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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: WASHINGTONMarch 16, 2011Gilbert BrownJamie DixonGary McGheeBrad WanamakerWASHINGTON, D.C. MODERATOR: The student-athletes from Pittsburgh that are joining us now are Gilbert Brown, Gary McGhee and Brad Wanamaker. We'll open it up for questions for the student-athletes. Q. This is essentially a team that was here that went through this routine last year. How much does it help to have that NCAA experience, the fact that you're used to the hotel, the flight, the media and so forth? GILBERT BROWN: I think it helps a lot with the veterans on this team, everybody having to go through that experience over the last couple years, I think it plays a lot into us being more mentally focused and ready to go out there and compete in the tournament this year. GARY McGHEE: As Gilbert said, experience definitely helps us going to the Tournament, being through it going through practice, the media and just being ready to take it right on. BRAD WANAMAKER: Continuing on what they said, just being here last year and getting that experience, and going at it with a tough team in this area just gave us a lot of experience with a lot of people returning. So we're ready to play tomorrow and we can't wait. Q. Before the Selection Sunday had you guys had any familiarity, had you ever heard of UNC-Asheville? GARY McGHEE: Definitely. I think over the last couple years we seen them in the NCAA Tournament and they're a regular, winning their conference tournaments, too. So they're a good team and they're a NCAA team almost every year. So e we are familiar with the team and we know what to expect in the game tomorrow. Q. Brad, you have been knocking on the door here the last few years every year consistently. Do you think that you have unachieved as well as you did the last few years? BRAD WANAMAKER: Just being part of a program like Pittsburgh, the main focus is to go out there and win. Last year we think we kind of underachieved and just coming from the Big East Tournament, we know we unachieved there going out in our first game. So we're very focused and motivated to go out and play and we're ready for tomorrow. I think we're very hungry and we're ready to get out there. Q. Gary, UConn is obviously here as well at this same site, I just want to go over that Kemba Walker play at the end of the Big East Tournament, what's your approach there, how difficult is he to defend for a guy your size? GARY WANAMAKER: We're switching everything and he's a very quick player. My strategy right there was to try to keep him in front of me, stay in between him and the basket. He just made a quick move to go left and caught me off balance and pulled back for the shot it was just a great move. Q. Gilbert, what's the level of confidence for the Pitt team right now? GILBERT BROWN: It's very high, actually. With the amount of returning players on this team that have gone through this experience as well as what we achieved during our regular season, I feel that the whole team is confident and believes in one another to just come out here and play great basketball. I look to my right I see two seniors that I got to grow with over four years, and it's really been a great ride. And I feel like everyone has faith in us to lead them to high expectations and high goals. Q. Gilbert, what do you think the expectations are for No. 1 seed? I guess all three of you guys? GILBERT BROWN: It's a bull's eye on your back definitely having the No. 1 seed, also high expectations of you excelling, prevailing through the Tournament. I think we have a chance to do something special this year. I think Coach has stressed that had over the whole season and we really just have come together these last couple weeks, even with the letdown in the Big East Tournament and have been focused and practicing harder. And with that No. 1 seed we have to just stay focused on the task at hand and the first task is UNC-Ashville. So I think if we can take it one game at a time, then we can achieve what that No. 1 seed stands for us. GARY WANAMAKER: Like Gilbert said, definitely comes with some pressure. Bull's eye is on your back, as he said, and I think it just made us come with more confidence and just practice harder just knowing we gotta take it one game at a time and come out conference winners. GARY McGHEE: It comes with a lot of pressure and a bull's-eye on your back but just knowing this group and part of the class with these two guys, I know we're really focused on ready for the job at task and we're ready to take it one game at a time. Q. Did you watch the game last night together as a team, what do you make of Dickey? He's had a lot of great highlights lately and some YouTube sensations there, what do you make of him? GILBERT BROWN: Dickey is a great player. He's an athletic and very confident guard, and he's been playing at a highly level for a while. Last night he put on a little show there at the end and hit a big shot. So we're up to the task of playing a player of his caliber. We're a good defensive team and we strive on being a great defensive team every game. So we're ready to go out and try to handle the competition to the best of our abilities. Q. I guess for Brad, could you tell us how you guys spent the time after the early exit from the Big East? And is there any sense in which there might be a silver lining in that that you had extra time to rest and regroup for this? BRAD WANAMAKER: Well, departing our early exit from the Big East we got together and watched the game as a team. After we lost to UConn we got together and watched the game as a team, and the last