Indiana University Athletics
Postgame Quotes: Indiana vs. Bellarmine
11/9/2015 10:11:00 PM | Men's Basketball
Indiana vs. Bellarmine
November 9, 2015
Indiana Head Coach Tom Crean
Opening Statement:
"As we sum up the two games – I said it last week, I'll say it again – we couldn't have asked for more in the sense of playing two championship-level programs and two different teams where they were very guard-oriented last week and playing through the post with a post man, and this team obviously is so skilled at the forward and wing positions, and it was very good for us. We had a couple of great runs in both games and we've got a lot to learn from both games.
"Tonight's game we had a 23-2 run. I think we held them scoreless on 11 possessions. We got better. I mean, we really did. We carried that to the end of the half.
"Second half we had to make a lot of adjustments because they adjusted the game, they used their spacing, they used their screening and they used the fact that they have very good long-range shooters at the forward position, and it made us adjust. And I thought that was very good for us because we had to do some things on the fly, things that we haven't covered as much conceptually yet, guys had to figure it out, and we figured it out with some match-ups.
"We were on some limits with minutes a little bit tonight with a couple of guys and some guys that are recovering and were banged up with injuries, or I shouldn't say injuries but banged up over the weekend, so we wanted to keep the minutes limited as we prepare for our first game Friday night.
"But a good adjustment game for us, and we learned a lot of things, and the biggest thing that our team has got to take away is that champions play to the final second. They never go away. They're well-coached. They're very skilled. They're versatile. They do different things. And when you're going against teams like that, you have got to be engaged. You've got to have not only mental toughness, but tremendous mental quickness to be able to get into the game immediately, and you've got to impact the game. And some guys tonight did a very good job of impacting the game, some other guys not so well. That's why we have competition.
"And when you've got the level of where we want to go when it comes to playing a pace and a speed of the game, you need depth. But before you have depth, you've got to have real competition and consistency leads -- hopefully the competition brings the consistency, and that's why we're in the midst of five and out right now.
"If we had a bigger list of positives than we would concerns, then we'd be lying to ourselves, just like most teams would this time of year. We're two games into the exhibition season against two outstanding teams, outstanding programs, and we've had a lot of different things we've had to deal with inside of those two games, and now we're getting ourselves ready for Friday night."
Q. At both ends of the floor do you feel like there's some things guys are working through because of how unconventional you were at times last year and getting used to having those bodies?
"Definitely, without a doubt, but I think the biggest thing is the defensive part of it, when to help, when not to. We game-planned for certain players, more so in this game than we did last game, with how we wanted to cover them. But at the same time, we knew we were going to see great skill level from their forwards, which was going to challenge us, and it did. It really did.
"And so we've got to get used to -- our best teams have been able to just say, 'Okay, we're going to switch everything and we'll figure it out as we go.' We're not there yet. We're not there in that position, and that's what last year's team could do that because there wasn't as much of a size differential in our lineups. But now there is, so we've just got to continue to develop that, but that's where athleticism and awareness and staying in a stance and all those kind of things come into it. So we'll adjust."
Q. On the 8-0 run in the first half, just talk about what you did really well on defense, especially within that run.
We challenged everything, and when we were late and in rotation we got great shot challenges. We rebounded the ball, and we did a really good job of not over-helping. We played the rules that we had on a couple of guys. We didn't try to have it in mid-season form on what our rules were on players for a couple of them, and I thought they did a really good job of that. But I give Scott (Davenport) a lot of credit for what he did in the second half. He came out and he spread the court, and our length and our quickness was more of a factor in the first half, and then he really stretched us out, which made our communication, and especially on the ball screen, become a real factor, and it exposed it a little bit, so we've got to get better.
But I thought we did a really good job of being aggressive. We had a ton of deflections in that time span, and we came down and got really good shots on the offensive end.
