Indiana University Athletics
Coach Crean Previews Saturday's Game vs. GCU
12/12/2014 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 12, 2014
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BLOMINGTON, Ind. - Indiana head coach Tom Crean provided some quotes in advance of Saturday's game against Grand Canyon University in Assembly Hall. The game starts at 5 p.m. ET and will be televised on Big Ten Network.
On what else he has noticed from the Louisville game film since Tuesday:
CREAN: "I think the biggest thing is it was a great experience to go in there and play and in a venue like that, for the first time away from home for numerous players, to go into that venue and to play that kind of team, we're going to get better from that. We did a lot of really good things. I think to me, there's no question the rebounding was the biggest difference in the game, our lack of blocking out and really our lack of attacking the offensive glass, because we thought we could do that and we didn't do that. We didn't do that with the energy and effort we have to have and we really, in a game like that, need to find a way to steal baskets.
"Defensively, we chased the ball too much. When you're chasing the ball and you're not defending shooters - and their spacing was very good - we ended up over-helping and creating openings we can't do. When we really tighten that up, we've been better and we didn't do a very good job of that at all against Louisville. But, really the rebounding was the biggest thing, the chasing the ball and offensively we made some poor decisions, especially going to the basket. When you attack the basket, you want to have a clear vision and you can't pre-determine, especially against the better teams. You can't pre-determine what's going to happen. You want to have a clear vision, not tunnel vision and too many times we went to the rim with tunnel vision. We felt we could get to the rim and we could, but you've got to go and you've got to understand where the shot blockers are, how to keep the possession alive or get by the initial wave of defense a little bit quicker. We were on the attack at times and when we were, we looked really good. When we were a little bit more stagnant and driving the ball not as hard, or making some of those poor decisions with the ball, offense wasn't nearly as good.
In the second half, we took some tougher shots rather than making the next pass. For a team that passes it pretty good, our passing wasn't even close to where it needs to be. We wanted to attack, we did. It wasn't about a set offense; it was about moving the ball. When we got good ball movement, we got very good shots. When we didn't get good ball movement, we played right into their hands. Those are the biggest things we take away from the game, but so much of it is correctable.
"Especially moving the ball, because we've done such a good job of that. We're going to get better rebounding the ball. We're going to get better with more effort to the glass offensively and get those numbers up because we're a good foul shooting team and we need to get fouled more. But, we're going to improve our block outs.
"At the same time, you just have to go and pursue the ball sometimes. You're not going to win as many 50-50 battles against a team with that kind of length, so you've got to be able to be in the fight and win the physical battle - be in the physical battle, not necessarily win it all the time, but be in the physical battle. So, I think those are the biggest things we took away from it. But, there's a lot to learn after every game and that game gave us as much to learn and grow from as any game we've had.
On the play of Troy Williams...
"He's just continuing to work. He's continuing to get better; he's made a lot of improvements in a lot of different areas. You look at the body of work over a period of time on how much he's improved - there's no question he's got to slow down at times, but he's capable of playing sped up. The simpler he makes the game, the better he'll be. We're asking him to do a lot on this team. He can do a lot for this team.
"But, the simpler he makes it, the better he gets defensively, the better he gets on the backboards, and we need his athleticism in all areas. But when he gets to the rim - and Victor (Oladipo) went through this and I reminded him and the whole team of this yesterday and you can see it on the film, Victor went through the same thing. They go to the rim as athletes, rather than as basketball players. When you're really, really athletic like Troy is and his vertical's gone up considerably and he already could jump to the sky. When you have a player like that, you have to continue to get them to understand how fundamental they have to be, and not just rely on athleticism. He's been able to rely on athleticism to a pretty high rate for a long time, but now we need that athleticism to come out more in the rebounding side. We need that athleticism to come out on the defensive side.
"One of the strengths of this program is to take athletes and make them better basketball players and to take basketball players and make them better athletes. Troy has a chance to be outstanding in both. But, he's got to continue to work at all those things that matter the most, which is getting to the glass, defending, running the court consistently, running to the glass. I can't really answer your question the way you said it, if you look back at some of the games, against Pittsburgh he played a pretty good game. He got behind the defense; those are the things he wasn't doing a year ago. I'll just answer it that way, in the sense that he's improving, with a lot of room for improvement and he really wants to improve."