seven minutes of the game we weren't playing Pitt basketball. We got out-toughed, outrebounded and we turned the ball over. So just picking up stuff we learned from that game motivated us and the next day we got in the gym early and after practice improving our game, and I think we got a hungry chip on our backs again and we're ready to compete. Q. What do you make of Ashton's guarantee? GILBERT BROWN: That just shows the level of confidence that he has in his team and his teammates. I think he feels that we're great team when we're capable of doing a lot of great things and it starts with this first game here against UNC-Ashville. It's good for a player to have that confidence in his teammates because it just helps boost their motivation and confidence to go into these games and play hard? MODERATOR: Other questions for the Pittsburgh student-athletes? All right, guys, you're all set. Thank you. Good luck. Coach Dixon, if you could make an opening statement about your thoughts heading into the NCAA Tournament. COACH JAMIE DIXON: We're getting ready for Ashville. Obviously a little different for us, waiting for the last night to figure out who we're playing. But watched the game and tape again today and went through scouting report immediately after the game last night. So did the film clips, immediately after we saw that Ashville beat Little Rock in overtime. So realize how good their guards, realize that's where they get their scoring from, and we're going to have to contain both of them, keep them in front of us and contest the threes. So know they're a good team and know that they're playing very good basketball right now and looking forward to the opportunity to play tomorrow. MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Dixon? Q. Coach, your kids did a real good job talking about one game at a time and all that, but when you have the No. 1 seed and you're the coach, it can be a little worrying that at the beginning of the game these kids don't take it not seriously but anything that you can do there? COACH JAMIE DIXON: You know, I think we've done it. We've been in this position before. We've been a No. 1 seed two years ago with a little bit -- obviously a lot of different players but some of these guys were on the team. But I think maybe watching them play last night and watching the excitement for them and their getting the win, I think that resonated pretty good with our guys, but we've got we've always been that way. I think it's something that's been part of our success, focusing on our conference. There's so many tough opponents and so many big games and sometimes games get talked about a week or two down the road. We've really got to be consistent and to be at the top of the league, which we've been, you need to -- you just have to focus on that next game. So I think it's something that's been engrained in our program and it shouldn't stop now. Q. Brad was saying how he felt perhaps the team underachieved last year a little bit and as successful as you guys have been and usually the first round, second round, third round have been trickier for you guys, what would you consider to be successful for Pitt's run this year? What do you want to accomplish to perhaps gets over that hump? COACH JAMIE DIXON: I think really we just focus on the next game and that's what we do. You take it one step at a time. I don't think we can look at winning the next one. But it's interesting, I think with whatever you do, the expectations are raised, and I think last year's team was picked at the bottom of the conference, yet we finished higher and then we went into the -- we weren't picked to go to the NCAA Tournament. You use the word "underachieve," I don't know if that would be -- but as you win, then it gets put up and we're used to that and we've seen that and we're wouldn't want it any other way. So I think we're at a point where we'll never be satisfied. So I think that's probably something with the type of kids we recruit and probably something that's engrained from our program our athletic department and our university. We want to be the best that we can be in whatever academic area that is or whatever sport that may be. So I think once you reach a certain level, satisfiedness should not every come into the equation. Q. Looking at the 1 versus 16 match-up a team from Western Carolina came as close as anybody when they played Purdue back in 1995. I was wondering if you had any recollection of that game or the Georgetown-Princeton game for that matter? COACH JAMIE DIXON: Not too much. I mean, nothing that I can really point to or be specific about. But we've been in this situation before, and we understand that every team in the Tournament is a good team and they've played well at the end of the year and they've -- they're used to winning and they expect to win the national championship. I think that's something that you can expect all 68 teams now, that they all believe every kid on these teams to get to this level has to have a high level of confidence. And I believe every team here and every player here in this tournament believes that they can win the national championship and that's why they're where they're at. Q. Fairly or unfairly, the criticism of your team is always going to be what you do in the regular citizen versus what happens in the post season and not making it to the Final Four. Is that a fair evaluation of what your program is about? COACH JAMIE DIXON: I don't think one takes away from the other one. You do the best you can every single night out, and I think I venture to say that a team that's gotten to the Final Four is still getting criticism. I may be wrong, but I don't