Q. What's your biggest concern leading into the season?
For the players to understand how competitive it is right now. That's the biggest thing. They have to truly understand if we're going to have a two-deep team, we can't have a drop-off either way. It's not about who the five starters are, it's having everybody capable of really impacting the game. You know, players, fans, maybe even sometimes some of you look at it and put a lot on the starting lineup. I don't. I look at how we start, right? How we start is more -- that's where the starting lineup comes in. Are we going to come in with a good mindset? But it's really how you finish.
So I think that's the biggest thing, but there's a lot of things we've got to get better at. I think can we continue to deal with the spacing from another team, and at the same time can we deal with a team that wants to pound it in, and there's got to be ball pressure in every one of those aspects, and tonight in the second half that wasn't as good for us.
Q. What's the key to learning on the fly?
Well, shared responsibility on the court. You know, where they don't just assume that the other person knows it, okay, especially when you're doing things that they haven't -- but it's like offense, it's conceptual. If we're going to switch to a front, then we are going to switch to a front, and we've worked so hard on covering the ball screen a couple of ways so we get really good at that, all right, that we've got to go to the other parts now. I mean there's so many different ways to guard it because there's so many different ways to attack it, and now that's what we've got to build on. So to answer the question, okay, can we keep getting our concepts and our base down and at the same time start to make those adjustments that we've got to be able to go to in the drop of a hat? And so that's a part of it.
But calling out the screens early and not getting screened, you know, once you're helping on the ball and recovering, those are big things. But I love it. We'll learn a lot from the film on that.
Q. How big of a rotation could this become?
I'm not sure yet. I think -- I don't want it to be game-to-game because then you don't have consistency. Now, game-to-game will be match-ups and that may be lineups as we go, but you want a level of consistency in all your guys. That's when it's truly two deep. It's truly two deep when they feel it's two deep because you've got to go to a high level. You don't want any nervousness, you don't want anxiety. You want a heightened level of awareness and an urgency and you have to be ready coming off that bench. Whether you started the game and got subbed or whether you're a sub, you have to be ready, because the level of play that we're facing and going to face in games come down to possessions, and it's rarely ever the one that's just at the end. That's the one that everybody remembers, but it's the ones during the game where somebody wasn't locked in.
That's what we've got to learn. So I learned some things tonight, too, which will be good that I'll be able to put into account as we move forward.
Indiana Player Quotes
Q. Yogi, talk about the communication during the game as well as what you learned.
YOGI FERRELL: What we learned is that we've got to bring it all 40 minutes. We can't go into this game with any drop-offs at any point because especially playing against a great team like Bellarmine, they can come back like they did on us, and we feel like we didn't stop them ending the first half and their momentum carried into the second half and we let them gain a lot more confidence, and that's when they started knocking down shots.
Q. Was shot selection a problem in the first half?
FERRELL: Well, we're not going to take away guys' ability to shoot the three. We don't want to do that, so we've got a great shooting team, so we're going to shoot the three, and if it goes in, it goes in. We felt like maybe we could have gone to the post, especially when we missed two shots in a row. We definitely wanted to go inside. But not going to take away our ability to shoot the three.
Q. Talking about going inside, I guess it seemed like there had certainly been some depth in you guys' rebounding. Are you still working through some things there in terms of working those big guys into the offense? Just after last year you guys were so unorthodox in some ways, spreading the floor, putting four different guys on the floor that could shoot. Are you still working your way through having more presence down low?
FERRELL: Yeah, I think so. We've got basically a whole new front court. Thomas (Bryant), Max (Bielfeldt), Juwan (Morgan), a couple veteran guys, Collin (Hartman) can mix in there a little bit because he played the five last year. But the main thing is we've got to get them up to speed. We've got to get them playing at the same pace that Coach Crean wants them to play, how the team wants to play. We want to get up and down. I think if they just get there mentally, everything will come into place for us.
Q. Yogi, what do you feel is going well and what needs improvement heading into the season?
FERRELL: I feel like one great thing we have is when we have a mindset to want to get a stop, we're going to get it, and that carries on throughout the whole game. We pride on three stops in a row, and I think we had 11 stops in a row this game. So when we have that mindset that we need to get a stop, I feel like we can get it. But with that, you know, we don't keep that same mindset the entire game, and if we don't keep that same mindset, then teams like Bellarmine are going to gain confidence and guys are going to think they can score on us, and that's definitely not something we want to do.
