Indiana University Athletics
Postgame Quotes vs. Illinois
1/19/2016 10:29:00 PM | Men's Basketball
Indiana vs. Illinois
Jan. 19, 2016
Postgame Quotes
Indiana Head Coach Tom Crean
Opening Statement…
COACH CREAN: The thing I'm most proud of with our team is that really every day they come in here and they're locked into what we're doing at that present time, whether it's the way they are in the weight room, whether it's the way they are with the flexibility and conditioning, certainly the way they are in practice, their film sessions. They take every opponent very, very seriously, and that's exactly what we did with Illinois.
Great respect for John (Groce) and his program and certainly their personnel. We knew that we had to be, of all the games, this team had the most spacing because they had their five man could really shoot the ball. Honestly think he's one of the great three-point shooters in our league. Maverick Morgan can drill it from 15, 17 feet, and there were going to be harder match-ups.
We had to be that much more locked in, because if you over-help on this team, they can break you down and kick it out to three-point shooters. So I thought our guys were really locked into that. They were locked into knowing that they were going to come with a lot of edge and energy on the glass. Once we figured out that we needed to continue to go to the paint to get our three-point shots and play through the post and through the paint to get ball reversal, we were much better.
Because there were times early in the game that we were not stagnant, but the ball sat in a couple different areas. It's got to go through the slots in the corners and continue to be reversed, so that we can get our spacing better, and that's at the end of the day what allowed us, I think, to get the three-point looks that we got.
So we have a lot of respect for them. They're going to win games. They've got some of the tougher match-ups in this league, and this was a great win for us because, again, the respect level that we have for them.
As far as personal performances, we had a lot of really good ones. But I'll start with the obvious one with Yogi (Ferrell). Yogi, I said this to somebody today, his work ethic. Came in here really, really strong when he came here four years ago, and it has only grown. He is without question usually one of the last guys off and most importantly he's always finding ways to get back on, and that has nothing to do with what we're doing in practice. He is always full-throttle in practice. He always has been. It's the extra work that he puts in, the extra film work that he puts in. It's the way he's carrying his teammates with him. Rarely do you see him watching film on the road by himself. There's a couple guys in there with him.
And I think all those things manifest themselves into having a guy that they really look to to -- they want Yogi to succeed because they know that Yogi is going to find them. He sets the tone defensively. He sets the tone offensively. What I love about him is he's incredibly happy for their success, and his maturity is well on its way. We've got a lot of basketball left. We've got a lot of games left. We've got 12 regular season games I think right now, and there is a lot of basketball left to be played. But if he stays on this path of continuing to improve the way that he is and keeps that work ethic that way, he'll leave here with a really strong legacy.
Q. What has changed since earlier in the season when you guys were struggling in that area?
COACH CREAN: Well, I think it's happened over a period of time. We're not really teaching different things. I think I told Mike Tirico with ESPN, I said this to him today, I went back to the Vegas game yesterday to look at some things that Dave Rice was running at Las Vegas, and I'm watching and I just go, wow. We're so different, right? Because Thomas Bryant is different.
So I think it starts with there is a real commitment to the guys to get better defensively, and the freshmen have really improved. And now where OG (Anunoby) and Juwan (Morgan) are on the court the way that they are, not only do they have the physical attributes, but they're getting the mental part of it as well.
It's not like we've done a lot of different things. We've just tried to get better at what we were doing. Early on we weren't aggressive enough. Early on we didn't have enough experience guarding good ball screens and teams that really tried to space us out. We weren't as aggressive as we needed to be with moving on the pass, we'd move on the catch a little bit so we'd be a little bit late.
But I think it's just experience and practicing that way every day and them knowing that we can score points, but our identity has got to come from what we do defensively and what we do rebounding-wise, and it starts with the transition, which is where we've made a lot of strides in, and hopefully we'll continue to get even better at that.
Q. How difficult is it to coach Yogi?
COACH CREAN: It's not difficult at all because he's so smart. He's extremely smart, and he's got a very good basketball temperament. He's very cerebral. He's playing different positions on the court that most people have no idea that he's in. We'll do things defensively in practice. We had a situation yesterday, we changed defenses in practice against the scout team and a couple of coaches didn't even know we changed. And they're pretty astute to it, and it's because of the things that Yogi can do. That's the thing.
It's not the obvious that's so good about him. That's pretty clear, right? He shoots it, he's quick, he's strong, he defends, he can pass the ball. But it's the ground that he covers. It's the covering for his teammates. It's the communication he's picking up.
So really, it's not hard to coach him at all because he wants to get better, and he's growing up, right? He's growing up. So never going to talk about him in past tense until that day comes. Right now he's like all of them. It's a work in progress because he wants to get better, and there is still a lot of room for him to get better.
