that, too. Their best shooters are their bigs, so they play through the post, through their guards similar to Tech in a little way.

Q. You said they're excited to be here. Do you have to guard against they're just happy to be here?

COACH DIXON: I don't think so. We just lost our last game. I mean, I don't think so. We're here. We thought we were going to have a higher seed, like everybody in the tournament, I'm sure.

But no, I think we're here to advance and take that as a challenge. We know we're playing a good team. We're playing -- I think maybe, some signs it's a little different if you're playing a power-conference team, maybe how teams look at it, and a nonpower-conference team. But certainly we're playing a power-conference team that everybody knows the history of Seton Hall and how good they've been over -- I just met with, I just talked with P.J. Carlesimo. I guess my players don't remember the championship game, but I certainly do.

Q. You and your point guard are on a great journey over the past nine month, including a gold medal. What's it been like and how close are you two?

COACH DIXON: It's fun to see Mike grow. He's come more of a leader, more outspoken, more talkative. He was very quiet initially, recruiting him. But as you said, I mean that was the sole -- they asked me to do USA Basketball -- that was the sole reason -- I shouldn't say that; that's not so. But a big reason why we do USA Basketball is to have an opportunity to be with Mike in the summer and watch him grow, watch him get better.

He's a better player now because of that experience. I thought it was great for TCU to have -- we've never had a guy do that, coach in that obviously. So to be -- and the level of play was so good. And the great players we have but also the great players that the other teams had -- Canada, France; the French team was unbelievable. I mean, no one knows their guys because they're all pros, but they'll all be in high draft picks coming here very shortly.

Yes you see that improvement. I think what enabled us -- Mike, you have to be the leader because you're the only guy that's played for me; you're the point guard; you've got to lead. We saw it coming that summer. He was in a position where I think it better positioned him to lead. And we needed his leadership as a sophomore because, like I said, they have six, seven grad transfers on Seton Hall. We don't have that. We don't have any.

Q. Wanted to ask about one of your former Big East brethren, Mike Brey. Is there anybody in your profession who is quite as loose as he is? Does that sometimes discredit what he's able to do as a coach?

COACH DIXON: I hope not. He's a friend. He's one of my closest friends -- it was interesting watching that game, I know Pikiell real well -- I know Mike. Mike and I spent the whole two years last, really COVID, because of NABC and our situation, so we kind of were involved in the transition. So we were on the phone too much this COVID time.

He was at the beach in Florida. I was in Texas. But yeah, I mean he's a great man. He's won a lot of games. No one can say a bad word about Mike Brey in our business. And he laughs. He has fun. He goes to the beach. He enjoys himself, as you were alluding to. But he's a good man. And most often, like I said, he's certainly, you never hear about any scandal with him.

Q. Big picture here, after COVID and Big 12 Tournament last year, no fans, hardly any fans at the tournament last year, just for your team and basketball as a whole to be able to experience this event with full capacities, what do you think that means for this sport?

COACH DIXON: It's different. We had two years, it wasn't the same thing. You weren't practicing. You weren't with your players. You weren't -- again we were probably hit more than -- I don't know anybody that had five shutdowns or what we did, what we had and all guys we had out. We had a guy that was held out of playing because of COVID, which, I don't know, there weren't many of those.

So no one was hit probably more than us. Again, our campus, the way it is, it's so close-knit. It's open. We don't have online courses. All of a sudden all of our guys are in online courses. I don't know any schools -- there's very few that don't have online courses. There's very few at our level.

And so it was just a completely different world in so many ways. And then five shutdowns. And Eddie put on 20 pounds in COVID on each shutdown, as has been talked about often and written about and documented. So this to me is I think college basketball is back. And I think for a variety of reasons, you're going to see just a different atmosphere, different level of play in this tournament. And I think you saw it this year, too.

I think it's -- because there's nothing like college basketball. And we were hurt more because of the indoor situation than other sports as we know. We had more regulations or restrictions I guess is a better word. And challenges. So I think we're going to see basketball at its best now.

Q. You won your first-round game as a player in '87. You lose the second-round game to Notre Dame by one point. Does that one still bother you? Do games still bother you? Does that one still bother you?

COACH DIXON: Yeah, yeah, probably every loss bothers you. But your last college game probably bothers you a little bit more. But I don't know why you brought it up, but yeah, no, it does. And then obviously we've gotten back to postseason and the NIT, winning the championship.

But our history is not great but we're changing that. And I guess it gets referred to more because we hadn't won many games in the NCAA Tournament. That's something. But as a coach, probably more. As a player I was probably a coach in the making. So it sticks a little longer, yeah, no question. Thanks for bringing that up.