Indiana University Athletics
Postgame Quotes vs. Nebraska
12/28/2016 9:51:00 PM | Men's Basketball
Indiana vs. Nebraska
Postgame Quotes
Dec. 28, 2016
Indiana Head Coach Tom Crean
COACH CREAN: I really haven't had a chance to study the stats. Will do that later. But to me, they did a great job they made more plays than we did. I'm not sure what the numbers are, but there were too many times we didn't get a hand up to them to challenge shots.
But we didn't challenge shots enough. Made some turnovers that we just can't make. And it's hard to get across to any team, but especially when you get into league play when it's magnified so much is the mental errors, and we had too many of them tonight and far too many. There's a list of them. And we've got to get out of it. We've got to continue to understand how to not make the game hard for ourselves.
We made some like it was our first game. And our first game we actually played really, really well. It's just a matter of understanding how simple we have to make the game, whether it's taking one more dribble, whether it's taking one less dribble, whether it's driving it all the way through the paint.
And some of the mistakes we made tonight were out of unselfishness. Guys passed up shots. One stands out. OG's wide open, Juwan turns, he throws a drop pass and Juwan is ready to rebound the ball. That makes no sense.
And we've got to just tighten up. So I'm clear on that. I don't need to see the stat sheet to know that. We'll get into the film. And told them it's going to be a short night for them because we'll be back getting it figured out tomorrow and getting ready for what will be an incredible battle for us on Saturday with Louisville.
Q. Update on Juwan Morgan?
COACH CREAN: It seems to be a bruise. I think we were all extremely fearful when that happened. And frankly I've not seen him in that -- I don't remember him being in that kind of pain when his shoulder went out a year ago.
Obviously we're fearful for that but it looks to be a bruise. And he'll get it evaluated tonight, and I can't give you more of an update than that. It certainly didn't appear at this point to be anything -- it's a tough bruise, right, when you go down like that.
But it doesn't appear to be anything that would be overly serious.
Q. You talked yesterday about you had seven guys that never played in a Big Ten game before. But it seemed the veterans were having as much trouble?
COACH CREAN: One of those veterans that hasn't played a Big Ten game is Josh Newkirk. Right? Yeah, James Blackmon, didn't play in a Big Ten game last year.
Again, I don't know if it's that. We can't have the mental errors. I'm not sure if those mental errors it wouldn't have mattered who we were playing. They played excellent. They played excellent.
We knew they are very aggressive on the backboards. They want to get to the basket. They're shooting -- they made some shots -- we didn't have rhythm because we didn't get our hands up. It's beyond baffling because it was the same type of thing.
Granted we have, everybody has issues from time to time in their ball-screen coverage or their post defense or their ball pressure or their switching. Everybody goes through that. But there should not be an inordinate amount of challenges. It didn't have anything to do with experience, the lack of experience. The hands have got to go up.
Q. On the team's effort tonight.
COACH CREAN: I don't know. I'm not able to sit there and watch the game on the big screen. I don't know if it's effort. I haven't seen the film, and I haven't really read the stats sheet. I'm telling you what I think, so I'm sure I'll find some things when I get into the film. I don't have the vantage point that you have of the film.
Q. I was just curious, is it as much effort?
COACH CREAN: I don't think we got beat on effort. I don't think we got beat on effort. My general opinion, I may change it tomorrow. I'm not going to tell you. But I don't feel like that. I feel like we made some mental errors. And I feel like at times we were trying to do too much to get the ball to people.
So you're pointing out a couple of things. I don't think we've had too many teams at Indiana that have gotten beat on effort. Do you?
So I wouldn't assume that tonight is one of those cases. If we got beat on effort, as hard as they were playing we would have got blown out by 30. It was a close game all the way down to the wire. They played really hard. We just didn't play as well.
