Indiana University Athletics
Tom Crean Previews Matchup at Northwestern
2/24/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 24, 2015
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BLOMINGTON, Ind. - Read what head coach Tom Crean had to say as he previewed Wednesday's game at Northwestern (7:00 p.m.; BTN).
Opening Statement:
“We’re locked into preparing for Northwestern. Yesterday was a big recovery day for some and at the same time a day to get better. We did spend time improving our skills, especially on some of the guys that don’t get to play a lot, and then really diving into the film.
“The players have shown great resolve all year long on going on to the next thing, preparing for the next game and I’m proud of the way they’ve done that. They don’t get ahead of themselves. We don’t stay in the past too long. They don’t jump into the future. They do a really good job of coming in here everyday and maxing it out. Whether it’s recovery and then guys just shoot or whether it’s guys really getting better at the skill things that have to be done. Today will be more of a full practice before we leave.
On Northwestern’s recent success:
“As far as Northwestern, it was coming all year. I don’t think there’s any question. This league, it’s hard to get any traction and they’ve certainly gotten some, but it’s been coming because they’ve been so close in so many games. You go back to the Maryland game where they were up eighteen in that game on the road and lose really with a second to go. They’ve been in so many games that have come down to one or two possessions.
“They’re extremely well coached with Chris Collins. There’s no doubt he’s got a tremendous staff, led by Brian James, who’s a tremendous coach. They’re developing their players and the younger guys are getting a lot better. The older guys are improving. They’re playing with great confidence.
“Numbers wise, in the last three games, they’re shooting over 44 percent from three, which is a big jump from where they were. They’ve cut down the opponent’s trips to the foul line. They’re field goal percentage defense, three point and regular defense is much better. They’re playing with great confidence. They’re shooting the ball, really when you look at it, as well as anybody. They’ve always had the shooters and their ability to space.
“What they have that a lot of don’t have is they have a five-man that they can go to but they can also play through him. When you have that in this league, you’re unique. Just look at Wisconsin and the way that they play with Frank Kaminsky. Alex Olah can do a lot of different things. He can set the offense from the top, he can get it in dribble handoffs, he can shoot from three, certainly can score at the post. They can play through him in the low post. He maneuvers the defense in the middle of the zones. They’re going to be an extremely tough challenge. They always were going to be.
“Northwestern is very hard to play. They’re extremely hard to play in their building. And it’s going to be that much harder because they’re playing with all this confidence that they have right now. Our guys have got to continue to have that resolve. They’ve got to continue to go in and understand what we need to take away, what we need to try to get. It comes back to our defensive rebounding, our transition defense, taking care of the ball to a pretty good degree, and trying to get the pace of the game going the right way but at the same time being aggressive in our tactic.”
On Northwestern’s zone defense:
“We’ve seen zone defenses throughout the year. I don’t think that our guys are going to get squeamish at that. That’s just the potential for more open jump shots. The key for us is to get good movement. There are different places that we feel we can attack in that zone, but the bottom line is the ball has to move no matter what it is. Their zone is, if they play it, more of a two three and for the most part looks like it’s based with the Syracuse zone or the way Michigan is playing their zone now, so we expect to see trapping. We expect to see trapping on the base line. Our job is just to keep making sure that we’re moving the ball the best way possible.”
On the three-game winning streak for Northwestern:
“I think that the shooting stats are glaring. The shots that they’re making and the field goal percentage defense that they have and the fact that they’re not putting people at the foul line. I think that’s a big part of it. They haven’t been losing games because of free-throw attempts.
“I’ve read all the comments that Chris made, where they made the changes after the Michigan State game. Michigan State was very aggressive with them. Very physical. They made some changes after that. We get ready for everything. We can see different defenses. We can see man-to-man. I don’t know if it’s anything that we look at and we say ‘Well, they’ll just play us this one way’. Our bottom line is more understanding their personnel and doing what we have to do to keep moving the ball.
“They’ve got very good personnel. Bryant McIntosh is playing outstanding, there’s no doubt about it. We’ve always liked Bryant. He’s an excellent player. Tre Demps is playing right now with the speed and accuracy and initiative as good as any guard in the league. We’ve already talked about Alex Olah and Vic Law is coming off his best game. Gavin Skelly has been a force for them and now Nathan Taphorn is healthy and he’s shooting the ball at a very high rate. They can put literally five shooters on the floor at times. Really no less than four. I think that’s what gives them such an advantage right now, too.”
