Indiana University Athletics
Coach Crean Previews Purdue Game
2/18/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 18, 2015
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BLOMINGTON, Ind. - Read what head coach Tom Crean had to say as he previewed Thursday's game against Purdue (9:00 p.m.; BTN).
On Quinn Buckner Being Inducted in National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame:
“First, this is our first time together since it’s been announced, but I want to congratulate Quinn Buckner on behalf of everybody in Indiana basketball. What a tremendous honor to go in the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. It’s a strong list. It’s a strong group that is already in and he is as deserving as any.
“We all have our memories. I have my memories. Certainly Indiana fans and Hoosier Nation have their memories. But I think the common theme for a guy like that throughout his career, throughout his business career, his TV career and his coaching career, would be tremendous leader and a consummate winner. And I think what I’ve learned here in seeing and you just hear about it and see it how he is still so close with his teammates and the guys that he played with. And they don’t have to be here every day for us to know that they’ve got a really close group and the respect level that that group has for one another. That’s what you would hope a championship team would look like and I think Quinn has a lot to do with that. We are extremely happy for him. I’m sure all of the state of Indiana is, but especially what he did in Indiana basketball, so just a tremendous thanks.”
Opening Statement:
“For us, we’re getting ready to play. We’re excited to be home. I thought our crowd was excellent the other night. The energy was really good in there. We have to have every bit of that tomorrow night. We have the best fans in America. We’ve got the best students. When they’re at a fever pitch, everybody sees it and, most importantly, everybody feels it.
“We are looking forward to the game. I think our players are really looking forward to it. They know we have to play better against Purdue, based on what we did the first time. They know that we have to be tougher, we have to be smarter, we have to move the ball at an extremely good rate and play through the physicality of the game. We’ve got to keep playing through the ruts, the runs, and things of that nature inside of the game. But they’re looking forward to playing.
“We haven’t had an overly long week of practice because we didn’t practice a long time yesterday and we didn’t go on Monday. I think it’s really important, as I continue to learn as a coach, that you have to spend time on your system. There’s no doubt about that. But, you can spend so much time on your system that you get away from what’s really important. They’re going to work on their shots. We’re going to work on their strengths. I think you really have to make sure you are working on their skills and that you are working on their speed and that we’re playing with a pace of game when we work that we are training in the sense of our drills that there is a lot of it speed to it. And our skills, it’s not just the shooting skills, though those are important, but the footwork, all those types of things. It’s the driving, it’s the ball handling, it’s the cutting and moving without the ball, it’s the defensive stances, it’s our close outs. It’s all those types of things and never get away from that. So we try to go through them at a fast pace but at a very needed pace and have these guys continue to gain confidence on how much better they can get individually and as a team. I think that has as much to do with confidence as anything else. Because we are going to need every bit of those skills, energy, toughness, all of that to beat Purdue but we’re looking forward to it.”
On what allowed IU to rebound so well against Minnesota:
“We were just active. I think the ball bounced right a couple times offensively. There’s no question about that. When you’re taking 32 threes, there’s no question it’s the bounce a little bit. But I think we were really committed to making sure that we had five guys inside the paint to rebound and then it’s just a matter of making contact, boxing out, and then certainly the ball has got to bounce your way.
“But I mean we were inside the paint. We were in position for it to bounce our way and I think that’s really important. But again, when you watch us, you know what we are not. Well, what we have to be with whether it’s Troy, whether it’s Hanner, whether it’s Collin, because we spend so much time on the perimeter, whether it’s James, whether it’s Stan, any of those guys, they’ve got to fly to the offensive glass.
“We always talk about not being in no man’s land. Now we don’t send as many to the glass as we used to because we need to make sure our transition defense is really strong. But the ones that go have got to go. And if they don’t go, we’ve got to get it understood why, we’ve got to get it corrected, or we’ve got to change who is in the game. I think that is one reason James has been a pretty consistent rebounder. Troy knows that he has to go and he also see the dividends come back when he does that. Collin has got to sprint. It’s one of those things that endeared him through the season, how well he hustled at the beginning of the year when he was coming off the bench, and he would just chase balls down. And again, we are asking him to be at the 3-point line as much as anywhere else, but he has still got to get to the glass. So just having that level of determination and concentration and focus is huge and just having the hustle game be right.”
On what will be the key against Purdue this time:
“Moving the ball. Obviously it starts with turnovers. We’ve got to attack their pressure better. We didn’t do a very good job of that. When we did, we got good sound shots. We missed shots up there too. They defended us well but we missed shots. We also didn’t adjust to who they were guarding and not guarding as well as we could have with movement. It’s not really a matter of who they are guarding, what defense they’re in because it’s the same with what we see on a nightly basis. It is how well is the ball moving? Are you playing through the corners? Are you reversing the ball? Are you passing it quickly?