The more I'm around him, the more I know that his best days are going to be at that next level. I have no doubt in my mind about that. I never really have. But now that he gets older, I have no doubt in my mind because he's got so much to give because he spent so much time at it. It's an honor to coach him.
Q. 27 assists on 37 baskets and also Troy has five assists with no turnovers.
COACH CREAN: I didn't realize that. I didn't realize he didn't have any turnovers. I haven't studied that. That's good. That makes the night even better. Troy (Williams), we spend a lot of time together. He really wants to be really good. He's growing up and we keep trying to show him and have him see the things that are really going to be measurables for him: His decision-making, his rebounding, what he gets done defensively. Because the shooting and all those kind of things, they're becoming better and better because of the work ethic and the improvement aspect of the program that's always ongoing here, at least I hope it's always ongoing here. But it's that decision making that's outbounding that are going to be the things that are going to separate him. The more he understands that and buys into that and understands that his rebounding is a strength and he never wants to get away from it, his quickness and his speed and great strength can be a great weapon, but he doesn't want to make it a detriment. He's really astute to learning and getting better. That's what's got to keep up, and if that keeps up, he's going to keep improving.
Q. What strikes you most about Michael Lewis?
COACH CREAN: Well, I sat with Michael a couple weeks ago at a game. I have a great respect for him. Actually coached against him, and Tom Izzo and I took a team to Europe. I was Tom's assistant on a Big Ten All-Star team when they did that, and Michael was the Indiana representative. So got to actually coach him for a couple weeks.
Michael was one of those pure, tough, do what it takes to win, and I think if you ask the average person who the assist leader was, I'm not sure they would know Michael Lewis. If they knew Indiana basketball, they would. But if you asked who one of the great winners at Indiana was and one of the tough guys at Indiana was, Michael Lewis's name would come up. The fact that he made his teammates so much better during that time that he was here says a lot about him.
I think he's going to be a great head coach. He's got an inner and an outer toughness that's really, really clear. I think for Yogi to be in that company with Michael Lewis and Quinn Buckner and others that are right up in that top group, that's pretty strong.
Q. Yogi didn't know that Lewis had the record.
COACH CREAN: To be honest with you, we really don't spend time talking about those type of things. He's aware about the assists. The biggest thing with Yogi is this won't be the last time that he's hitting some accolades if he stays on the path he's on. But the most important thing he wants to be is known for winning.
I think that we don't really spend a lot of time talking about -- just like we don't spend a lot of time in the negative, we don't spend a lot of time in the positive. We spend the majority of our time in what have we got to get better at now? As a coach, we want to look down the road some with your team. But the most important thing is to stay in that moment. So they're pretty tunnel visioned into getting better.
Q. What was the reason for the hand raise?
COACH CREAN: Because he set a record. It wasn't because we won the game. It wasn't because it was a chance -- we'll honor him the right way. But it was a chance -- I've done that a couple times when guys hit their 1000th point. I think it's my chance to show them that we wouldn't be there without them. Right? It's a spur of the moment deal, and then there are ceremonies. But it's just quick. It's quick.
We weren't going to stop the game. But taking him out at that point just to make sure fans gave him just a little bit extra because he deserved it.
Q. Is it unfair to suggest that some of these defensive improvements have come at the time James Blackmon went out?
COACH CREAN: Yeah, I don't think it's realistic. I've heard that from some others. James Blackmon put up 21 on Illinois. He put 24 on Minnesota. We're taking 15 points, 26 minutes, high-level shooting out of our lineup. It's changed our spacing. We're doing things right now with our team that we've got -- we're building the fundamentals constantly, but we're trying to make up for that.
So, the thing that people -- they don't always see, it's like this defense, this team getting better. They don't always see the improvement level of all of them. Well, James was making improvements too. And when he got hurt, it was at a time when we were hitting the Big Ten schedule. So it wasn't like there were two weeks to play some non-conference games and try to figure out what we're going to do.
Yeah, we miss James Blackmon. I mean, ask Mike Krzyzewski what it's like playing without Amile Jefferson. When you take a really good player out of the lineup that's capable of so much, you're going to feel the effects of that. What it's done is there was no one player that is going to come in, and I think we went through this a little bit at Rutgers where a couple guys thought I may get those 16 points. Well, it doesn't work that way. It's got to come from everybody.
What it's done was OG was that much more ready to play. He's getting more minutes. Juwan Morgan was starting to get healthy and Thomas Bryant was starting to get healthy. They're getting more reps in practice. Thomas Bryant shoots the ball from three every day in practice. Tonight was the one that he took, right? So you want them to continue to get better. James was no different.