I'd say offensively I feel like we're doing a great job moving the ball, you know, definitely got to cut down on the turnovers, definitely turn it over less each game. But I felt like offensively we're sharing the ball very well.
Q. Can you talk about that sequence where you get the blocked shot, get to the ball, made a pass to James Blackmon Jr. – just the energy that that can bring to your team?
WILLIAMS: I mean it brings a lot of energy, you know? It brought a lot of energy to me, as well. I didn't expect to get the rebound off the block. I didn't expect to see James down there, but ever since being a freshman, I always made athletic plays like that, and it gets the team going. So if we need it, I got it.
Q. Yogi, what is different when the defense is going well?
FERRELL: Well, things we're doing well is our defense is creating for our offense, basically, and I feel like that's what we have to pride on more. We feel like we're a great offensive team. We've got so many weapons in the bag. So we've just kind of got to let those things work for us, and we've got to focus on other things that are going to help us win the game. When we've got momentum like that going for us, we've just going to stick with it and don't let off the gas.
Q. Yogi, what do you think Bellarmine did to get back in the game in the second half?
FERRELL: I think what they did was they screened very well, especially for No. 4 (George Suggs) to get open, and that's what hurt us. We didn't communicate very well guarding him, and he basically got all wide-open threes. We barely even contested the shots. I think that's what hurt us, transition defense, especially not getting back on ball rim help and he's coming down on the trail shooting the wide-open three.
Q. After Bellarmine started coming back, you guys played some small ball for a bit. How nice is it to have that flexibility?
WILLIAMS: I mean it's something we've been doing. We have the veterans on our team who had to do it last year. Me and Collin have both been in the post. Even now we're still playing the post at times. It's nothing that we're not used to. If we have to, we will. I'll play the five and we'll go small.
Q. What can you do to cut down on turnovers, and are you worried about them?
WILLIAMS: I mean I'm always worried about turnovers. It's a turnover. That's fast break points for the other team. But, I mean, it's just mostly just cherish the ball more. It's not like I want to turn it over.
Bellarmine Head Coach Scott Davenport
Opening Statement…
What a courageous effort. We outscored them by 12 points in the last 24 minutes of the game. I am so proud because our guys never stopped for one second. We played 40 minutes. Derk's (Josh Derksen) ankle looks like he has a softball on the side of it, Rusty (Troutman) has banged knees, Al Davis with a poke to the eye, but none of that made any difference. Our goal tonight was to play with great poise in one of the best venues in the country, and we did it for 40 minutes. It was an absolute A-plus for us tonight, they are really, really good. When they shoot the ball, and score with that kind of dynamics, it makes it really tough to defend. These three games, I'm the luckiest coach in the world to have three institutions like Louisville, Cincinnati and Indiana allow us to play in these tremendous venues. But I know this, this made our basketball team better.
On Bellarmine's overall play…
I think we competed well the entire game. We had them in the first half, but we just could not stop them. They were just relentless to the backboard. At one point Troy Williams was literally running from the 3-point line, and we were saying, 'Okay someone has to hit him and block him out and someone else go get it.' I asked Yasin Kolo what he learned tonight and he said 'I need to pick my teammate up when he draws a charge. I said, 'No, you should've learned that you're a good basketball player.' The entire locker room erupted.
On Kevin Yogi Ferrell and Troy Williams…
You can challenge them. You can get them off a spot. You can try to get them. They make great shots. Yogi Ferrell played 33 minutes and you can tell he is a senior All-American. He is a great basketball player. He knows when to push the gas and knows when to back off. That basketball is in good shape when it is in his hands. That showed down the stretch.
On Indiana's defense…
I thought their perimeter defense was great. As for inside, we did not do a good job of getting the ball inside, so I cannot answer that. I though the second half we tried to make them be more aggressive by making them chase after the basketball.