Q. What about the second half without Rob Johnson in there? He was in foul trouble?
COACH CREAN: It really hurt us. We really realized in that situation how good Rob. I had a pretty good idea how good Rob is, but playing without him for us tonight, I got a real indication of how good he is and how you much we missed him.
He's a stabilizing force for us and he came back into the game a little bit, he made some shots and tried to get into the gaps and lane, and that's not what our game is right now. Our game is drive it, if there's a clear path to the basket, let's take it. There's mistakes we made tonight in the game that we'll get corrected with when we shot, when we didn't, the drive, those type of things.
The advantage of being into the double bonus early and they take advantage of that. Now, is that effort? That's just we're not understanding what the game is giving them.
Q. Webster kind of got them off to a quick start getting to the rim. Is that why you had to mix it up?
COACH CREAN: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. He and Watson do a great job of getting downhill. And the bigs, as much as with it being back up into the ball. And we can't have that.
And our zone, they made a couple of shots in it, but there was a time when our zone was doing a really good job for us and doing some things in the game, we went to switching and things like that. The game is always giving you something and then we get back and read and we watch the film.
And I'm real comfortable being in it like this. I'm real comfortable when you hit adversity. I'm good with that. We'll figure out how to overcome it. We'll find out who can learn the same thing. It's one game.
Indiana Players - Thomas Bryant and Robert Johnson
Q. How big was the poor start for you guys in terms of how the game turned out?
THOMAS BRYANT: It was big. We should have had better knowing like a competitive team like Nebraska coming into Assembly Hall, they're going to bring their best. We should have came out with a better start.
Q. What do you attribute the slow start to and the stretch there in the second half where there was a bunch of turnovers? What do you feel happened?
ROBERT JOHNSON: I think it was a mindset thing and we didn't challenge enough shots, turned the ball over way too much – myself included. So those are just a couple of things.
Q. Offensively, what were they doing that caused problems for your defense? Or was it more your defense?
ROBERT JOHNSON: Yeah, I think it's a lot of areas of improvement, when we go back and watch the film, that we definitely work to get fixed. And, like I said, we left a lot of shots unchallenged, and especially for some of our better shooters.
So you can't expect to win when you do things like that.
Q. This is pretty obvious, but how concerning is 18 turnovers? And what can you guys do to cut that number back?
ROBERT JOHNSON: I think that it all comes down to making simple plays. When you're trying to win games, you can't have too many mental errors, especially 19. That's way too much.
I think it all comes down to making simple plays, guys being locked into that.
Q. Coach has talked before about his best teams being player-driven instead of coach-driven. As two guys that have been through this, I guess what can you take from this moving forward, and kind of teach maybe some of the younger guys so this kind of thing doesn't happen again?
ROBERT JOHNSON: I think that the thing that you could take from it is it's going to be a war all the way through. Every game, no matter who you're playing, where you're playing, it's going to be a fistfight, especially, you know, if you don't come out right out of the gate and get after teams and let them hit you first, it's going to be tough.
So I think with this game, looking back, I think a lot of guys will be able to see just how tough it will be going forward.
Q. Thomas, they had 16 offensive rebounds. What made them so effective?
THOMAS BRYANT: They were just a physical team out there crashing the glass. Some of the balls bounced their way then we started to be aggressive out there on the offensive and defensive end when it comes to rebounding.
Q. Thomas, how frustrating is it that you had the 26 home-game winning streak and to lose at home like that?
THOMAS BRYANT: It's frustrating, but all we have to do is bounce back from it. We've just got to look at the film and look at key things that we can bring more to the table and help us as a team. One loss doesn't define us. We're going to keep building and keep getting better.
Nebraska Head Coach Tim Miles and Tai Webster
Opening Statement
"First of all, I thought it was a great game for our program. I think our guys showed a tremendous amount of resolve. We showed that promise that I think I see in them. Hopefully this gives them a great bit of confidence as we move forward into Big Ten Play. I know they are going to be exhausted today. About halfway through, they looked tired. With about seven or eight minutes left, I looked at them and said, "I promise a day off tomorrow if you guys win." They did, so I got to do my part.
