Indiana University Athletics
#IUBB Game 6 Preview: UNCG
11/26/2014 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Nov. 26, 2014
GAME 6
Friday, Nov. 28 -- vs. UNCG, 9:00 p.m. ET
Video: Big Ten Network (Josh Lewin & Stephen Bardo) | BTN2Go
Live Stats: Gametracker
Game Notes: Indiana Notes | UNCG Notes
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OPENING TIP
• The 2014-15 college basketball season represents the 115th in the history of Indiana University. The Hoosiers are coming off an 88-86 loss at home to Eastern Washington in the Hoosiers Showcase.
UP NEXT
• IU will host Pittsburgh in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge.
HEAD COACH Tom Crean
• Indiana named Tom Crean as its 28th men's basketball coach on April 2, 2008, and he is in his seventh year with the Hoosiers. He is 295-194 all-time as a head coach and in the last 3+ years, he has led IU to a 77-32 record, the 2013 Big Ten Championship and back-to-back appearances for the Hoosiers in the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since 1994. In 2012-13, he was named NABC District 7 and USBWA District V Coach of the Year. In the last two seasons, Crean has mentored three NBA Lottery picks which is tied with Kansas for the most among NCAA schools in that span.
• Crean is the only Big Ten coach to mentor an NBA lottery pick, a National Player of the Year, a first team All-American, a first team Academic All-American and a Senior Class Award winner this decade.
• Over the last three years, Indiana leads all Big Ten teams in scoring (76.8), field goal percentage (47.7), three-point field goal percentage (39.7), free throw percentage (74.5) and free throws made (1,998).
• The Hoosiers 3-point field goal percentage is the highest among major college conference schools in that time frame.
• With the win over #22 SMU, IU and Kansas now lead the nation with 16 regular season wins over Top 25 teams since the start of the 2011-12 season.
THREE YEAR WIN TOTAL
• The Hoosiers 73 wins from 2011-12 to 2013-14 represents the highest three-year win total for IU since 1990-91 to 1992-93.
FROM LAST YEAR
• IU was sixth in the country last year in rebound margin (+7.6) and 12th in the country in three-point field goal percentage defense.
BEST IN THE NATION
• IU is among the top academic programs in the country with four straight perfect APR scores of 1,000 and has received an NCAA Recognition Award each of the last two years. Twenty-one players have earned a degree while playing for Crean at Indiana, including five who have earned master's degrees. IU has been honored a league best 27 times on the Academic All-Big Ten team since 2010.
BALL SECURITY
• After averaging 15.1 turnovers a year ago, the Hoosiers have placed an emphasis on ball security and it is paying off. The Hoosiers are averaging 9.7 turnovers in the last three games.
NUMBERS
• Thirteen Hoosiers are averaging two rebounds per game or better. Junior Kevin "Yogi" Ferrell has 29 assists and 10 turnovers and sophomore Stanford Robinson had 7 assists and 2 turnovers in three games. Sophomore Troy Williams is shooting 61.5% from the field making 16 of 26 field goal attempts in three games.
WOODEN AWARD
• The Los Angeles Athletic Club has announced its Preseason Top 50 for the John R. Wooden Award and the list includes IU junior guard Kevin "Yogi" Ferrell.
Chosen by a preseason poll of national college basketball experts, the list is comprised of 50 student-athletes who are the early front-runners for the sport's most prestigious honor.
Ferrell is averaging 18.8 points and 5.8 assists and is shooting 47.6% from three-point range
TISDALE AWARD
• James Blackmon, Jr., and Robert Johnson have been named to the watch list for the Wayman Tisdale award, which is handed out by the United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) to the top freshman in the country each season.
Blackmon Jr., a native of Fort Wayne, Ind., has started all five games for the Hoosiers this season and is averaging 20.2 points and 4.8 rebounds per contest. He is also shooting 54.5 percent (18-of-28) from behind the 3-point line.
Johnson has also started all five games so far and is averaging 12.4 points, 5.0 rebounds and over three assists per game. The Richmond, Va., native has made 54.5 percent of his shots from the floor and leads the team with seven steals.
QUICK HITS
• Freshman Robert Johnson is averaging 12.4 points and leads the team in steals with 7.