think you're off the list at that point. Or if you won a national championship. I think I've heard a few coaches this year that were criticized and they'd won a national championship before, and I think the list is long. So it's going back to what I said earlier. Being satisfied is probably not -- it's not allowed in college athletics, and I don't mean that in a bad way. It's just to be good and to be good year after year, you can't be satisfied, and you have to look at the next challenge ahead. So that's exactly where we are and what we do. A lot of teams have wished that they could be where we are and -- but we're hungry and we want to play well tomorrow. Q. Mick Cronin was talking a few minutes ago about the toughness of the Big East, how that has prepared teams, from a Connecticut standpoint, I know it's a painful memory but can you talk about them winning five games in five days, something that's never been done. COACH JAMIE DIXON: We got asked the question all the time when we won four in a row and won the Big East Tournament. I think when they put it together and they talked about going to playing four games and no one would ever do it, win four games, and then when they made the tournament there would be teams playing five or would have to win five and no one would ever do it and somebody did it. So I think it's something that people said couldn't be done, but when you look at it, they were a ninth seed in an 11-bid league. I don't think anybody predicted that, so that's what came with it. You had to have a 11-bid league to have a team like Connecticut as a ninth seed that's probably the most amazing thing. That has to be factored in as well but obviously they played well, won close games and they were a great team beforehand and they are a great team afterward. And I venture to say that he was one of the coaches with national championships that was criticized a little during the year, too. So I guess as I just saw him out front here and we were talking and as I congratulated him again, but you know, it's part of it. But amazing. We did it a couple years ago with four wins, and no one said that could be done and then the five wins, no one said that could be done. But, yeah, you have to have a good team to start with, you have to have a great league to put a team in that situation. Q. Could you talk about Talib's injury, what you said to him, how disappointed you are, do you think he'll be ready for the Sweet 16, if you get there? Just talk but how that impacted the team. COACH JAMIE DIXON: Obviously I feel for Talib and he's getting better, and you can see him feeling better now at least. With the surgery and with the pain and there's a lot of swelling. The swelling stayed a little longer than we anticipated or hoped. So now I can see the last couple days where on the bike, he's getting some conditioning done but obviously can't do anything with the hand. The plan is Monday that he would -- we'd look at it again and possibly take the pins out and he'd be able to do some things at that point. So it's been tough for him, but it's part of the game and these things happen, and we've got to have other guys take up his minutes and give us a rebounding and defense that he was giving us. But he feels better now. I know he was down for a while but I feel like last week or so he sees the pain is down the swelling is down and I think he sees there's -- it's coming to a end at least. Q. Coach, do you have any relationship at all, do you know Coach Biedenbach? He's a Pittsburgh native so I'm sure this is going to be a fun game for him. COACH JAMIE DIXON: Yeah, actually we walked into the room there for the coaches' pretournament meeting and he walked in and he was on the phone, and he threw me on the phone with the radio guys -- what's the radio show out there? What's the nickname? Q. The Wise Guys? COACH JAMIE DIXON: The Wise Guys. So he put me on the phone there and I gave them a little run down on his history and his accolades and his back in Pittsburgh at Edgewood High School and I had known that. I'd met him on the road years ago and anybody from Pittsburgh, there's just an affinity, a love for where they came, for their hometown and there's a lot of coaches from Pittsburgh that have gone on coaching other areas and they just always reach out to you, especially to me coming from the West Coast, now been there 12 years, but he was one of them. And we've been friends ever since. I'm so glad that he's gotten to the NCAA Tournament and I'm proud for Pittsburgh and for him because he's always -- always spoke so fondly of Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh spoke so fondly of him. He's a famous athlete that had a great career in both football and basketball that I was well aware of and we were talking about it on radio back home in Pittsburgh when we were doing some shows there. So I wasn't around for then, but I heard he's quite a player and he's obviously done great in his playing career and coaching career. Q. Does the conversation ever come up with you and the players about a 16 having ever beaten a 1? COACH JAMIE DIXON: No, hadn't talked about that. I think that's probably the media's job to bring that up and resurrect that, but I guess we're used to it from last time. Two years ago we were No. 1 seed as well. So it comes up. We know they're good. I think it's a different -- I think teams have gotten better and better and I think that the gap has closed year after year. But they're very good and we know that and we got a chance to see that on last night's game. MODERATOR: Thanks, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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