On adjusting the intensity of practice late in the year, and how he has adjusted that over his coaching career:
“I think I’ve modified it quite a bit during the coaching career, no question about that, but every team is different. Last week we needed to get back to getting up and down the court a little bit. I think there’s a balancing act, where you can’t get too far ahead of yourself as a coach either. You could have a plan for that week or for the next couple of days, but you’ve got to be able to adjust it. We needed to get back up and down and shorten the shot clock type of things and bring the speed of full court back to us a little bit.
“After the Purdue game we did that, but again we weren’t on the court very long. So I think there are different times where we’re working on the court and any type of one-on-one to five-on-five situation is going to be live and it’s going to be intense and it is going to be fast. But there are also times to be in a walk-through mode, especially defensively and that’s a part of it too. But anything else we do, like shooting - we are never just out there to shoot. There is always a speed element, a time and score element to it, along with the type of shots that you’re getting.
“We say this all the time, but I think it’s true and I think that this is the other part of coaching that I’ve continued to grow is we are never going to get away from the skill development inside of the practices. When I was at Marquette, and even early on here, we would do more of the skill development inside of individual instruction workouts. We make sure we never get away from that in practice and even on game day. That’s another modification that we’ve made this year, we spend time inside of that walk-through really putting the cones out, driving through the pads, the driving moves, the shooting, the rebounding, reading the cuts, the back cuts. We continue to work on all of those type of things so that everyone is continuing to work on the left hand, or this guy dunk everything, or this guy don’t dunk anything. We keep mixing it up everyday to keep challenging them to improve in areas. I think we have a good handle on that everyday, and what they need to improve upon. Then we look at it like ‘can we make substantial improvement on that in practice?’ You hope so, but you hope you really see it over a period of time and I think we have.”
On not playing for six days after the game at Northwestern and if now is a good time for a break:
“Well, yes and no. It is what it is. I’ve never looked into scheduling and viewed it that way. We’ll make sure that we get better no matter what it is. We are not at a point where I say ‘Wow, we need some rest,’ because we have tapered practices back so much over a period of time.
“Probably looking at the period of numbers of live work from Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning with the walk through we probably went over three days probably about three hours and ten minutes. Now film sessions walkthroughs, that’s different because you’re getting a lot out of that too, but everything matters. We don’t have them over here just to have them here you know to cover a time allotted, I mean everything matter for them and they spend so much time on their own shooting the ball and I gave guys outside of some conditioning yesterday very very minimal conditioning just to kind of get the body moving right and get the blood flowing right, most of them came back out to shoot, that’s just what they do. So that’s a good thing inside of it so we just really monitor everyday to get ready for what the next day should bring us and I don’t think that will change with a six day no game break.
On the success Bryant MacIntosh has had as a freshman:
“Well, he has always been good. I don’t think there’s any question he’s been a very good player and he’s extremely skilled. He has a great patience and poise to his game. He shoots the ball extremely well, plays with his head up and is not fouling so he’s really not getting beat on defense. He takes big shots makes big passes, and really appears to me to not predetermine what he’s going to do he just lets the game come to him. I think that’s a really good trait, but he’s an excellent player. And we’ve got two young freshmen that are pretty good too, in the sense of James and Robert, when you look at guards. But when you look at Bryant, he is a very good guard in this league and is going to be for a very long time.”
On the team’s success when James Blackmon Jr. gets five rebounds in a game:
“I think it’s just the awareness of getting (on the glass) constantly. It’s not just the defensive boards, but especially the offensive boards, because with a three-guard lineup, I really don’t send Robert to the glass. We send him back (on defense), so it’s really imperative that James does get there. I think that when that awareness and when he’s really moving without the ball and the shot goes up and he’s aggressive.”
On the status of Collin Hartman:
“He has a bone bruise in his lower leg. It’s not his knee. It certainly could have been a lot worse and we are fortunate there. His status for tomorrow’s game is uncertain.”