Now our mission is to help him get better at the things that we can control right now. His strength and some other things we've got planned drill-wise for him and helping him rehabilitate.
But I hope no one -- we miss James Blackmon. He's one of the great combination shooting guards, whatever you want to call him, certainly in his class or one of them in the country. And he understood that he had to get better defensively to be a good player on this team because the team needed to get better defensively. So we miss him. Trust me, if he was out there, we'd figure out a way to have him.
Q. I guess at some level, it seems like losing someone maybe sharpens guys up?
COACH CREAN: I don't agree with that at all. I think guys are getting better in practice. I don't know how to answer that other than I don't agree with that. It's all about improvement. It's all about understanding your assignment. It's all about helping your teammates. And really what happens, you get your opportunity, and then you either utilize your opportunity and continue to get more of them or somebody else gets them.
And we've had to reconfigure some things more than most people would realize without him in there. I mean, everybody gets a tougher match-up right now. So in that sense, does it sharpen them up? I guess it makes them that much more aware of who they're dealing with, but we miss James Blackmon. I mean, there's no doubt about it. He'd be enhancing what we're doing.
Indiana Players – Yogi Ferrell, Troy Williams and Max Bielfeldt
Q. Yogi, can you just talk about breaking the record?
YOGI FERRELL: That's a great honor. I played with a lot of great guys coming up: Victor Oladipo, Cody Zeller, Jordan Hulls, Christian Watford, that's what I like to be. I like to be a facilitator for my team, and I feel like I've gotten to have known my teammates very well all four years, the guys that are coming in here, in and out. So I basically know where they're going to be on the court. I know where they like to hit threes. That's what I've got to do is basically get the ball to them and they make the magic happen.
Q. Before setting the record, did you have a visual of what it would look like?
YOGI FERRELL: Oh, is that what it was? I got $20 for you (laughing). No, I don't. I mean, I wasn't really trying to force the issue. I knew I was one assist away, but I was just going to go out there and play the same game that I normally play, push the ball, push the tempo. I know my teammates are going to run with me. I know they're going to run with me, and I'm going to get them the ball.
Q. Are you really going to give him $20?
YOGI FERRELL: No, I'm just joking, I'm not going to give him $20. I'm a broke college kid, man (laughing).
Q. Troy can you talk about the threes tonight?
TROY WILLIAMS: Not really. It's not like we come out and that's our game plan is to shoot threes. We just drive the ball inside, get it rotated outside and knock down to three. Or we get in transition, like one example, I get in transition and I pass it back to Yogi for the three. Just shooting the right shot at the right time.
Q. Troy, how much easier is your job scoring with Yogi on the court?
TROY WILLIAMS: He's going to give us the ball in the right spot where we can make plays. He trusts us with the ball, and we trust to give him the ball and he makes the right plays.
Q. Max, you guys seem different than the first month. What changed?
MAX BIELFELDT: I think we had just our mindset. We're really focusing in. We're a lot clearer on what we want to do. There was a little uncertainty at times in the past, and I think we just really worked on that in practice and just kind of harped on the small things and playing that defense as a unit. Everyone being there for each other if there was emergency help or whatever it is.
I think we really kind of worked on that to a point where it's not getting talked about as much where we have that defensive liability. I think we just worked on it enough where we're starting to be the defensive team we want to be.
YOGI FERRELL: Yeah, to go off that, it's basically a mindset, like Max said. We didn't really know what we were doing to start off with, but I felt like we got better concepts and we worked on those concepts every day in practice. We're just going to carry that to the game. With that, we've got to have the mindset, okay, we want to get a stop and we want to hold them under a certain field goal percentage. If we do that and get multiple stops in a row, that's what gets us going and gets our offense going.
Q. Yogi, talk about the moment with coach Crean?
YOGI FERRELL: Yeah, I didn't know he was going to do that. I thought he was just trying to give me a handshake. But that's pretty cool, man, all the fans cheering for me. It just shows how special Hoosier Nation is and all the fans that are behind us.
Q. A lot of folks talked about dealing with losing James (Blackmon, Jr.). Is it fair to say at some level when you lose a player like that, it just has to sharpen everybody's focus a little bit?
MAX BIELFELDT: I would definitely say that especially last year with all get guys that went down when I was a senior in Michigan, we saw that firsthand. And losing James was that same sort of effect. One of our key guys goes down, and it's that next-man up mentality of a freshman. You have to go in there and start playing like a veteran.
So far we've seen some big things out of our young guys, and everyone that's stepped up, has stepped up really well.