November 9, 2015
Indiana Head Coach Tom Crean
Opening Statement:
"As we sum up the two games – I said it last week, I'll say it again – we couldn't have asked for more in the sense of playing two championship-level programs and two different teams where they were very guard-oriented last week and playing through the post with a post man, and this team obviously is so skilled at the forward and wing positions, and it was very good for us. We had a couple of great runs in both games and we've got a lot to learn from both games.
"Tonight's game we had a 23-2 run. I think we held them scoreless on 11 possessions. We got better. I mean, we really did. We carried that to the end of the half.
"Second half we had to make a lot of adjustments because they adjusted the game, they used their spacing, they used their screening and they used the fact that they have very good long-range shooters at the forward position, and it made us adjust. And I thought that was very good for us because we had to do some things on the fly, things that we haven't covered as much conceptually yet, guys had to figure it out, and we figured it out with some match-ups.
"We were on some limits with minutes a little bit tonight with a couple of guys and some guys that are recovering and were banged up with injuries, or I shouldn't say injuries but banged up over the weekend, so we wanted to keep the minutes limited as we prepare for our first game Friday night.
"But a good adjustment game for us, and we learned a lot of things, and the biggest thing that our team has got to take away is that champions play to the final second. They never go away. They're well-coached. They're very skilled. They're versatile. They do different things. And when you're going against teams like that, you have got to be engaged. You've got to have not only mental toughness, but tremendous mental quickness to be able to get into the game immediately, and you've got to impact the game. And some guys tonight did a very good job of impacting the game, some other guys not so well. That's why we have competition.
"And when you've got the level of where we want to go when it comes to playing a pace and a speed of the game, you need depth. But before you have depth, you've got to have real competition and consistency leads -- hopefully the competition brings the consistency, and that's why we're in the midst of five and out right now.
"If we had a bigger list of positives than we would concerns, then we'd be lying to ourselves, just like most teams would this time of year. We're two games into the exhibition season against two outstanding teams, outstanding programs, and we've had a lot of different things we've had to deal with inside of those two games, and now we're getting ourselves ready for Friday night."
Q. At both ends of the floor do you feel like there's some things guys are working through because of how unconventional you were at times last year and getting used to having those bodies?
"Definitely, without a doubt, but I think the biggest thing is the defensive part of it, when to help, when not to. We game-planned for certain players, more so in this game than we did last game, with how we wanted to cover them. But at the same time, we knew we were going to see great skill level from their forwards, which was going to challenge us, and it did. It really did.
"And so we've got to get used to -- our best teams have been able to just say, 'Okay, we're going to switch everything and we'll figure it out as we go.' We're not there yet. We're not there in that position, and that's what last year's team could do that because there wasn't as much of a size differential in our lineups. But now there is, so we've just got to continue to develop that, but that's where athleticism and awareness and staying in a stance and all those kind of things come into it. So we'll adjust."
Q. On the 8-0 run in the first half, just talk about what you did really well on defense, especially within that run.
We challenged everything, and when we were late and in rotation we got great shot challenges. We rebounded the ball, and we did a really good job of not over-helping. We played the rules that we had on a couple of guys. We didn't try to have it in mid-season form on what our rules were on players for a couple of them, and I thought they did a really good job of that. But I give Scott (Davenport) a lot of credit for what he did in the second half. He came out and he spread the court, and our length and our quickness was more of a factor in the first half, and then he really stretched us out, which made our communication, and especially on the ball screen, become a real factor, and it exposed it a little bit, so we've got to get better.
But I thought we did a really good job of being aggressive. We had a ton of deflections in that time span, and we came down and got really good shots on the offensive end.
Q. What's your biggest concern leading into the season?
For the players to understand how competitive it is right now. That's the biggest thing. They have to truly understand if we're going to have a two-deep team, we can't have a drop-off either way. It's not about who the five starters are, it's having everybody capable of really impacting the game. You know, players, fans, maybe even sometimes some of you look at it and put a lot on the starting lineup. I don't. I look at how we start, right? How we start is more -- that's where the starting lineup comes in. Are we going to come in with a good mindset? But it's really how you finish.