On thoughts about Grand Canyon...
"First off, Dan Majerle is doing a tremendous job. We went to school together (at Central Michigan), he was a year older than me at Central (Michigan) and he was a heck of a lot more popular in what he did. We got to be friends and I've enjoyed following his career for a long time. I am a big fan of his career. One of the most competitive people I've ever had the privilege of knowing or watching. He brought that out in the way that he played and really was a great example for me for all the years as a coach because here's a guy that came into college, is basically an inside player, but because of his hard work and because of all the extra time that he spent shooting the ball and working on his game, he made himself into a NBA guard. That's an incredible thing.
"One of the all-time leading 3-point shooters in the NBA, he's played in the NBA Finals, numerous wins. I don't think it was any question to people who knew him that if he chose to coach, he would be a very, very good coach and I think he's showing that.
"They play with personality, they play with poise. What's amazing about their team, they're shooting 27 percent from three at home and 42, 43 percent on the road and they played at Kentucky, they played at UIC so they're very, very comfortable shooting the ball. We've got to do a much better job defending the three. To me, they've got inside, they've got outside, they can get to the rim, especially with (Jerome) Garrison and (Royce) Woolridge. His nephew Ryan is one of the toughest players we will have encountered. Ryan Majerle does a lot of things well; a lot of things right and makes his team better.
"They're young in some places, a little bit older in some, but they're starting to mesh - you can see it. They pass the ball extremely well and I don't think it's any accident. I think he's an outstanding coach, I think he's added some really good older people in to his program to blend with the younger people that he has. They play a very challenging schedule and everybody that's out there is capable of making plays. That's a reason I think they'll have an outstanding year and one of the reasons it's such a challenging game for us."
On if Hanner Mosquera-Perea needs to find a way to stay on the court longer...
"He was in some foul trouble in that game, so that's part of it. It's a fast-paced game, there's no question about that, but the foul trouble was probably the biggest thing inside of that game knowing that we needed him. But, he's improving constantly. We see that improvement coming.
"In the last week and a half, we've really seen him demand the ball more and now the next thing he has to do is take it off the rim. He's got to rebound better. He's got to rebound more consistently. He's got to pursue balls, he's got to get balls out of his range when you have a wingspan like that, you really have an unlimited range when it comes to rebounding.
"We want to see him be better there and just continue on the path that he's on and not try to do too much but, at the same time, not try to do too little and start to build on the confidence we're seeing in him more and more and that he's starting to get into games, hopefully that'll help him have a very good year."
On playing Hanner and Emmitt together for better rebounding:
"We have to address the rebounding with better technique on block outs. Because it's not as much the forwards... every position can rebound better. Yogi is one of the good block out guys we have. When we grade the film, he's down there. He's fighting. He's a unique person. But the rest of them have to do the same thing. We've got to get the same level of block out. If the smallest guy, per se, inches-wise on the court is one of our most diligent, get into your body, get into your legs, and tremendous post defender, then it's not just about the size. It's not just about the height and it's certainly not about the position. It's about the awareness and the focus of doing it every time. That's what we've got to do better. So all across the board, we've got to get better at rebounding the ball no matter what line-up is out there."
On Hanner's progress and aggressiveness:
"Let me ask you this: How much has he improved since last year? How much has he improved since the season started? You can't speed his process up, you just have to stay in the process. He's already played 108 more minutes in nine games than he played a year ago. What would be the next step? Demanding the ball even more, rebounding more; getting fouled more, I think would be a big one, defensive rebounding but being more consistent with the block outs and really going after the offensive points. That's the biggest area.
"But at the same time, when you have a guy who hasn't played a lot and now he's in a really strong role, we push him in practice and he's growing in practice, there's no doubt about that but you don't want to make the game hard for him. You want to do everything you can to let the game come to him.
"But at the same time when it comes to rebounding and when it comes to playing in the lane, then he has to take himself to the game. Well, if it's too over aggressive then we are running into a situation where he isn't playing too many minutes because he's in foul trouble.
"I think the bottom line is when we look back at this year when it's all said and done with Hanner: Did he keep improving? And that's the biggest thing we want to hold it to. When you're coaching him on a day-to-day basis, you have a vision for where he can be but you also have a perspective on where he was and you have to be able to balance all of that out.