Q. You're now linked to the record breaking assist.
MAX BIELFELDT: Hey, that's awesome. To be a part of that, that's a heck of a record. It just shows how talented he is and the guys he's played with. I've been on the other end of that before trying to stop him. It's a lot more fun to receive those passes than trying to defend them.
Q. Yogi, do you know Michael Lewis?
YOGI FERRELL: I don't. Was he the previous record holder? No, I don't. I'm not up to date with the record holders.
Q. Can you talk about how you balance facilitating and scoring?
YOGI FERRELL: I think I've learned it hasn't been too difficult playing here. I basically like to take what the defense gives me. They've got to take something away, and each game is going to be something different. It just depends on what the game has given me, and what the game has given our team. First my strategy is just push the ball. If I can drive to the rim and score a quick bucket, I'll do that. But I just want to push it and try to find my teammates.
Q. Yogi, obviously you've been here four years, where would you rank this in terms of the chemistry so far?
YOGI FERRELL: This chemistry is great. I'd probably rank it with my freshman year. It's just us being one mind. Collectively, we know what we want to do. And when we know what we want to do, we're unstoppable.
Q. Yogi and Max, you both said you kind of didn't know what you were doing early on. How has that changed or how has it become clearer?
MAX BIELFELDT: I'd say you've got to think about you have a lot of new guys coming in. You have Thomas (Bryant) guarding college ball screens for the first time and all these new pieces. You practice them for October, September, all those months. And you finally get to the game, and you've got teams throwing all sorts of different things at you. It's regarding some different athletes, different players, and I think it just took us a little bit to kind of figure out what we needed to do and what was most effective.
So it was partially that, and partially what we were talking about earlier with the mindset. So I think definitely just repetitions and all the guys and everyone just kind of playing as one unit.
Q. Yogi, now what do you tell some of these younger players on your team about what to expect each night?
YOGI FERRELL: Yeah, I mean, we've got a bullseye on our back being the No. 1 team in the Big Ten now. So we've got to take it day by day. We definitely can't let up now especially. Every day's going to be a process for us. Even though we've set a standard for where we want to be and where we've met, we want to push that standard up for us and we just want to be great.
Q. You obviously didn't look at the record books, is there a reason for that?
YOGI FERRELL: No, not really. That's why I don't like looking at all that stuff. I like to focus in on the games. I like to focus in on my film, my extra work, because at the end of the day people aren't going to really remember this record. They're going to remember whether you won games or not.
Q. Talk about Max (Bilefeldt) and Robert (Johnson)'s getting going early tonight?
YOGI FERRELL: Yeah, I mean, that just picks our energy up and takes away the energy from the other team. We're just moving the ball around, sharing it. Those guys go in spurts like that, and it just shows what we can do as a team and our capability.
Illinois Head Coach John Groce
Opening Statement…
JOHN GROCE: Give them a lot credit. I thought they were terrific. I knew going in that they were going to be difficult to defend. They were even better in person. They did a great job of dribble driving the ball. When we were able to shut that down, they did a great job of making three pointers from multiple players. It's a 40-minute game, but you hate to start saying it might not be our night when Thomas Bryant makes a three from the top of the key, or when Troy (Williams) drills two three's early in the game. Now all of a sudden that opens up Williams' drive game, which is really his strength. I though he really opened up the floodgates. They were terrific offensively. I thought we helped them by having poor offense in the first half. We tried to play hero ball. When it was 22-21, we used a timeout and I encouraged them to stay course with the game plan and not get temped even though some of our guys had made some shots. I did not think we were nearly disciplined enough to do that closing out the half. They went on a little run there to end the half, and I felt our guys panicked a little bit. A 10-point deficit is nothing, but we started taking bad shots and attempting to force feed things. When that happen, it ignited their transition game even more.
On the second half…
JOHN GROCE: I thought we were atrocious defensively from halftime on. I did not think we had enough pride at that end of the floor. I know they are hard to guard and I have watch them a lot. This morning I watched them play Ohio State, whom I have a lot of respect for, and it was 48-18 at halftime. I know how good they are on offense. Having said that, I do not think we controlled what we needed to on defense today. I thought we made too many game plan errors and I really did not like the look of our guys. Our leadership on the court has got to be better than what it is. I thought our offense was better in the second half. We shot a better percentage, got to the line, and even had fewer turnovers. Our defense was just so bad that it did not matter. Give them a lot of credit, but we have to get better defensively. We need some guys that value that end of the floor as much as hitting shots on the offensive end.