So I think that's the biggest thing, but there's a lot of things we've got to get better at. I think can we continue to deal with the spacing from another team, and at the same time can we deal with a team that wants to pound it in, and there's got to be ball pressure in every one of those aspects, and tonight in the second half that wasn't as good for us.
Q. What's the key to learning on the fly?
Well, shared responsibility on the court. You know, where they don't just assume that the other person knows it, okay, especially when you're doing things that they haven't -- but it's like offense, it's conceptual. If we're going to switch to a front, then we are going to switch to a front, and we've worked so hard on covering the ball screen a couple of ways so we get really good at that, all right, that we've got to go to the other parts now. I mean there's so many different ways to guard it because there's so many different ways to attack it, and now that's what we've got to build on. So to answer the question, okay, can we keep getting our concepts and our base down and at the same time start to make those adjustments that we've got to be able to go to in the drop of a hat? And so that's a part of it.
But calling out the screens early and not getting screened, you know, once you're helping on the ball and recovering, those are big things. But I love it. We'll learn a lot from the film on that.
Q. How big of a rotation could this become?
I'm not sure yet. I think -- I don't want it to be game-to-game because then you don't have consistency. Now, game-to-game will be match-ups and that may be lineups as we go, but you want a level of consistency in all your guys. That's when it's truly two deep. It's truly two deep when they feel it's two deep because you've got to go to a high level. You don't want any nervousness, you don't want anxiety. You want a heightened level of awareness and an urgency and you have to be ready coming off that bench. Whether you started the game and got subbed or whether you're a sub, you have to be ready, because the level of play that we're facing and going to face in games come down to possessions, and it's rarely ever the one that's just at the end. That's the one that everybody remembers, but it's the ones during the game where somebody wasn't locked in.
That's what we've got to learn. So I learned some things tonight, too, which will be good that I'll be able to put into account as we move forward.
Indiana Player Quotes
Q. Yogi, talk about the communication during the game as well as what you learned.
YOGI FERRELL: What we learned is that we've got to bring it all 40 minutes. We can't go into this game with any drop-offs at any point because especially playing against a great team like Bellarmine, they can come back like they did on us, and we feel like we didn't stop them ending the first half and their momentum carried into the second half and we let them gain a lot more confidence, and that's when they started knocking down shots.
Q. Was shot selection a problem in the first half?
FERRELL: Well, we're not going to take away guys' ability to shoot the three. We don't want to do that, so we've got a great shooting team, so we're going to shoot the three, and if it goes in, it goes in. We felt like maybe we could have gone to the post, especially when we missed two shots in a row. We definitely wanted to go inside. But not going to take away our ability to shoot the three.
Q. Talking about going inside, I guess it seemed like there had certainly been some depth in you guys' rebounding. Are you still working through some things there in terms of working those big guys into the offense? Just after last year you guys were so unorthodox in some ways, spreading the floor, putting four different guys on the floor that could shoot. Are you still working your way through having more presence down low?
FERRELL: Yeah, I think so. We've got basically a whole new front court. Thomas (Bryant), Max (Bielfeldt), Juwan (Morgan), a couple veteran guys, Collin (Hartman) can mix in there a little bit because he played the five last year. But the main thing is we've got to get them up to speed. We've got to get them playing at the same pace that Coach Crean wants them to play, how the team wants to play. We want to get up and down. I think if they just get there mentally, everything will come into place for us.
Q. Yogi, what do you feel is going well and what needs improvement heading into the season?
FERRELL: I feel like one great thing we have is when we have a mindset to want to get a stop, we're going to get it, and that carries on throughout the whole game. We pride on three stops in a row, and I think we had 11 stops in a row this game. So when we have that mindset that we need to get a stop, I feel like we can get it. But with that, you know, we don't keep that same mindset the entire game, and if we don't keep that same mindset, then teams like Bellarmine are going to gain confidence and guys are going to think they can score on us, and that's definitely not something we want to do.