"He's a phenomenal athlete. A year ago, his footwork improved more than any one we've had in a year's time. Well, now that's carrying over into the games. That's what we need to continue to have happen for us to be successful and for him to be successful, and really all the other guys to be on that same line. If everyone continues to improve at the rate that he is, we'll have a good year."
On more than just the shooters:
"I think when the ball moves, we are a product - We have a lot of guys who can score points and we have different guys who can make shots from the perimeter. So what we have to make a product of really is, even if you only have one or two guys, you still have to find a way to do this because then it's a lot easier to hide other people, we have more than that, the ball has go to move. Louisville passed the ball considerably better the other night than we had and that's not necessarily if you read some of Coach Patino's quotes, but the other night they did.
"But basically they moved the ball on us like we needed to move the ball on them. But at the same time, we're a team that attacks the basket and a team that needs to get to the foul line and a team that wants to play through the pain. So if you have that, you need to make sure if it's there, but if it's not, keep moving the ball.
"We work on spacing, penetration, movement on penetration on the perimeter, dropping on penetration in the lane. All those different things and constantly getting into the vision of the passer, different ways to keep the ball alive, we didn't do a good job of that. That's what tunnel vision becomes. You see the rim or you see the shot and we need James to do even more, we need them all to do more. And the more they do will be a product of what more others do to create for each other and that's where the whole predetermination comes in.
"When you predetermine that you are going to the rim, it better be either open or you just have one man to beat. When you don't, you need to draw the help and make the kick to keep the ball moving. That's how we get open shots. We took more, some of it was because we played into their hands the other night with the challenge shots, and some of it was plays at the rim that were not going to be there.
"We practiced for that, because we knew we were going up against one of the better shot blocking teams in the country and we didn't stick with our game plan on what we wanted to do there and we went to what we thought was there instead of what was really there. It's all a part of the learning experience.
"Veterans don't do as much at that. There weren't that many situations like that with Yogi. I think he only had one shot he needed to alter. They did a great job of challenging shots. We did a good job of challenging shots near the shot. We over-helped on the ball; we gave them too many shots and too many offensive points."
On Hanner Mosquera-Perea becoming consistent:
"I think you could look that that there are a bunch of different reasons why he's been inconsistent. One being that we have Cody Zeller and Noah Vonleh in there over the last couple years, that'd be part of it. Some of it is part of the fact that he didn't have a good year last year. He got too distracted. You know we had the issue in February.
"What I see on a day-to-day basis from him now and what I saw before: in the past, do all those things come to play to answer your question? They might. But if I say it, it sounds like I'm making an excuse and I'm not trying to make any excuse for how he's playing, I think he's getting better and better. He is a day-by-day guy. Every day he comes in here right now with a strong work ethic. Now what happens? You can look at anyone's stat sheet and I do this case study all the time on our own program and others. Who's playing well early vs. who's playing well late? And what happens is the consistency of purpose and the consistency of responsibility that you have to yourself to get better and the consistency of accountability that your teammates hold you to when they know that you really can play is what keeps making it go forward. And never getting too excited about when you've done something well but never getting too down when you've done something wrong and being able to bounce back.
"In the past, he hasn't been able to do that but he's grown into that. We're just measuring consistency with him right now. That's how I measure it. When I see the consistent effort and the consistent desire to improve then you can say "oh, well, he's doing this now" "well we've been working on this for a while now." We really feel confident that he can do it.
"Some have been issues he couldn't control and some were issues he did control. But now he's in position where he can control that work ethic and that responsibility that he has and his teammates can help him with the accountability. Every day he goes out there, he improves and I think he's enjoying improving because he's starting to see the fruits of it. But as a coach and the head coach, you've really got to be able to look at it and say "Let's not speed this up because this is really coming. Look where he was a couple weeks ago or we really need to push this now because this is what he's capable of."
"Some of that is playing harder longer, concentrating longer, and obviously foul trouble is going to play into it. His endurance and that nature are far better than they have ever been. Those are things you have to look for as a coach. How do we keep going with the things that are going well and how do we get rid of the things that are not so good? How do we get him to do more of what exactly we need him to do so he's successful and we're successful? And that would be rebounding."
