Everything Tre Johnson, Kadin Shedrick said ahead of the NCAA Tournament

Texas guard Tre Johnson and forward Kadin Shedrick were available to the media in Dayton, Ohio ahead of the Longhorns’ First Four matchup with Xavier in the NCAA Tournament. Here’s everything they had to say.

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Q. Kadin, we’ll start with you and your excitement at seeing Texas’s name Sunday night?

KADIN SHEDRICK: Yeah, it was definitely a long 48 hours after we lost on Friday to Tennessee. There were a lot of questions not only in our locker room but across the country about whether we would make it. When we saw our name come up on the screen, we were thrilled for the opportunity to be able to come to Dayton and compete another day.

Q. Tre, your excitement being in March Madness?

TRE JOHNSON: Yeah, it was for sure a long week, just thinking about it over and over, lots of prayers. But when we saw our names pop up there, everybody was excited. I was just grateful overall to have the opportunity. And most guys don’t get to say in my position that they was able to play in the tournament, and with this group just means a lot for us to make it for sure.

Q. Does Xavier remind you of anybody that you’ve played? Do you think they have a resemblance to anybody you’ve played this year?

TRE JOHNSON: Just watching them, they remind us a little bit of Vanderbilt. Their style of defense, their up-tempo, their speed up and down the court. Just their size, how their players are all interchangeable and stuff like that. It kind of reminds us a lot of Vanderbilt.

KADIN SHEDRICK: I think their offense kind of relates to Kentucky a little bit. They like to do a lot of the zoom dribble handoffs that Kentucky likes to do. And then as Tre said, Vanderbilt for sure definitely defensively.

We’re excited for the opportunity to play them.

Q. The fact that 14 SEC schools have made it to the tournament so far, what are your initial thoughts, and how do you feel about that?

KADIN SHEDRICK: 14 SEC teams making the tournament is definitely historical. Think it goes to show the depth of the league this year. And it was challenging night in and night out.

I think that definitely prepared us for this opportunity we have in front of us. It will be nice to play a school from a different conference now and get a different look than what we’ve been going through the last few months.

TRE JOHNSON: Just shows how good the conference is or can be, I would say. Having all those teams make it, it’ll kind of be good and see how good teams and how far they get throughout the tournament, to see how good the league is against other schools from different conferences.

Q. Now that you guys are in, do you feel like you have kind of a new lease on life? Because the Texas team we’ve been seeing the last couple of games hasn’t been — you’ve had a lot of guys hurt. You’re complete now. Do you feel like it’s a new team?

TRE JOHNSON: I don’t feel like it’s a new team. I would say we were kind of playing the same way or just having to step up in our roles when guys went down. We still had the same confidence of winning games and stuff like that.

But I feel like it’s a breath of fresh air because of having everybody back, knowing we’re at full strength and there’s no excuses, just going out and playing as hard as we can with our new depth back.

KADIN SHEDRICK: Yeah, I’d agree with Tre. I think it’s great to have everybody back and healthy. I think we kind of showed flashes of what we can do when everybody is feeling really good these last few games, and hopefully we have some more games down the road to be able to build on that.

Q. Tre, you’ve had a phenomenal freshman season. What’s enabled you to have so much success early on in your career?

TRE JOHNSON: I would say just the faith from the coaching staff and then just the players on my team to have the faith in me to just help put me in certain spots because I wouldn’t be doing half the things I’m doing without my teammates.

I feel like I also do things on my own just with my work ethic and working out and stuff like that, but back on to my teammates and the faith that they have in me just to pass me the ball and stuff like that, because I’m a freshman playing with a lot of older guys, and them having faith to pass me the ball and stuff like that, it just means a lot.

Q. Tre, someone said you had a phenomenal season as a freshman but you also have a high draft stock. What are your thoughts about entering the draft or staying with a team like the Texas Longhorns?

TRE JOHNSON: I haven’t thought about nothing like that. My thoughts have been recently making the tournament, getting in. Now it’s just been focused all on Xavier. I’m just taking it one step at a time and trying to enjoy all the moments I can with my teammates.

Q. Kadin, when is Texas at their best?

KADIN SHEDRICK: I think Texas is at their best when all the guys on the court are really locked in on defense and playing active, and then our offense when we’re sharing the ball, setting good screens for each other and just playing good team basketball. I think we did that the last few games.

Q. Tre, what’s the best quality of this basketball team?

TRE JOHNSON: Best quality of the team I would say is our speed and size. We have a lot of taller guys, but we’re still mobile and active all throughout the roster.

Q. Tre, when you go through a shooting slump during a game, how do you balance that with everybody knows you’re a very unselfish player, but everybody knows how you can score and how you can get hot in a hurry. How do you balance that with, well, I don’t feel like I’ve got it today, but the coaches and teammates say, no, no, you’ve got to keep shooting?

TRE JOHNSON: Even when I know I’m not on, I still got to keep shooting open shots if I get the opportunity. I can’t pass anything down.

But still just being aggressive on offense while also doing something in other categories like maybe getting more rebounds than I usually do, more assists, be more of a facilitator because every time I get the ball, people are going to look, people are going to load. So even if I’m having an off-night, still getting other teammates involved or helping our rebounds, doing other things on the court besides just scoring.

Q. Tre, do you have a favorite March Madness moment growing up?

TRE JOHNSON: I would say when I saw Villanova and Kris Jenkins hit the shot at the top of the key or Arike’s two back-to-back game winners. Those are probably the two best memories I can think of.

KADIN SHEDRICK: Favorite March Madness moment was probably just playing in it. It’s special. It’s like nothing else. It’s what we all dream of growing up, and having played it a couple times now, I’ll always cherish these moments. I’m really excited for guys like Tre on our team and the other guys that haven’t been able to experience the tournament to finally be able to feel the magic of it.

