Indiana University Athletics
Indiana vs. Louisville - Postgame Quotes
12/10/2014 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
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Head Coach Tom Crean |
Our team has been able to learn from the games we've played for the last few weeks and I hope we learn a lot from this one because that is what relentless, attacking basketball on both ends looks like, especially on the glass. We had to be in this game at a high level on the glass, we weren't. A lot of it was them, but some of it was us not being nearly as good as we needed to be at making contact. We can't have frontline rebounding like that, especially when we're not doing a great job of blocking out.
Offensively, we weren't close to what we needed to be to keep attacking and moving the ball the way that we needed to. It would have been so much easier if we could have made a couple other passes, get a reversal and we settled a little bit and so I'm not real pumped with our ball movement. But, we lost the game because we didn't take care of the glass and the turnovers in the first half to a degree, but we were still right back in it where we were in the first half. We just got beat on the glass. We didn't do a great job of keeping the dribble in front of us - man or zone - and they made shots. They really moved the ball well, extremely well. They deserved to win, they did a great job and I'm sure we'll find some bright things on it from the tape. Right now I don't see it that way, but we've got to be much more competitive on the glass and we have to play with a higher level of intelligence and a higher level of toughness in other areas to improve and get better and to be able to challenge teams like that and be able to play in our league the way we need to play. We got a lot of growth potential to get better, but the toughness level certainly and the glass level was hit tonight - we weren't ready for that. We've got a short period of time obviously when you have so many games as we have to get better at it.
On the difference in shooting between the first and second half:
Had some poor shot selection tonight - we rushed. But we never moved the ball the way we wanted to. Against them, it's a matter of attacking, especially when you get across mid-court because they want you to slow down and get into your offense there, we wanted to get the game moving. At times we were good at that, at times we weren't. When we played through the corners, especially in the first half we made some plays. But, we never reversed the ball enough. Then, we had some very youthful mistakes going to the basket. At times we drove to the rim like it was five-on-oh at practice, forgetting their one of the nation's leaders in blocked shots and that was not the game plan. The game plan was to keep the dribble alive underneath the basket, keep the game moving, look for cutters and not try to attack and challenge their shot blockers. That's not the objective for a team like Louisville. The objective is to get good open shots. I wouldn't say we settled, I would say we pre-determined our shot, rather than making the next play. We played young, Yogi did a pretty good job but our guards played young and our forwards up front, we did not compete at a high enough level on the glass. I would say their defense is very good but I would also say that I would have loved to see what would have happened on one, two, three more passes, especially when we did get it moving in the half court.