On his frustrations with this game…
JOHN GROCE: Indiana was shooting 80-something percent there to start the second half. Some of it was some good offense from them, but some of it came from our guys. I did not like our body language at all. Some of our guys were out there hanging their heads. I thought the deficit affected our effort. We do not do that. We are not supposed to do that. That is a reflection, in my opinion, of having more pride on that end of the floor. We need to value the defensive end as much as we do offensive, and we need leadership out there. We need more of that on the court. All I can say is that we are going to have to keep trying to get it out of them. Some of them, vocal stuff is not natural to them. We need someone to step up. Some of these guys' eligibility is over, Tracy Abrams is in street clothes, and that's not changing.
Jan. 19, 2016
Postgame Quotes
Indiana Head Coach Tom Crean
Opening Statement…
COACH CREAN: The thing I'm most proud of with our team is that really every day they come in here and they're locked into what we're doing at that present time, whether it's the way they are in the weight room, whether it's the way they are with the flexibility and conditioning, certainly the way they are in practice, their film sessions. They take every opponent very, very seriously, and that's exactly what we did with Illinois.
Great respect for John (Groce) and his program and certainly their personnel. We knew that we had to be, of all the games, this team had the most spacing because they had their five man could really shoot the ball. Honestly think he's one of the great three-point shooters in our league. Maverick Morgan can drill it from 15, 17 feet, and there were going to be harder match-ups.
We had to be that much more locked in, because if you over-help on this team, they can break you down and kick it out to three-point shooters. So I thought our guys were really locked into that. They were locked into knowing that they were going to come with a lot of edge and energy on the glass. Once we figured out that we needed to continue to go to the paint to get our three-point shots and play through the post and through the paint to get ball reversal, we were much better.
Because there were times early in the game that we were not stagnant, but the ball sat in a couple different areas. It's got to go through the slots in the corners and continue to be reversed, so that we can get our spacing better, and that's at the end of the day what allowed us, I think, to get the three-point looks that we got.
So we have a lot of respect for them. They're going to win games. They've got some of the tougher match-ups in this league, and this was a great win for us because, again, the respect level that we have for them.
As far as personal performances, we had a lot of really good ones. But I'll start with the obvious one with Yogi (Ferrell). Yogi, I said this to somebody today, his work ethic. Came in here really, really strong when he came here four years ago, and it has only grown. He is without question usually one of the last guys off and most importantly he's always finding ways to get back on, and that has nothing to do with what we're doing in practice. He is always full-throttle in practice. He always has been. It's the extra work that he puts in, the extra film work that he puts in. It's the way he's carrying his teammates with him. Rarely do you see him watching film on the road by himself. There's a couple guys in there with him.
And I think all those things manifest themselves into having a guy that they really look to to -- they want Yogi to succeed because they know that Yogi is going to find them. He sets the tone defensively. He sets the tone offensively. What I love about him is he's incredibly happy for their success, and his maturity is well on its way. We've got a lot of basketball left. We've got a lot of games left. We've got 12 regular season games I think right now, and there is a lot of basketball left to be played. But if he stays on this path of continuing to improve the way that he is and keeps that work ethic that way, he'll leave here with a really strong legacy.
Q. What has changed since earlier in the season when you guys were struggling in that area?
COACH CREAN: Well, I think it's happened over a period of time. We're not really teaching different things. I think I told Mike Tirico with ESPN, I said this to him today, I went back to the Vegas game yesterday to look at some things that Dave Rice was running at Las Vegas, and I'm watching and I just go, wow. We're so different, right? Because Thomas Bryant is different.
So I think it starts with there is a real commitment to the guys to get better defensively, and the freshmen have really improved. And now where OG (Anunoby) and Juwan (Morgan) are on the court the way that they are, not only do they have the physical attributes, but they're getting the mental part of it as well.
It's not like we've done a lot of different things. We've just tried to get better at what we were doing. Early on we weren't aggressive enough. Early on we didn't have enough experience guarding good ball screens and teams that really tried to space us out. We weren't as aggressive as we needed to be with moving on the pass, we'd move on the catch a little bit so we'd be a little bit late.
But I think it's just experience and practicing that way every day and them knowing that we can score points, but our identity has got to come from what we do defensively and what we do rebounding-wise, and it starts with the transition, which is where we've made a lot of strides in, and hopefully we'll continue to get even better at that.
Q. How difficult is it to coach Yogi?
COACH CREAN: It's not difficult at all because he's so smart. He's extremely smart, and he's got a very good basketball temperament. He's very cerebral. He's playing different positions on the court that most people have no idea that he's in. We'll do things defensively in practice. We had a situation yesterday, we changed defenses in practice against the scout team and a couple of coaches didn't even know we changed. And they're pretty astute to it, and it's because of the things that Yogi can do. That's the thing.