"I would also like to say, I feel bad for Jordie's humongous mistake grabbing Juwan Morgan without the ball. That was a bad play. He made a mistake. He's not a malicious kid, but that was a malicious play. I just hope he comes back to health quickly and that we see him back on the court because he's a heck of a guy. That was an unfortunate situation."
What were you trying to take advantage of in Indiana?
"We've really paired down what we do so that we can get our guys more aggressive. They haven't played much zone, and we've worked on a couple different things. We only worked on our zone offense a little bit. You could tell in the first half. We got into a different set the second half, and we got much better. I just felt like we had good rotations out there, we had the right guys doing the right things. We you get Glynn going like that, we have an impressive set of guards."
Where does this win stand in you coaching career?
"I'm so proud of our guys. I think this was one of the more unexpected wins for our guys. I hope it gives them so much confidence because we've played a very difficult schedule. We played a terrible game earlier where a team outplayed us. We haven't been able to get over the top at a place like Clemson. UCLA was basically an away game where it was a two-point game with four and a half-five minutes to go, couldn't get over the top. To play for the lead was important tonight. That's why I thought their aggressiveness and sustaining that when all heck was breaking loose. I thought that was a great mark for their mindset."
When Tai made that layup like five minutes in, was that a confidence booster?
"I think anytime we are like that the games we lost, we were at the rim and missed those layups. If you look at the charts we keep, when we are at the rim and successful, we are a different team. Throw in some threes; we are a different type of team. Tai being at the and making those, that was huge for us. Later in the game, when we were at the rim and didn't make those, Ed was there to clean it up. I can think of plays that every guy made that contributed to this win. You don't get to say that very often.
What can you say about the atmosphere tonight?
Tim Miles:We were here a couple years ago Tai, and it wasn't like this.
Tai Webster: We've been here before and it was crazy, but tonight it was another level. It's something you can only compare to Kansas. It's amazing to see how the fans are really behind them.
Postgame Quotes
Dec. 28, 2016
Indiana Head Coach Tom Crean
COACH CREAN: I really haven't had a chance to study the stats. Will do that later. But to me, they did a great job they made more plays than we did. I'm not sure what the numbers are, but there were too many times we didn't get a hand up to them to challenge shots.
But we didn't challenge shots enough. Made some turnovers that we just can't make. And it's hard to get across to any team, but especially when you get into league play when it's magnified so much is the mental errors, and we had too many of them tonight and far too many. There's a list of them. And we've got to get out of it. We've got to continue to understand how to not make the game hard for ourselves.
We made some like it was our first game. And our first game we actually played really, really well. It's just a matter of understanding how simple we have to make the game, whether it's taking one more dribble, whether it's taking one less dribble, whether it's driving it all the way through the paint.
And some of the mistakes we made tonight were out of unselfishness. Guys passed up shots. One stands out. OG's wide open, Juwan turns, he throws a drop pass and Juwan is ready to rebound the ball. That makes no sense.
And we've got to just tighten up. So I'm clear on that. I don't need to see the stat sheet to know that. We'll get into the film. And told them it's going to be a short night for them because we'll be back getting it figured out tomorrow and getting ready for what will be an incredible battle for us on Saturday with Louisville.
Q. Update on Juwan Morgan?
COACH CREAN: It seems to be a bruise. I think we were all extremely fearful when that happened. And frankly I've not seen him in that -- I don't remember him being in that kind of pain when his shoulder went out a year ago.
Obviously we're fearful for that but it looks to be a bruise. And he'll get it evaluated tonight, and I can't give you more of an update than that. It certainly didn't appear at this point to be anything -- it's a tough bruise, right, when you go down like that.
But it doesn't appear to be anything that would be overly serious.
Q. You talked yesterday about you had seven guys that never played in a Big Ten game before. But it seemed the veterans were having as much trouble?