Q. Kadin, are there moments throughout this year for what Tre has been able to do and sort of stepping on the stage as a freshman in that conference where you’re even a little surprised at his success?

KADIN SHEDRICK: No, I wasn’t surprised at all. I knew who Trey was coming in. I saw how hard he works the whole off-season, and I knew what he was capable of. He’s one of the most confident players I’ve ever been around. He has a lot of good things going for him off the basketball court that help set him up for success on the basketball court.

Q. Watching the video of you guys when the announcement came down, no one was more excited than Rodney about you guys getting in. How much are you guys talking about how you want to get this done for him?

KADIN SHEDRICK: Yeah, we all want to do it for each other. We definitely want to do it for other coaches and we want to do it for the guys in the locker room, as well.

We like to say, if one of us — everybody eats is how we want to try and play. So if we’re doing well, then the coaches are going to do well; and if the coaches are going to do well, we’re going to do well. That’s just how we see it. We want to get it done for the guy next to us, and that’s how we’re going about it.

TRE JOHNSON: I feel like what Kadin said. Before we start trying to play for the coaches or anything like that, we’re first playing for our teammates, the same guys going through the same struggles with us every day in practice. I just feel like us doing it for our teammates, it will lay over for Coach because we all care about one another and we’re going to try to do the best for each other.

Q. (Question regarding shooting free throws and technicals.)

KADIN SHEDRICK: Yeah, they all asked me how I do it. I said, it’s just work. We’ve got to get around to talking about technical free throws. I might have to start taking them for Tre if he gets me. Now that I got to my thousand-point mark, I might let him keep taking them. It was definitely a cool moment to get back to shooting free throws well, and hopefully I’m able to continue that the next few days.

I didn’t change anything. I know I’ve been a pretty decent free-throw shooter my entire college career, and this has been a down year for me, and it was going to come back at some point.

Q. You played in a number of close games that have been decided within five to ten points. Do you think having that experience in competitive games helps you going into this tournament?

KADIN SHEDRICK: Yeah, that 100 hundred percent helps you go into the tournament. When it gets down to the last four minutes and it’s a really close game, it’s about who knows how to win those games, or even if it goes to overtime, I think we’ve been lucky enough to — I think we’ve played in three overtime games this year, and we won two of them.

I think those are really good experiences for us, as well, leading into March because things can get really stressful in those moments, but now that we’ve been in them already, I think that experience will help push us through to the finish line.

TRE JOHNSON: I feel like they have helped us out, especially having a lot of close games earlier into the conference. Just teaching us how to cherish possessions those last final four or three minutes and also just keeping us how to win games, and to come together, be more connected on defense in crunch moments like that. I feel like it has prepared us for the tournament.

Q. Tre and Kadin, just asking what’s your favorite pregame song before going into a game.

TRE JOHNSON: “Peace of Mind” by Lauryn Hill.

KADIN SHEDRICK: I don’t even have a pregame song I’ve been listening to. I kind of just bounce around. I’ll go on like an artist’s essentials. So recently I’ve been doing Gunna essentials and just clicking shuffle. I like to listen to what the young guys listen to. They like to listen to rappers I’ve never heard of before. That kind of gets me going a little bit. No, I just listen to whoever I can find.

Q. Tre, with the accomplishments for you this year, do you feel like you’re one of the leaders on the team?

TRE JOHNSON: I’d say Kadin is more of the main leader on the team. I wouldn’t say I’m a leader. I’d just say that I just hold my teammates accountable the same way they hold me accountable. If I’m leading by any way, it’s more by example than by me talking about it.

Q. Kadin, going back to the music and you being an old guy, which is shocking to me, what is the biggest difference in sort of this duo up here on the stage, you as a graduate to Tre as a freshman?

KADIN SHEDRICK: Like what’s the difference between us?

Q. Yeah, amongst being the older guy in the room and trying to have that connection when you’ve got quite the age gap.

KADIN SHEDRICK: Yeah, it’s definitely — actually it hasn’t been too — it’s been pretty easy. Tre is an easy guy to get along with. We’re roommates so we spend a lot of time together. They’ve paired us up as partners a lot even in preseason. We played a pickleball tournament with the team and Tre and I were partners, and we won of course.

It’s easy. They set us up pretty well for us two to get really connected. And then I have a lot of older guys on the team that are easy to get along with. But I think Tre and I have built a pretty good relationship, and I think that the coaches really helped us out there.

Q. Tre, do you give him a hard time for being an old guy?

TRE JOHNSON: Sometimes I do. At times he shows his age and I’ve got to remind him. But no, he’s young at spirit. He’s just got an old age beside his name.

Q. As a guy who’s much, much older, how does he show his age?

KADIN SHEDRICK: Much, much older is crazy.

TRE JOHNSON: It just be certain things out of nowhere. It’s nothing I can be specific about, but it’s not all the time. I’ve just got to remind him when he do.

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Q. Tre, from a college basketball perspective, what have you enjoyed most about this year, just playing college hoops?

TRE JOHNSON: Just the memories that I made with the team. That’s probably been the best thing, just hanging out with my teammates, just different memories. That’s probably the best thing for sure, outside of basketball. It’s probably been the best thing. Just the memories that I made with my teammates.

Q. Following that up, what’s been the biggest challenge?

TRE JOHNSON: How hard you’ve really got to play to win. I feel like I didn’t know how hard you’ve got to play to win the college game when I first got here, and then being in some of those close games just made me realize that you really can’t take no plays off or anything like that. You’ve got to play very hard just to win one game.