It's not the obvious that's so good about him. That's pretty clear, right? He shoots it, he's quick, he's strong, he defends, he can pass the ball. But it's the ground that he covers. It's the covering for his teammates. It's the communication he's picking up.
So really, it's not hard to coach him at all because he wants to get better, and he's growing up, right? He's growing up. So never going to talk about him in past tense until that day comes. Right now he's like all of them. It's a work in progress because he wants to get better, and there is still a lot of room for him to get better.
The more I'm around him, the more I know that his best days are going to be at that next level. I have no doubt in my mind about that. I never really have. But now that he gets older, I have no doubt in my mind because he's got so much to give because he spent so much time at it. It's an honor to coach him.
Q. 27 assists on 37 baskets and also Troy has five assists with no turnovers.
COACH CREAN: I didn't realize that. I didn't realize he didn't have any turnovers. I haven't studied that. That's good. That makes the night even better. Troy (Williams), we spend a lot of time together. He really wants to be really good. He's growing up and we keep trying to show him and have him see the things that are really going to be measurables for him: His decision-making, his rebounding, what he gets done defensively. Because the shooting and all those kind of things, they're becoming better and better because of the work ethic and the improvement aspect of the program that's always ongoing here, at least I hope it's always ongoing here. But it's that decision making that's outbounding that are going to be the things that are going to separate him. The more he understands that and buys into that and understands that his rebounding is a strength and he never wants to get away from it, his quickness and his speed and great strength can be a great weapon, but he doesn't want to make it a detriment. He's really astute to learning and getting better. That's what's got to keep up, and if that keeps up, he's going to keep improving.
Q. What strikes you most about Michael Lewis?
COACH CREAN: Well, I sat with Michael a couple weeks ago at a game. I have a great respect for him. Actually coached against him, and Tom Izzo and I took a team to Europe. I was Tom's assistant on a Big Ten All-Star team when they did that, and Michael was the Indiana representative. So got to actually coach him for a couple weeks.
Michael was one of those pure, tough, do what it takes to win, and I think if you ask the average person who the assist leader was, I'm not sure they would know Michael Lewis. If they knew Indiana basketball, they would. But if you asked who one of the great winners at Indiana was and one of the tough guys at Indiana was, Michael Lewis's name would come up. The fact that he made his teammates so much better during that time that he was here says a lot about him.
I think he's going to be a great head coach. He's got an inner and an outer toughness that's really, really clear. I think for Yogi to be in that company with Michael Lewis and Quinn Buckner and others that are right up in that top group, that's pretty strong.
Q. Yogi didn't know that Lewis had the record.
COACH CREAN: To be honest with you, we really don't spend time talking about those type of things. He's aware about the assists. The biggest thing with Yogi is this won't be the last time that he's hitting some accolades if he stays on the path he's on. But the most important thing he wants to be is known for winning.
I think that we don't really spend a lot of time talking about -- just like we don't spend a lot of time in the negative, we don't spend a lot of time in the positive. We spend the majority of our time in what have we got to get better at now? As a coach, we want to look down the road some with your team. But the most important thing is to stay in that moment. So they're pretty tunnel visioned into getting better.
Q. What was the reason for the hand raise?
COACH CREAN: Because he set a record. It wasn't because we won the game. It wasn't because it was a chance -- we'll honor him the right way. But it was a chance -- I've done that a couple times when guys hit their 1000th point. I think it's my chance to show them that we wouldn't be there without them. Right? It's a spur of the moment deal, and then there are ceremonies. But it's just quick. It's quick.
We weren't going to stop the game. But taking him out at that point just to make sure fans gave him just a little bit extra because he deserved it.
Q. Is it unfair to suggest that some of these defensive improvements have come at the time James Blackmon went out?
COACH CREAN: Yeah, I don't think it's realistic. I've heard that from some others. James Blackmon put up 21 on Illinois. He put 24 on Minnesota. We're taking 15 points, 26 minutes, high-level shooting out of our lineup. It's changed our spacing. We're doing things right now with our team that we've got -- we're building the fundamentals constantly, but we're trying to make up for that.
So, the thing that people -- they don't always see, it's like this defense, this team getting better. They don't always see the improvement level of all of them. Well, James was making improvements too. And when he got hurt, it was at a time when we were hitting the Big Ten schedule. So it wasn't like there were two weeks to play some non-conference games and try to figure out what we're going to do.
Yeah, we miss James Blackmon. I mean, ask Mike Krzyzewski what it's like playing without Amile Jefferson. When you take a really good player out of the lineup that's capable of so much, you're going to feel the effects of that. What it's done is there was no one player that is going to come in, and I think we went through this a little bit at Rutgers where a couple guys thought I may get those 16 points. Well, it doesn't work that way. It's got to come from everybody.
