265 Quotes by Jamie Dixon

It's amazing. Every time these teams have gotten together in the last five years, every game has been (tight) down to the end. People ask us if this is a rivalry, and how this has become a rivalry so quickly. It's not very common for a rivalry to come upon this quickly. Every game has a lot of riding on it. Every game has been a battle.

We've always played three guards in certain instances over the years. A number of programs do that. Oftentimes, your smaller players are your better players. Last year, our bigger guys were our better players.

It was a good game that came down to a couple of plays at the end. We came up a little short. It wasn't for a lack of intensity.

We want to help all our guys in any way we can, if they want to further their careers, but our focus is on our guys and getting ready for (first-round opponent) Louisville. People are smart enough to know when the right time is to talk about other schools. Every situation is different, so to give a blanket statement wouldn't be the right thing to do.

We're going to play our same style. We're going to play to our strengths. We're not going to change. We're going to defend. We're going to take good shots. We're going to move the ball around. We're going to do the things we've been doing all season.

We battled. Our defense was the best it's been. That's really been our emphasis.

I've had that first-test question about eight different times. It seems like it's not a test once you win the game in some people's eyes. Wisconsin's number three in the RPI, so I guess we have to get the one and two teams in the RPI to get a test in some peoples' eyes.

What he's doing best this year is keeping the ball up around the basket. He's running better. He's jumping better. He's chasing down shots a lot better than he ever had. But it's not like all of a sudden this summer he decided to work on these things. He's been constantly improving.

We came back and played better in the second half. But we just didn't execute as well as we needed to. They were aggressive and that had something to do with it. But it was not a surprise. It was exactly what we thought.