Postgame Quotes - Indiana at Michiga
3/8/2014 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
March 8, 2014
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Indiana head coach Tom Crean
On the 3-pointer by Robinson late:
"That is the one that will stick out. But we did such a good job of coming back, Our guys were so locked in and ready to go. Our preparation was great, led by Tim Buckley who did a fantastic job - just like our coaches always do.
"We fully expected to win the game and our guys played like it. And they never stopped believe that they would. Obviously that three was a big one, but to overcome the mistakes during the game and overcome the turnovers - that was big. I looked out there at one point and we had four freshmen out there and I don't remember having a situation like that. I'm really proud of them. That shot was big at that point in the game. And give Glenn Robinson III credit, he had 13 points in the second half and Nik Stauskas had 14. That is why they are two great players. As good of a job as we wanted to do, they still found a way. They found different ways. They didn't find it from the 3-point line today as much - that shot was.
"We knew the driving game would be big today if we took the 3s away. They did a good job of cutting and moving. But our guys battled the whole way and answered every situation right to the very end."
On getting off to a quick start, making first nine shots:
"Our guys were great. They were really locked in and ready to go. We feel like we played our best basketball, at least I do, especially with what we missed with Noah. The Ohio State game was a little different because we defended the 3-pointer so well. The rim wasn't as big of a problem tonight as it was on Wednesday night without him. To have him back in there today really helped with our rim protection. I thought our guys did a fantastic job of really knowing what we could get and sticking with it, and coming out out in a complete attack mode. That certainly helped our start.
"Even when we got down, there was no fear. Our guys had great confidence that they would be able to come back and get baskets. We just had to get stops, and unfortunately we got one or two less than we needed."
On Devin Davis' strong play recently:
"I think our whole story with our youth, and if you look around the country I don't think it's a big difference, when you look at the other teams that are playing any kind of young people that are freshmen and sometimes sophomores, it's inconsistency. You want to have a consistent team because you can't win without it, but at the same time you have to go through the growing pains of getting it. I thought (Devin) did a really good job the other night and I knew either yesterday or Thursday that we would go with him (in the starting lineup) today based on that. We hoped that we would have Noah back but not having him in the starting lineup or have him prepare to be in the starting lineup. Devin did a fantastic job with that. Jordan Morgan is hard to deal with, and we knew what we were potentially going to deal with, in terms of our switching on defense, but John (Beilein) did a good job of getting to that early. For the most part, we got a lot of that negated because of plays of guys like Devin and Troy (Williams) and the way they used their length, and Noah as well. They did a really good job."
On not helping off Michigan's shooters:
"That's a part of it. That's why (Michigan) is so good. When we played them at our place, we were able to take both away for the most part. But they are getting better too. Their driving game, you can see it every time they play that it improves. They can carve you up from the 3-point line. When they have beaten people at a high level and blown people out, it is because people are constantly over-helping and giving a great shooting team all of those kinds of looks. I know what it's like to have one of those teams - maybe not as good as that one was, but ours was pretty good the last couple years. We will get that shooting again. But we have to continue to find ways to win the way we can right now and guarding the dribble without overhelping is a big part of that.
"It was a tightly called game, I get that and it's part of it. We had a couple body fouls and things of that nature that probably got us a little nervous inside of the game. This is not an easy team to switch defenses against because of the way they shoot the 3-pointer. They are very opportunistic with it. There were a couple times that we didn't take their guys' strengths away. When they got their little run going, I didn't think our ball pressure was very good and they hurt us on some cuts. That's why he's such a great coach with such a great program. He has the best passing team in the league - Wisconsin is right there with them - and it might be the best passing team in the country. I haven't watched enough of everyone else though. But they can all pass the basketball. If you don't have your hands up and are not right there on the cut, they are really good at getting it. They are a highly-skilled team and your margin for error on the defensive end is really small."