COACH CREAN: One of those veterans that hasn't played a Big Ten game is Josh Newkirk. Right? Yeah, James Blackmon, didn't play in a Big Ten game last year.
Again, I don't know if it's that. We can't have the mental errors. I'm not sure if those mental errors it wouldn't have mattered who we were playing. They played excellent. They played excellent.
We knew they are very aggressive on the backboards. They want to get to the basket. They're shooting -- they made some shots -- we didn't have rhythm because we didn't get our hands up. It's beyond baffling because it was the same type of thing.
Granted we have, everybody has issues from time to time in their ball-screen coverage or their post defense or their ball pressure or their switching. Everybody goes through that. But there should not be an inordinate amount of challenges. It didn't have anything to do with experience, the lack of experience. The hands have got to go up.
Q. On the team's effort tonight.
COACH CREAN: I don't know. I'm not able to sit there and watch the game on the big screen. I don't know if it's effort. I haven't seen the film, and I haven't really read the stats sheet. I'm telling you what I think, so I'm sure I'll find some things when I get into the film. I don't have the vantage point that you have of the film.
Q. I was just curious, is it as much effort?
COACH CREAN: I don't think we got beat on effort. I don't think we got beat on effort. My general opinion, I may change it tomorrow. I'm not going to tell you. But I don't feel like that. I feel like we made some mental errors. And I feel like at times we were trying to do too much to get the ball to people.
So you're pointing out a couple of things. I don't think we've had too many teams at Indiana that have gotten beat on effort. Do you?
So I wouldn't assume that tonight is one of those cases. If we got beat on effort, as hard as they were playing we would have got blown out by 30. It was a close game all the way down to the wire. They played really hard. We just didn't play as well.
Q. What about the second half without Rob Johnson in there? He was in foul trouble?
COACH CREAN: It really hurt us. We really realized in that situation how good Rob. I had a pretty good idea how good Rob is, but playing without him for us tonight, I got a real indication of how good he is and how you much we missed him.
He's a stabilizing force for us and he came back into the game a little bit, he made some shots and tried to get into the gaps and lane, and that's not what our game is right now. Our game is drive it, if there's a clear path to the basket, let's take it. There's mistakes we made tonight in the game that we'll get corrected with when we shot, when we didn't, the drive, those type of things.
The advantage of being into the double bonus early and they take advantage of that. Now, is that effort? That's just we're not understanding what the game is giving them.
Q. Webster kind of got them off to a quick start getting to the rim. Is that why you had to mix it up?
COACH CREAN: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. He and Watson do a great job of getting downhill. And the bigs, as much as with it being back up into the ball. And we can't have that.
And our zone, they made a couple of shots in it, but there was a time when our zone was doing a really good job for us and doing some things in the game, we went to switching and things like that. The game is always giving you something and then we get back and read and we watch the film.
And I'm real comfortable being in it like this. I'm real comfortable when you hit adversity. I'm good with that. We'll figure out how to overcome it. We'll find out who can learn the same thing. It's one game.
Indiana Players - Thomas Bryant and Robert Johnson
Q. How big was the poor start for you guys in terms of how the game turned out?
THOMAS BRYANT: It was big. We should have had better knowing like a competitive team like Nebraska coming into Assembly Hall, they're going to bring their best. We should have came out with a better start.
Q. What do you attribute the slow start to and the stretch there in the second half where there was a bunch of turnovers? What do you feel happened?
ROBERT JOHNSON: I think it was a mindset thing and we didn't challenge enough shots, turned the ball over way too much – myself included. So those are just a couple of things.
Q. Offensively, what were they doing that caused problems for your defense? Or was it more your defense?
ROBERT JOHNSON: Yeah, I think it's a lot of areas of improvement, when we go back and watch the film, that we definitely work to get fixed. And, like I said, we left a lot of shots unchallenged, and especially for some of our better shooters.
