Indiana vs. Northwestern - Postgame Quotes
1/18/2014 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 18, 2014
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Indiana Head Coach Tom Crean
Last week after the Michigan State game, we met a long time as coaches late that night after I went to watch my son play, and made some adjustments, talked about a lot of different things, and moved a couple people around, but we just kept saying that we've got to get this team to have a real confidence in how good they can be, and we circled the wagons on it and they did a great job from circling the wagons. I think that's why we got the Penn State win; I think it's why we got the Wisconsin win.
We have a long way to go on having what real confidence really means, and instead of circling the wagons the last couple days, I think we started to see ourselves as the face of the wagon individually, and it's exactly what I told the team, exactly what I told the team.
They earned it. There's no question Northwestern earned it, but the complacency that we played with today and the sense of settling on offense and not we knew there were going to be multiple defensive changes that could come today, whether it be zone, whether it be saggy man. That's not the first time Alex Olah has sat in the paint, and give them credit; they did a fantastic job, but we participated in it. We participated in it by settling, by not reversing the ball enough, by you can't where we have so far so go is you can't be driven by your offense in the sense of if your offense is not there, it affects every other part of your game, and that happened too much, and it happened with our oldest guys. It happened with I'm not going to use the term leader, because I don't think we appeared like there was a leader today. But with guys that get the bulk of the attention, the shots and things like that. We were ineffective on the defensive end.
We have a long way to go, and I can't just put it on youth because obviously some of the younger guys didn't play up to their capabilities, and we saw that coming. I saw that coming. I saw it yesterday.
We didn't have some of the older guys playing as well. As a team we did not have the hunger that you need to play with on a daily basis be where it needed to be. Northwestern did. We knew they were close, and I don't think it was a matter of overlooking Northwestern at all. I don't think that. Please, you can write it, but I don't see that at all. I don't think it would have mattered who we played coming off the win the other day. We weren't mature enough to handle a great win and come in here and play the way that we needed to play, and it started yesterday.
I'm disappointed in that. And if it was legal to practice at midnight, we would. It's not, so we'll start when it's legal, tomorrow morning. But we're not going to sit back and look at any part of this as being acceptable and the way that we played. I'm not trying to take any credit away from Northwestern because they earned it and Drew Crawford found his match up and he absolutely popped us. We knew they were well coached. We knew they had an outstanding team, and all of a sudden we started thinking instead of having that hungry circle the wagons spirit, we got away from that a little bit.
What did you see yesterday that sort of bothered you?
Lack of focus. Inconsistencies. Just it's part of it. It's not the first time, it won't be the last time, but it was there, and it was addressed, and it was addressed frequently, and it was addressed last night. We tried to shake it out of it this morning, and it just didn't fall that way. It didn't fall that way.
You know, that's why you get a chance to change lineups. That's why you get a chance to change who plays where. You know, times like this, I'm glad I did play so many guys in the preseason because at least it's not the first time that they get in there. But the guys that are in the games are the guys that are earning it in practice, and unfortunately we don't have an abundance of earning it throughout the game once we're in the game. We did a few days ago, and I don't want to get away from that at all; I'm just being as completely forthright and honest with you as possible. We didn't mentally prepare the way we needed to prepare. The distractions of winning a big game caught us.
How upset are you that they just don't seem to be getting it?
Well, I do think perspective would say there's a lot of people that have never been in this situation before. Remember, guys we're asked to lead the team, they didn't have to do that. Victor Oladipo did that, Jordan Hulls did that, Christian Watford did that, Cody Zeller did that. They didn't have to do that. They were there, okay.
So really I don't get frustrated. I really don't. And I try to understand more than ever that you coach potential during practice, you coach performance during the game, and you try to give your team every possible chance to win, whether people understand it or not. You're trying to get your team and I'm with this team every day so I have an idea what it looks like. And frustration, no; upset, banging my head against the wall, no; getting ready to go fight again and do it again, yes. That's the only way that it can be.
You were down four with 30 seconds left. What happened there?
Terrible shot. There's no question about it. You can't take a jump shot there, and that's that did not make sense. Our whole thing was to attack the rim. Our whole thing was not to take a step back three in that situation with anybody, and we practiced this numerous times. In fact, we covered it again in film study yesterday and today. We had a power spread call on, get a screen in the middle of the floor, let's get it reversed and move and let's play and get it swung, and get the ball, attack, and if we had a wide open shot that ends up being a three, great. But the whole thing is about getting the court spread with a screen in the middle and four perimeter players, and you don't take a step back three there. That might have caused a little frustration, but you've never been in those situations, either now, but there's no excuse for that.
Tied at 40 40 and Demps scored seven straight points; what happened?
What happened at that point is when guys aren't making shots offensively it affects the defense, and it was not a good enough screen for us to be getting hung on that pick. We called a time out to switch and we still got scored on.