• Junior Nick Zeisloft is averaging 8.0 points per game and is shooting 43.5% from three-point range.
• Junior Hanner Mosquera-Perea had 11 points and four rebounds in 24 minutes against the Lamar. He is shooting 66.7 percent from the field making 14 of 21 field goal attempts.
• Sophomore Stanford Robinson had six points, four rebounds, two assists, two steals and a blocked shot against Lamar.. He also made all four of his free throw attempts on Saturday
• Freshman Emmitt Holt saw the first action of his career and had 4 points, 2 rebounds and a steal against Lamar.
ARMED FORCES CLASSIC
• In 2016, the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Honolulu, Hawaii will host a doubleheader just weeks ahead of the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Indiana and Kansas will meet in one of the games, with Arizona and Michigan State meeting in the other.
STAFF WITH EXPERIENCE
• The Hoosiers have four former head coaches on their coaching staff this season.
• Associate Head Coach Tim Buckley begins his seventh year at Indiana. Former head coach at Ball State. His Cardinals beat #3 Kansas and #4 UCLA at the 2001 Maui Classic.
• Associate Head Coach Steve McClain is in his fifth year in Bloomington. Former head coach at Wyoming who led the Cowboys to the 2002 NCAA Tournament and a win over Gonzaga.
• Assistant Coach Chuck Martin joined the IU staff this past summer. Former head coach at Marist.
• Director of Operations Rob Judson came to IU in mid-season a year ago. Former head coach at Northern Illinois, who captured a MAC West title.
EIGHT IN THE PROS
• Eight of Tom Crean's former IU players are currently playing professional basketball.
Victor Oladipo (Orlando),13.6 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 3.1 apg.
Cody Zeller (Charlotte), 8.3 ppg, 4.7 rpg.
Noah Vonleh (Charlotte), 3.0 ppg.,1.0 rpg.
Christian Watford (Maine), 11.3 ppg., 7.0 rpg. Verdell Jones III (Japan), 16.3 ppg., 5.9 assists
Jordan Hulls (Kosovo) 10.3 ppg., 4.9 rpg., 5.3 apg.
Will Sheehey (Montenegro) 4.2 ppg., 2.0 rpg.
Derek Elston (Portugal) 16.2 ppg., 4.8 rpg.
Indiana head coach Tom Crean previewing Friday's game vs. UNCG
Q. Where do you want to see the team improve from the last game?
COACH CREAN: Everywhere. Everywhere. I think the bottom line, when you're looking at upside, you're looking at everywhere. There's really no -- I don't know many players that don't have to get better in every area of the game. We're shooting the ball at 46, 48 percent. We made 49 threes in five games, and I can pick about 18, 19, 20 shots that, if we'd have shot the ball correctly and had the proper footwork or the proper follow through, we'd have made more of those. We didn't make our 49th three of the year last year until the tenth game. Right now we've already got 49 threes, and we shoot the ball at a high rate, and I watch the film, and we break it down with players. When we work on our practices, there's constant room for shooting the ball better.
So I think in any player's situation, you constantly want to be moving it forward so that they understand that they've got to keep chasing perfection. You know, perfection is hard to get, I'm sure. I've never met anybody that is truly perfect, but the bottom line is you want to keep chasing it. I think, in any player's case, they want to try to get better every day at everything, and then that's what builds the hunger for winning. I think, when you get satisfied in any area of your game, you lose a little bit of hunger for what it's all about. And I think with those players they'll just get better and better with those types of things if they have the work ethic that we think they do.
Basketball-wise, we're off today. We're going to take a couple of days off this week. Yesterday was a practice that was good to have because we had five games in 11 days, and as much as we try to fundamentally improve in those practices, it's very hard when you're having that kind of -- those amount of games to go to the duration and go to the length of the intensity level inside of that duration that you want to get.
Yesterday was very, very good for us to break that down, whether it was two-on-two, whether it was countless sessions of four-on-four, with competitive parts, getting three stops in a row for your team there.
Everything you do is about getting better in every aspect. Are we getting better shooting the ball, moving without the ball? Are we getting better with the rebounding? Are we getting better with defensive coverages? Are we getting at guarding the ball? Are we getting better with our help? We spent a lot of time on that, a lot of time. A lot of time on our interior defense. A lot of time on our guarding the ball.