So you can't expect to win when you do things like that.
Q. This is pretty obvious, but how concerning is 18 turnovers? And what can you guys do to cut that number back?
ROBERT JOHNSON: I think that it all comes down to making simple plays. When you're trying to win games, you can't have too many mental errors, especially 19. That's way too much.
I think it all comes down to making simple plays, guys being locked into that.
Q. Coach has talked before about his best teams being player-driven instead of coach-driven. As two guys that have been through this, I guess what can you take from this moving forward, and kind of teach maybe some of the younger guys so this kind of thing doesn't happen again?
ROBERT JOHNSON: I think that the thing that you could take from it is it's going to be a war all the way through. Every game, no matter who you're playing, where you're playing, it's going to be a fistfight, especially, you know, if you don't come out right out of the gate and get after teams and let them hit you first, it's going to be tough.
So I think with this game, looking back, I think a lot of guys will be able to see just how tough it will be going forward.
Q. Thomas, they had 16 offensive rebounds. What made them so effective?
THOMAS BRYANT: They were just a physical team out there crashing the glass. Some of the balls bounced their way then we started to be aggressive out there on the offensive and defensive end when it comes to rebounding.
Q. Thomas, how frustrating is it that you had the 26 home-game winning streak and to lose at home like that?
THOMAS BRYANT: It's frustrating, but all we have to do is bounce back from it. We've just got to look at the film and look at key things that we can bring more to the table and help us as a team. One loss doesn't define us. We're going to keep building and keep getting better.
Nebraska Head Coach Tim Miles and Tai Webster
Opening Statement
"First of all, I thought it was a great game for our program. I think our guys showed a tremendous amount of resolve. We showed that promise that I think I see in them. Hopefully this gives them a great bit of confidence as we move forward into Big Ten Play. I know they are going to be exhausted today. About halfway through, they looked tired. With about seven or eight minutes left, I looked at them and said, "I promise a day off tomorrow if you guys win." They did, so I got to do my part.
"I would also like to say, I feel bad for Jordie's humongous mistake grabbing Juwan Morgan without the ball. That was a bad play. He made a mistake. He's not a malicious kid, but that was a malicious play. I just hope he comes back to health quickly and that we see him back on the court because he's a heck of a guy. That was an unfortunate situation."
What were you trying to take advantage of in Indiana?
"We've really paired down what we do so that we can get our guys more aggressive. They haven't played much zone, and we've worked on a couple different things. We only worked on our zone offense a little bit. You could tell in the first half. We got into a different set the second half, and we got much better. I just felt like we had good rotations out there, we had the right guys doing the right things. We you get Glynn going like that, we have an impressive set of guards."
Where does this win stand in you coaching career?
"I'm so proud of our guys. I think this was one of the more unexpected wins for our guys. I hope it gives them so much confidence because we've played a very difficult schedule. We played a terrible game earlier where a team outplayed us. We haven't been able to get over the top at a place like Clemson. UCLA was basically an away game where it was a two-point game with four and a half-five minutes to go, couldn't get over the top. To play for the lead was important tonight. That's why I thought their aggressiveness and sustaining that when all heck was breaking loose. I thought that was a great mark for their mindset."
When Tai made that layup like five minutes in, was that a confidence booster?
"I think anytime we are like that the games we lost, we were at the rim and missed those layups. If you look at the charts we keep, when we are at the rim and successful, we are a different team. Throw in some threes; we are a different type of team. Tai being at the and making those, that was huge for us. Later in the game, when we were at the rim and didn't make those, Ed was there to clean it up. I can think of plays that every guy made that contributed to this win. You don't get to say that very often.
What can you say about the atmosphere tonight?
Tim Miles:We were here a couple years ago Tai, and it wasn't like this.
Tai Webster: We've been here before and it was crazy, but tonight it was another level. It's something you can only compare to Kansas. It's amazing to see how the fans are really behind them.
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