What it's done was OG was that much more ready to play. He's getting more minutes. Juwan Morgan was starting to get healthy and Thomas Bryant was starting to get healthy. They're getting more reps in practice. Thomas Bryant shoots the ball from three every day in practice. Tonight was the one that he took, right? So you want them to continue to get better. James was no different.
Now our mission is to help him get better at the things that we can control right now. His strength and some other things we've got planned drill-wise for him and helping him rehabilitate.
But I hope no one -- we miss James Blackmon. He's one of the great combination shooting guards, whatever you want to call him, certainly in his class or one of them in the country. And he understood that he had to get better defensively to be a good player on this team because the team needed to get better defensively. So we miss him. Trust me, if he was out there, we'd figure out a way to have him.
Q. I guess at some level, it seems like losing someone maybe sharpens guys up?
COACH CREAN: I don't agree with that at all. I think guys are getting better in practice. I don't know how to answer that other than I don't agree with that. It's all about improvement. It's all about understanding your assignment. It's all about helping your teammates. And really what happens, you get your opportunity, and then you either utilize your opportunity and continue to get more of them or somebody else gets them.
And we've had to reconfigure some things more than most people would realize without him in there. I mean, everybody gets a tougher match-up right now. So in that sense, does it sharpen them up? I guess it makes them that much more aware of who they're dealing with, but we miss James Blackmon. I mean, there's no doubt about it. He'd be enhancing what we're doing.
Indiana Players – Yogi Ferrell, Troy Williams and Max Bielfeldt
Q. Yogi, can you just talk about breaking the record?
YOGI FERRELL: That's a great honor. I played with a lot of great guys coming up: Victor Oladipo, Cody Zeller, Jordan Hulls, Christian Watford, that's what I like to be. I like to be a facilitator for my team, and I feel like I've gotten to have known my teammates very well all four years, the guys that are coming in here, in and out. So I basically know where they're going to be on the court. I know where they like to hit threes. That's what I've got to do is basically get the ball to them and they make the magic happen.
Q. Before setting the record, did you have a visual of what it would look like?
YOGI FERRELL: Oh, is that what it was? I got $20 for you (laughing). No, I don't. I mean, I wasn't really trying to force the issue. I knew I was one assist away, but I was just going to go out there and play the same game that I normally play, push the ball, push the tempo. I know my teammates are going to run with me. I know they're going to run with me, and I'm going to get them the ball.
Q. Are you really going to give him $20?
YOGI FERRELL: No, I'm just joking, I'm not going to give him $20. I'm a broke college kid, man (laughing).
Q. Troy can you talk about the threes tonight?
TROY WILLIAMS: Not really. It's not like we come out and that's our game plan is to shoot threes. We just drive the ball inside, get it rotated outside and knock down to three. Or we get in transition, like one example, I get in transition and I pass it back to Yogi for the three. Just shooting the right shot at the right time.
Q. Troy, how much easier is your job scoring with Yogi on the court?
TROY WILLIAMS: He's going to give us the ball in the right spot where we can make plays. He trusts us with the ball, and we trust to give him the ball and he makes the right plays.
Q. Max, you guys seem different than the first month. What changed?
MAX BIELFELDT: I think we had just our mindset. We're really focusing in. We're a lot clearer on what we want to do. There was a little uncertainty at times in the past, and I think we just really worked on that in practice and just kind of harped on the small things and playing that defense as a unit. Everyone being there for each other if there was emergency help or whatever it is.
I think we really kind of worked on that to a point where it's not getting talked about as much where we have that defensive liability. I think we just worked on it enough where we're starting to be the defensive team we want to be.
YOGI FERRELL: Yeah, to go off that, it's basically a mindset, like Max said. We didn't really know what we were doing to start off with, but I felt like we got better concepts and we worked on those concepts every day in practice. We're just going to carry that to the game. With that, we've got to have the mindset, okay, we want to get a stop and we want to hold them under a certain field goal percentage. If we do that and get multiple stops in a row, that's what gets us going and gets our offense going.
Q. Yogi, talk about the moment with coach Crean?
YOGI FERRELL: Yeah, I didn't know he was going to do that. I thought he was just trying to give me a handshake. But that's pretty cool, man, all the fans cheering for me. It just shows how special Hoosier Nation is and all the fans that are behind us.
Q. A lot of folks talked about dealing with losing James (Blackmon, Jr.). Is it fair to say at some level when you lose a player like that, it just has to sharpen everybody's focus a little bit?