That's where chest in front, stay in front of your man. If you trap you're in rotation in that situation. We had the right defenders in it as far as going into the game. Probably didn't have the right defenders on the way the game was being played out, but it's hard to take Yogi and Will out of those situations.
We didn't keep our chest in front on it, and we're going to have to continue to look and make adjustments. Again, that's a situation where Noah is in the game at the end of the game. I'd like to be able to switch that. Took him out the other night, we gave up a three point play.
We're a work in progress on how we finish those things off. Again, they had too many shooters on the court to say, okay, let's zone that and give them that opportunity. There's no excuse for not keeping the dribble in front of us there.
And one of those shots was a really tough shot. But the other ones were more straight line. When you're getting beat on a straight line, that's the defense more than the offense.
How can you kind of accelerate the understanding of the players?
I don't know. If I had that answer we'd have won the game. We've just got to get back to work at it. That's not a cliché, that's the truth. Believe me, we tried to do a lot of different things to win the game. You were there. It just didn't- we had (inaudible) run time, so you know what, we'll do it again. We'll do it again. There's a way to win, there's a way to lose. Today we showed how to lose. The other night we showed how to win.
It sounds a little more simple than it is, but you've got to have we've got to have much better play out of our players on both ends of the court, much better.
We'll work to get it, and I'm confident we will, because we've had it.
What could you have done when they were clogging the paint? What makes them so good at it and where would you like to see your guys adjust?
Oh, get it reversed two times more instead of trying to come down the middle. I mean, we had-we didn't use the corners, okay, and every time out it was running sets and four weave dive and all these different things they were trying to do to keep the ball in movement. You've just got to get it moved. They're clogging the lane; well, that's where your back cuts come in. You've got to make them move.
We settled too much, and they took advantage early of Noah being in that trail spot and being (inaudible) but then Noah wasn't rebounding, and Noah has got to rebound the ball.
Our rebounding was-it's easy to look at the way we lost this game on offense. We didn't shoot well, we took too many quick shots. They were only shooting 27 percent in the first half. It was not a great offensive display from either team in the first half. We didn't rebound it well enough. Think about the rebounds that stood out: Austin Etherington's off the foul line, things like that. We didn't rebound the ball well enough. We were working on block outs this morning. I never work on that on game day. Today we did because I saw it as a problem, but it didn't carry over.
How is Noah developing?
I think he's getting better. I think you see it in the fact that shooting the ball, he's playing in a lot of crucial situations. He's very good around the bucket. I think he's developing just fine. I think he's developing in a lot of ways. Some days we have to remember that he's a young 18 year old, and other days we look at him like he's been around for 17, 18 games in college. But the bottom line is he's in his first year. He's got a lot to learn. The good news is he wants to learn.
Indiana Players
Offensively you guys struggled; why do you think that was?
Yogi Ferrell: I think it was a little combination of both. I know I can remember Evan had a lot of open shots off driving kicks, just didn't happen to fall. Some jump shots, I think we did force them. I know I did personally. So it was pretty much a combination of both, really.
Will, talk about hurting your ankle. How much of a concern was it when you went down?
Will Sheehey: Yeah, I'm going to be all right. Just got bad ankles, rolled it once before. It's just going to be sore.
Yogi, what made it hard to drive on Northwestern?
Yogi Ferrell: Yeah, they pretty much just packed the paint, really. They do something that we kind of worked on before. They kind of corral basically guarding the ball and then another man coming over and basically just keeping it in front. It was kind of hard to get to the rim and attack.
Will, how disappointing is this after the win over Wisconsin?
Will Sheehey: I mean, we come out to play every game in a different mindset. We don't really try to think about previous games when we play next. It was disappointing. Obviously we want to come out and win every game. We obviously didn't, starting with me, didn't play our best game tonight, and it showed.
It seemed like you guys struggled to maintain momentum throughout the game. What was happening or what were they doing to stop some of that?
Evan Gordon: Basically they controlled the tempo of the game offensively and defensively. They clogged the middle offensively on us, and they hit some big shots down the stretch when we had it pretty close. They just kind of dictated the tempo of the game.
Down the stretch it seemed like Demps was able to get loose a couple times and get a couple shots. What did they do to get him open?
Yogi Ferrell: Basically just setting high ball screens and he was just coming off and pulling, really. He hit some tough shots on us.
When things were going bad down the stretch, what were you guys trying to do? What did you need to do?
Yogi Ferrell: Needed to move the ball, swing it, get reversals really and drive off of that. You know, get open shots. We wanted to get Noah the ball. I feel like we did. They were going double in on him, and he would kick out, but we just wanted to kind of play at a fast pace.
What was Northwestern doing to make it hard to get to the basket?
STAN ROBINSON: Just a lack of ball reversal. We didn't move the ball like we did against Wisconsin. You know, it kind of closed up a lot of lanes, stopped me and other people from being able to drive it.
How disappointing is this game in general after what you guys did on Tuesday?
