Indiana University Athletics
Postgame Quotes - Indiana vs. Georgetown
12/27/2014 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
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Head Coach Tom Crean |
I think when we doubled correctly, we turned him over some and you just can't let him get to his strengths. Obviously he's got a lot of strength and he's very left shoulder-centered with what he does to get to his right hand and we let him have too much space and they did a good job early kicking it back out on our cuts or when we would go to post double. But, we have to have a couple different things and when you go down there, tie him up and get him on the dribble, you have a better chance to get a stop with him but they also made shots so they did a very good job of utilizing him and at the same time running their offense. But, if you let him get to his left shoulder and turn the left side of his body because of his right hand, he's very much a one-handed player. But, getting to that left shoulder, he's unbelievably hard to guard. We're pushing 300 pounds I think and it's very hard to root him out. We didn't do a great job staying into his body, to his lower body when we were trying to front him.
On Hanner Mosquera-Perea's play...
He rushed a little bit, he's becoming more of a - I don't want to call him a defensive captain - but he's got to have more of a presence for us. He had a hard task obviously with what he's trying to do defensively but the backline of our defense got quiet and it got quiet in the guts of the game, which is really somewhere around that 6,7,8-minute mark of the second half when momentum is really up for grabs. A couple time he tried to score too quickly without going over the top and he played a little too fast with that. He did some good things, but he never had the presence that we need from him in the game throughout the 40 minutes we would have needed.
On what playing a game at Madison Square Garden does for Indiana...
First off we were honored to be asked and Joel Fisher, who is the president of the Garden, had called to see if we'd be interested -- he had a couple different options on teams -- Georgetown was the one that chose it.
I think any time you've got a chance to come into this environment... let me give you best example: Jim Calhoun and Seth Greenberg were at our practice yesterday. I asked them to speak to our team. Jim Calhoun knew exactly how many games he had coached in the Garden. He's now coached 82 times in the Garden. That's one of the great coaches of all time -- in my book, he's as good as it gets. He's coached everywhere, won National Championships, when you're in a place like this, you know it. I think that puts it into perspective.
We have guys who may never get to play in here again. It's a great thing. The east coast is obviously huge part for Indiana when it comes to alums. The New York Metropolitan area is second to Chicago area, when you remove the state of Indiana. We have the third largest alumni base in the country. It's an honor to be here and it gives a chance for our east coast kids to spend some time with the family.
On having Troy Williams play at center...
Collin Hartman was in, too. Collin does a good job from the post. If you remember Josh Smith's third foul in the first half, Collin was fronting him. We've done that before. Victor would guard those guys and Will Sheehey -- it was just a matter of having versatility. You have to have versatility on both ends of the court -- offense and defense.
We're not a huge team, so you've got to have different people who can do different things. Josh is hard to front because they can throw it over the top. We had a couple different schemes. In a perfect world, you're not letting him get loose. You cannot try to get around him, when the ball is being passed -- you're either in front or you're behind. He's just too big of a person. The bottom line is, if you take his left shoulder away, he's a little bit more defendable.
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Georgetown Head Coach John Thompson III |
"I don't know how many layups we missed. We felt like there weren't that many tactical things that we talked about at halftime. We thought we could continue to get some good shots and hopefully we could start to put them in. We talked about limiting their three's and I don't know that we did a better job with that in second half but that's what we talked about at halftime."
On center Joshua Smith's impact on the game:
"He (Joshua Smith) was a huge impact; people have to pay attention to Josh. He is a very good passer. He can't be stopped down there, except when he stops himself. That opens up easier looks with his cuts, with his drives, his open shots for everyone else. He's a weapon that we have that you have to pay attention to, one man can't guard him. It's a matter of us playing off of that."
On bringing Joshua Smith back in second half:
"It might not have mattered who was in there, I didn't want him to pick up an early third or fourth, so we decided to go with Hop (Mikael Hopkins) to start the half. That decision was made knowing we were going to need Josh down the stretch."
On play styles changing against specific teams:
"It depends on the personnel. At the end of the day it's not the X's and the O's, it's the Billy's and the Joe's. You get good players, you can play multiple styles. I don't know that there is more pressure because of the institution; we try to adjust and adapt to who we have and what the best way is to do it instead of saying `this is what we're going to do.'"