I'd say offensively I feel like we're doing a great job moving the ball, you know, definitely got to cut down on the turnovers, definitely turn it over less each game. But I felt like offensively we're sharing the ball very well.
Q. Can you talk about that sequence where you get the blocked shot, get to the ball, made a pass to James Blackmon Jr. – just the energy that that can bring to your team?
WILLIAMS: I mean it brings a lot of energy, you know? It brought a lot of energy to me, as well. I didn't expect to get the rebound off the block. I didn't expect to see James down there, but ever since being a freshman, I always made athletic plays like that, and it gets the team going. So if we need it, I got it.
Q. Yogi, what is different when the defense is going well?
FERRELL: Well, things we're doing well is our defense is creating for our offense, basically, and I feel like that's what we have to pride on more. We feel like we're a great offensive team. We've got so many weapons in the bag. So we've just kind of got to let those things work for us, and we've got to focus on other things that are going to help us win the game. When we've got momentum like that going for us, we've just going to stick with it and don't let off the gas.
Q. Yogi, what do you think Bellarmine did to get back in the game in the second half?
FERRELL: I think what they did was they screened very well, especially for No. 4 (George Suggs) to get open, and that's what hurt us. We didn't communicate very well guarding him, and he basically got all wide-open threes. We barely even contested the shots. I think that's what hurt us, transition defense, especially not getting back on ball rim help and he's coming down on the trail shooting the wide-open three.
Q. After Bellarmine started coming back, you guys played some small ball for a bit. How nice is it to have that flexibility?
WILLIAMS: I mean it's something we've been doing. We have the veterans on our team who had to do it last year. Me and Collin have both been in the post. Even now we're still playing the post at times. It's nothing that we're not used to. If we have to, we will. I'll play the five and we'll go small.
Q. What can you do to cut down on turnovers, and are you worried about them?
WILLIAMS: I mean I'm always worried about turnovers. It's a turnover. That's fast break points for the other team. But, I mean, it's just mostly just cherish the ball more. It's not like I want to turn it over.
Bellarmine Head Coach Scott Davenport
Opening Statement…
What a courageous effort. We outscored them by 12 points in the last 24 minutes of the game. I am so proud because our guys never stopped for one second. We played 40 minutes. Derk's (Josh Derksen) ankle looks like he has a softball on the side of it, Rusty (Troutman) has banged knees, Al Davis with a poke to the eye, but none of that made any difference. Our goal tonight was to play with great poise in one of the best venues in the country, and we did it for 40 minutes. It was an absolute A-plus for us tonight, they are really, really good. When they shoot the ball, and score with that kind of dynamics, it makes it really tough to defend. These three games, I'm the luckiest coach in the world to have three institutions like Louisville, Cincinnati and Indiana allow us to play in these tremendous venues. But I know this, this made our basketball team better.
On Bellarmine's overall play…
I think we competed well the entire game. We had them in the first half, but we just could not stop them. They were just relentless to the backboard. At one point Troy Williams was literally running from the 3-point line, and we were saying, 'Okay someone has to hit him and block him out and someone else go get it.' I asked Yasin Kolo what he learned tonight and he said 'I need to pick my teammate up when he draws a charge. I said, 'No, you should've learned that you're a good basketball player.' The entire locker room erupted.
On Kevin Yogi Ferrell and Troy Williams…
You can challenge them. You can get them off a spot. You can try to get them. They make great shots. Yogi Ferrell played 33 minutes and you can tell he is a senior All-American. He is a great basketball player. He knows when to push the gas and knows when to back off. That basketball is in good shape when it is in his hands. That showed down the stretch.
On Indiana's defense…
I thought their perimeter defense was great. As for inside, we did not do a good job of getting the ball inside, so I cannot answer that. I though the second half we tried to make them be more aggressive by making them chase after the basketball.
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