I think the biggest thing that our players will take from the other night is that -- especially our young ones. I'm not sure that they truly understood the speed of the game. I don't want to say that it surprised them, but I think the surprise is, when you're really good and when you're young, you win a lot of games or you have a lot of success, the other team goes away. At this level, they don't go away. They do not go away.
This team had such an ability to play downhill that I think we learned a lot about that. I think, with the exception of Yogi -- and he doesn't do it all the time, but when Yogi's truly in a downhill game, he's very hard to guard. Well, they had some different guys that were in a downhill game, and as much as we think we are, we learned a lot about it, that we're not as much. We've got to continue to get better with that.
We did not handle the intensity of their drives as well. Our switching was sporadic. And the biggest thing that we wanted to do was keep them out of the paint, but at the same time, not have to over-help on threes. Until late, we did a good job on the three. We did not do a great job of keeping them out of the paint.
And then when the game was in the balance, we had some of those mistakes. We didn't block out a couple times. Late in the game, when No. 10 made a three at the top, where we were never supposed to leave. We had the ball in our control, and Nick ended up helping on the dribble, and we had the dribble under control, and we gave up a three at the top of the key.
One of the big reasons we led the league in three-point defense was because we didn't over-help last year. When the ball was covered, we moved. It took us a while to learn that. I think it's important for all of us as coaches to keep that in perspective, that it takes a while for that to get done because this team had tremendous ability to drive the ball to create threes. Unfortunately, we gave them too many angles to get to the rim to finish shots.
The bottom line, 55, we never matched his intensity, and we never matched his intensity and the spirit of toughness that he played with the entire night. We knew that as coaches going into the game. We tried to get that across on film. But until they see it and deal with it, I mean, it's very rare that you have a player that plays that position that facilitates the offense all the different ways that he can facilitate.
But they're a very good team. They're one of those teams that all of a sudden it's the second week of the tournament in March, and everybody's talking about them, and they're everybody's favorite team to follow because they're exciting to watch. They could be that type of team.
And the bottom line is you don't want to lose, but you want to learn a lot from it. You want to learn from winning, and you'd better make sure that, when you lose, you learn a lot from that too. That's what we're trying to get across as much as anything else.
Big key points for us right now. We've got to get -- we've got to score more points in the paint, and at the same time, we've got to take away more scoring opportunities in the paint for the other team because we're just letting the ball get in there too much at too many different times, and I think it's going to be crucial that we do a much better job with that.
Defensively in transition, we've got to keep getting back to find people, but the bottom line is we've just got to improve our ability to guard the ball, to keep it out of the paint, at the same time, not become a team that over-helps and gives up threes because in this league then you will not win.
Offensively, we can play faster, especially getting the ball out of the basket. When we just run and get behind the defense, like Troy did, you saw the benefits of that. We get out and run the wings. When the ball is moving the way that it's capable of, it's important. But, again, looking at our youth of our team, especially with James and Rob, the learning lesson there is your defensive energy and being so locked in and engaged to what you have to do defensively, that's what creates your offense.
I thought the SMU game and the Lamar game, James' defense when he came out -- and, again, nobody was playing what I would characterize as bad defense. We weren't as good. We gave up angles. We weren't as ready for that ball coming at us. Our switches, like I mentioned, weren't as good. We weren't as aware at times, especially when we went zone late.
But the bottom line is we weren't as aggressive on offense as we needed to be either. Rob having four turnovers, and three or four of those passes were one-handed passes. That's not fundamental basketball. James wasn't as aggressive as he needs to be, looking for the shot, looking for the drives, things of that nature.
Yogi -- the game was giving us middle drive. They were giving us the rim. You can look back and say we were giving them the rim, but not on purpose. They were giving us the rim, and Yogi did a tremendous job of taking advantage of that, and Troy did a tremendous job of getting behind in penetration. Every time we had downhill action going, we got something good. The problem was we weren't downhill enough, and they were downhill a lot, and we didn't stop it. Downhill isn't just driving the ball and covering a little bit of ground. Downhill is driving it like a bull rush, and that ball is out in front, and you're just daring somebody to stop you, and we didn't do as good a job with that.