STAN ROBINSON: It's a very big disappointment because, I mean, just to get it moving, we actually took a step back now, and so we have to take a couple steps forward just to catch up to where we were.
What made it hard to get to the rim?
Noah Vonleh: They had Olah in the middle. He's a pretty big dude, so whenever Yogi drove he'd have his hands straight up, and it was tough to score over him. He's a seven footer. They were just closing the gaps, making it tough to get passes. That was about it.
Noah, I know you guys are disappointed with the loss but you only had the nine turnovers. How has that improvement come along?
Noah Vonleh: We just keep working on not turning the ball over in practice. When guys turn the ball over, you have to get on the wall for the number of turnovers you have, that's how long you stay on the wall, and I think it's really starting to guys are really starting to pick that up and be more careful with the ball.
Stan, defensively the game is tied, I think, 40 40, what did you not do defensively down the stretch?
STAN ROBINSON: I think our communication. I think we got quiet. Our communication dropped. I feel like we could have picked it up. I mean, basically we were moving, holding ours, but our communication was very poor today.
Did you feel like you guys didn't come out with enough intensity as far as carryover from the last game? What do you attribute the slow start to?
STAN ROBINSON: I just think we came out and just played. I don't think we thought the game today. Just thinking I guess we thought the same things that were in the Wisconsin game was going to be there in the Northwestern game today. I mean, they were, but it just didn't happen as early. We tried to force it instead of just letting it happen.
Noah, especially in the second half it seemed like there was more emphasis on getting you the ball.
Noah Vonleh: Yeah, Coach brought it up. He told the guards to get the ball inside because they always send guys if I can't score, I'll be able to kick it out, and I kicked it out to Yogi at the top a couple times. We just didn't convert.
Northwestern Head Coach Chris Collins
Opening Statement
"Obviously a great day for us. We have kind of found ourselves, our identity. I think it takes time to figure out your identity. I'm sure I've made a lot of mistakes along the way. But coming back from Iowa City after our third straight big loss, we got together as a group, and said `if we're going to make something out of this year, we have got to become a blue-collar, hard-nosed, scrappy basketball team that fights on every possession.' It's about the guys. I am looking out on the court and seeing guys in purple jerseys diving, sprinting, cutting guys off, crashing the boards and it just makes me so proud that that is my team doing that. Trey Demps was tremendous down the stretch. We stuck with him. He had a couple of looks early in the game that he didn't knock down and he carried us down the stretch. We did a much better job against the pressure. We didn't do a very good job against the pressure against Illinois. We didn't turn the ball over. We had our poise. We didn't make all our free-throws but we made a good amount, and we got the stops we needed to down the stretch to win. Great win for us. You've gotta move on. We can't celebrate too much. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Coach Crean. I've known him and his family for a long, long time and it's an honor for one of my teams to come into Assembly Hall and play a game. To have a team come in here and play in Assembly Hall, one of the great venues in college basketball, it means a lot to me. It was an exciting day."
Can you talk about Alex Olah's defense on Noah Vonleh?
"I think Alex has done a good job, starting with the Illinois game. We give a lot of credit to Coach (Brian) James, he works a lot with Alex. We've tried to put him in a position with the coverages where he do the things he is capable of. Where he can be big back there and command our defense and make it hard for people to score at the basket. I thought they really tried to go at him the whole game. Noah Vonleh is going to be a lottery pick, if not this year then at some point. And for Alex hold him to 5-of-15 on shooting, it's not easy to do against a kid that talented. I know Alex would like to have some of those shots around the basket back. What I like is that he is playing very confident. I've said this all along. Big guys take time. He's just starting his sophomore year. He is a young guy. He got knocked around last year. It's taken some time for him to get his confidence and figure out how he can be successful with the skill set he has. I'm really proud of the way he is playing."
Talk about giving Trey (Demps) confidence when you stayed with him throughout the game.
"If you get too many voices in your head about your shot, you got no chance. I equate it to guys who play golf. If you're thinking about eight million things during your swing, you have no chance to hit a good shot. A shot has got to be instinctive. You have got to trust your shot. Trust the work you put in. Get good shot preparation. Make sure you're on balance. Trey was getting good shots in the first half. I kept telling him `You're getting great shots, you're getting great shots.' We need Trey to score. We scored 54 for points today, we scored 40 some points the last few games. Points are hard to come by for us. We need Trey to be a double figure scorer for us."
Talk about holding Indiana to a poor offensive first half.
"Well I think we played really hard, there's no question. But they missed some shots they normally hit. Yogi had some shots were on nights like against Illinois he scores 30 something points and against Wisconsin he goes nuts at the end. They were the same shots. There were some of their other guys, whether it be Evan Gordon or Sheehey before he got hurt, I thought we played sound defense. We didn't give them easy baskets. That's our whole thing. We try to take away layups from a team, whether it be in transition or in the half court. We try to make them make contested jump shots. Some nights they are going to make them, and if they do we have to tip our cap. Today we were fortunate. Indiana didn't make their shots."