“I always talk about obviously one dribble quicker and that’s so important. They do a great job of giving help defense. They get up into you. They make it hard for you to get by them. They get right up into your body, they get that arm bar up there, and they make it hard for you to drive past them. So, don’t fight it. Get the ball in movement. Have have to spread them out because their help is so good and they know that they can take some chances because they have shot blockers behind them and that’s a real luxury to have. That’s a luxury we don’t have. That’s why we are not as much a pressure get out and deny type of team. We want to create deflections but it’s not about steals with us. It’s more about getting the deflections because we don’t have that ability to make up for mistakes on the back end. Well, they do so they can be that aggressive. So it’s really just about the ball movement, taking care of the ball, and making sure we are committed to rebounding.
On whether both IU and Purdue are trending up as programs:
“We respect their program. I hadn’t thought about it like that so that’s a hypothetical to me. But what the record says is that they are really good. What my eyes see when I watch tape and watch him coach is that he is an outstanding coach with a great staff and that they play extremely hard and competitive. They can score a lot of different ways. They move without the ball as well as anybody in the league. They’ve got numerous ways to score and because he has got the inside guys. It is so easy to get distracted guarding them that you open up driving lanes, you open up back cuts, you open up offensive rebound opportunities, certainly to them. So that’s really how I view it as much as anything else. We’ve got great respect for them and know what the rivalry is and it wouldn’t be that way if over a period of time the two teams perennially hadn’t been good. So it comes down to how we execute tomorrow night and how we deal with the pressure.”
On whether he would like to see IU-PU be a protected rivalry where the teams play twice each season:
“Absolutely. I think it makes a lot of sense for the fans. I don’t think there is any question. They’ve got great fans. We’ve got great fans. I’ll argue for our fans with anybody in the country as far as having the best fans and most passionate, the most knowledgeable and the whole thing. So, absolutely. It’s a big deal. I would hope it would. But I also understand (the Big Ten has) a lot of checks and balances that they’ve got to work through with this league as it continues to expand. But this is one of the great rivalries in college sports, so there’s no question if we play twice, everybody is going to know when those dates are.”
On whether the team feeds off each other when everyone is making shots:
“That wasn’t the case against Maryland but (against Minnesota), yeah. It’s all about ball movement. It’s how quick can we move it and can we use the whole court, especially in the front court? And our screening - when our screening and cutting and moving without the ball are good. We keep telling them you score without the ball and then the ball finds energy. You really do. You score without the ball. It’s your cutting and it’s your movement, it’s your screen and roll. You know when you don’t have it is when you are going to be the most open. If you did something to get somebody else open, that’s what they learn when they are starting to play the game, but they get away from it because scoring is such an important thing.”
On Purdue’s front line and Octeus improving:
“Well, we thought he (Octeus) was the key to the game the first time. We prepared for him and the way that we had to play because he creates so many things. With the rebounding, he has been very consistent all year long; he is a tremendous defender, plays without the ball, can get to the rim, making shots at Minnesota, he cuts to the baseline. A great example of why he fits so well with them is because he is always doing something. He can play in the middle of the zone, it’s a very hard matchup. So you really have to pay attention to how you’re guarding him constantly. They have a lot of good players, but he has a lot to do with their success. There is no question about it.”
On getting A.J. Hammons out of position to open up the lanes to the rim:
“It’s up to him if he moves and it’s up to him if he decides that he is going to come out and play the ball screens or the drives. Our job is to make him made decisions as much as possible and more than we did up there.”
On the 30-second clock:
“I would prefer it to be 24. We played with a 24 second clock in Montreal - we had the option when we went up there - and we loved it. The 30 would be fine but I’ve been in some meetings where there hasn’t been a lot of carrying the flag for it to shrink down and that’s disappointing.
“I’d be all for it to be 30, 27, 24, whatever they want to do that makes the game faster. Hopefully, the powers that be, look at what’s going to be best for the game and not necessarily what coaches want. If it stays at 35, it stays at 35. But what is going to be best for the game and the speed of the game and increase opportunities on both ends because obviously you’re a good defensive team, you’ve got that many more opportunities to score off of your defense. And offensively you’ve got that many more opportunities, so I think it’d be great. I hope that day comes. I don’t know if it will but the shorter the better for me personally, and I think our team would enjoy the same thing. We’re certainly not going to change our recruiting style to try and slow it down and take it to the clock every time.”