Bottom line, when a team's giving up 12 threes, or a team is scoring 12 threes a game, you've got to be very conscious of that. Unfortunately, it wasn't that we didn't over-help, we just didn't guard the initial thrust of driving the way that we needed to guard it as well. But we got better yesterday, I have no doubt about that.
Today we'll be off the court, but we'll do some road trip, team bonding type of stuff. Tomorrow we'll be back at it. Friday night we'll play against a very hungry, hard driving, tough playing team that has two guys averaging 16, another guy 12, well-coached with Wes Miller, and outstanding staff. Mike Roberts is on that staff, who played here, had a very good career. You've got Duane Simpkins Jr., who played at Maryland, outstanding young coach. Jackie Manuel played at Carolina, played a little in the NBA. He's on that staff. I got four former head coaches on my staff, but we don't want to play four-on-four or five-on-five against that staff on court.
We're excited for that game and excited for a big crowd, and then get ready for next week.
Q. Stopping defensive penetration, what's the bigger issue here, communication or technique?
COACH CREAN: It's technique as much. We had a couple of miscommunications. We had some rules that really, if you follow them, they're very simple, but they're hard to do. They're simple. We knew exactly what we were supposed to switch, but you have to stay with it because a team like that is going to continue to turn the ball, turn the ball, turn the ball. If that means one guy's guarding it the whole time on that switch, well, that's what it means.
And we didn't want to -- we decided to diversify a little bit because we thought we had a better angle at guarding it or I could get through it. That's not what you do when you have a game plan like that. I think they've got to learn that game plans are built for a reason.
Tim Buckley averages probably, on a scout like that, he's probably putting in 17, 18-hour days, as is Steve when he's doing his games and Chuck when he's doing his games, and we're all spending time on that game and all doing our stuff. But those game plans are built for a reason. When a guy goes right or a guy shoots this or a guy gets there, it's built for a reason. We don't expect the players obviously to spend that kind of time in the film room. We do expect that kind of concentration and focus and listening, and it wasn't there so much the other night. That's something they've got to continue to learn.
It wasn't there because they didn't want it to be there. It was there because the fatigue of the game and the speed of the game brings some slippage that can hurt you at times inside of it. So it's not -- a little bit of it's technique when it's player driven, he drives right, he drives left type of thing, but very much on a penetration team, it's about taking away the elbows, especially with the dribble drive the way that they play it, and they do an excellent job with it.
And what makes it a problem is they've got five -- outside of their starting lineup, which they went to, they had five players on the floor at any given time that could play behind the line and play at the rim, and that's why they're a good team. That's why you've got to stay true to your game plan that much more.
Q. What's the last team -- you had some that struggled defensively in five or six games in November, but come February, they were much, much better?
COACH CREAN: Oh, absolutely. I look back at the last three years of five-game stats, I forgot that we beat Long Island by one in the second game of the year a year ago. We've had close games. It takes a while for young teams to figure out that it does not matter who they're playing.
Again, I don't think -- I think our players saw film early on of their three-point shooting that we had everybody's attention. So there was -- there's no over-look, look-throughs, none of that. There's none of that. We work against that constantly. You can't make up the kind of threes they were making. You don't have to make a highlight tape. You just put their possessions on. But it takes a while for guys to understand, no, this is for real, and they're coming constantly.
It was like a year ago when we played Long Island. That's the best assist guy in the country. We've got to guard him at a high level and not over-help because he's going to find people for layups and dunks and threes. And so, again, it's really, really learning to take those strengths. They work into that. We spend a lot of time on preparation, but we spend a lot more time on concepts.
We've got to continue to get that down. We've got to continue -- we see the improvement. I gave an example. The defensive block outs are improving, grabbing the 50-50's. Grabbing the two-hand rebounds. Think about it. They don't have anybody on the foul line. They miss the free-throw. We have two guys going for the ball. They both grab at it with one hand. Neither one gets it. It goes out of bounds, their possession. We give up a three.
Sometimes it's just -- it's not like anybody's saying, hey, let's go grab it with one hand. The slippage comes in. You think it's a little easier than it is. You've got to understand that, really, it's a hard driving game constantly when you're playing against good teams and teams that want to be great too. I have no doubt we'll get better. I have no doubt about it.
And five and 11, you can look at it one of two ways. Was it too much at this point in time for a young team? Probably. Am I glad we did it? Absolutely. Because they had to work through the number one thing that we're going to have to have, as any team has to have, to sustain, to have any type of sustainability. We didn't have it last year. We had it the two previous years. It's a consistent level of mental toughness. Now how you define it, you kind of know it when you see it. You've got to keep going through all these different things that make you better there. That's why we'll continue to get better.
Q. Did you think about playing Emmitt or Jeremiah in that game, considering where Hanner was last year?
COACH CREAN: Not Jeremiah in that game. The game was too fast. Emmitt, absolutely. This is where the four games probably caught up in this because the speed of the game was really, really hard for the guys that had been playing a lot of minutes. And it wasn't anything that Emmitt's not doing as I've said to him, and we were counting on Emmitt. But that game was going so fast for a guy that didn't have real game experience like that.
Now, if he'd have played the last couple of games considerable minutes or hadn't missed the four games, that's a whole other story, but that game was moving so fast that -- and, again, playing small was not the wrong way to do it. Our mistakes came more out of switches and lack of communication -- or some lack of communication, but just letting the ball get by us. But Emmitt will be very good for us. We definitely need to get him in the rotation.
The game was moving much too fast, and it was much more -- too much -- very much perimeter oriented for Jeremiah in that game. Again, he's making strides. He was in here early that morning working with us. He was in here that afternoon not only for a walk-through but for extra work. He's going to get better and better too. But when it's game time, you've got to go with the guys that you think are going to give you the best chance to win. Hopefully, both of them will as we move on, and it's definitely time that Emmitt's got to get this experience now because we're going to need him. Like I said, perfect world, he's in there, but it's not a perfect world, or he wouldn't have missed four games.
Q. Regarding Hanner Mosquera-Pera, you talked about for a lot of different reasons, first two seasons, he wasn't able to get a lot of court time with fouls, inconsistency, and some injuries. What's the balance for him, I guess, between letting him play through mistakes and when you need to get him off the floor to show him something, coach improve something, or maybe even just make a suggestion?
COACH CREAN: Sure, that's a very good question, and here's the bottom line with your question. When he's really playing hard, like down in front of the ball, hands are up, not indecisive on is he going to try to get in position? Is he going to try to leave his feet? There's a level of engagement that Hanner has when he's really, really moving and not overthinking, and then there's a little bit less than that when he's unsure, and he's got to go through that. So does he need court time to do that? Absolutely.
But there were times when the game was moving really fast inside of that the other night for him. And especially in the switching. We didn't start out the game on a full 55, which is everybody switches, but we wanted to get to that. But he didn't do a great job of plugging up that basket on penetration early on in the game and wasn't aggressive, I didn't think, as he needed to be. We didn't ask a lot of him.
What's his career minutes compared to what he's played already? Has he passed it? Yeah. Not making excuses, just part of it. The five games in 11 days probably caught him a little bit too.
But I thought he came back in the second half. Again, for him, that level of engagement and awareness is so huge that he just stayed -- can't get quiet. Can't get quiet in the game. It's not about doing this or doing that. It's coming out and absolutely playing hard, and hard means getting down, thinking about making plays, being aggressive, getting on the glass, blocking shots, but most importantly, being a presence.
And sometimes he forgets that he's got a 7'6" wingspan, and sometimes he forgets to get down in that stance the way that he needs to. I think, when he does that, he's really, really hard to deal with. But he's going to -- no, he's hard to deal with when he gets down in that stance and he's playing with that length, but we've got to get him more and more consistent.
But the number one thing for him has been his consistency and improvement. For him. Comparing him to where Cody would be or comparing him to where Noah would be, that wouldn't be fair to anybody. But having him continue to get to the level of consistency that he needs to be at, we're well on our way to it, and he came back yesterday and was outstanding, as was Emmitt.
We've got to get more. We've got to be -- the lane defense starts with your ball pressure, starts with your ability to contain the dribble. It really does. So our post defense wasn't as much of a problem the other night as our ball pressure and our lack of ability to keep the ball out of the paint. And that's what we want to continue to work on.
Now, we've had a couple issues with it, but that was what it was more than anything else the other night.
Happy Thanksgiving.