MAX BIELFELDT: I would definitely say that especially last year with all get guys that went down when I was a senior in Michigan, we saw that firsthand. And losing James was that same sort of effect. One of our key guys goes down, and it's that next-man up mentality of a freshman. You have to go in there and start playing like a veteran.
So far we've seen some big things out of our young guys, and everyone that's stepped up, has stepped up really well.
Q. You're now linked to the record breaking assist.
MAX BIELFELDT: Hey, that's awesome. To be a part of that, that's a heck of a record. It just shows how talented he is and the guys he's played with. I've been on the other end of that before trying to stop him. It's a lot more fun to receive those passes than trying to defend them.
Q. Yogi, do you know Michael Lewis?
YOGI FERRELL: I don't. Was he the previous record holder? No, I don't. I'm not up to date with the record holders.
Q. Can you talk about how you balance facilitating and scoring?
YOGI FERRELL: I think I've learned it hasn't been too difficult playing here. I basically like to take what the defense gives me. They've got to take something away, and each game is going to be something different. It just depends on what the game has given me, and what the game has given our team. First my strategy is just push the ball. If I can drive to the rim and score a quick bucket, I'll do that. But I just want to push it and try to find my teammates.
Q. Yogi, obviously you've been here four years, where would you rank this in terms of the chemistry so far?
YOGI FERRELL: This chemistry is great. I'd probably rank it with my freshman year. It's just us being one mind. Collectively, we know what we want to do. And when we know what we want to do, we're unstoppable.
Q. Yogi and Max, you both said you kind of didn't know what you were doing early on. How has that changed or how has it become clearer?
MAX BIELFELDT: I'd say you've got to think about you have a lot of new guys coming in. You have Thomas (Bryant) guarding college ball screens for the first time and all these new pieces. You practice them for October, September, all those months. And you finally get to the game, and you've got teams throwing all sorts of different things at you. It's regarding some different athletes, different players, and I think it just took us a little bit to kind of figure out what we needed to do and what was most effective.
So it was partially that, and partially what we were talking about earlier with the mindset. So I think definitely just repetitions and all the guys and everyone just kind of playing as one unit.
Q. Yogi, now what do you tell some of these younger players on your team about what to expect each night?
YOGI FERRELL: Yeah, I mean, we've got a bullseye on our back being the No. 1 team in the Big Ten now. So we've got to take it day by day. We definitely can't let up now especially. Every day's going to be a process for us. Even though we've set a standard for where we want to be and where we've met, we want to push that standard up for us and we just want to be great.
Q. You obviously didn't look at the record books, is there a reason for that?
YOGI FERRELL: No, not really. That's why I don't like looking at all that stuff. I like to focus in on the games. I like to focus in on my film, my extra work, because at the end of the day people aren't going to really remember this record. They're going to remember whether you won games or not.
Q. Talk about Max (Bilefeldt) and Robert (Johnson)'s getting going early tonight?
YOGI FERRELL: Yeah, I mean, that just picks our energy up and takes away the energy from the other team. We're just moving the ball around, sharing it. Those guys go in spurts like that, and it just shows what we can do as a team and our capability.
Illinois Head Coach John Groce
Opening Statement…
JOHN GROCE: Give them a lot credit. I thought they were terrific. I knew going in that they were going to be difficult to defend. They were even better in person. They did a great job of dribble driving the ball. When we were able to shut that down, they did a great job of making three pointers from multiple players. It's a 40-minute game, but you hate to start saying it might not be our night when Thomas Bryant makes a three from the top of the key, or when Troy (Williams) drills two three's early in the game. Now all of a sudden that opens up Williams' drive game, which is really his strength. I though he really opened up the floodgates. They were terrific offensively. I thought we helped them by having poor offense in the first half. We tried to play hero ball. When it was 22-21, we used a timeout and I encouraged them to stay course with the game plan and not get temped even though some of our guys had made some shots. I did not think we were nearly disciplined enough to do that closing out the half. They went on a little run there to end the half, and I felt our guys panicked a little bit. A 10-point deficit is nothing, but we started taking bad shots and attempting to force feed things. When that happen, it ignited their transition game even more.
On the second half…
JOHN GROCE: I thought we were atrocious defensively from halftime on. I did not think we had enough pride at that end of the floor. I know they are hard to guard and I have watch them a lot. This morning I watched them play Ohio State, whom I have a lot of respect for, and it was 48-18 at halftime. I know how good they are on offense. Having said that, I do not think we controlled what we needed to on defense today. I thought we made too many game plan errors and I really did not like the look of our guys. Our leadership on the court has got to be better than what it is. I thought our offense was better in the second half. We shot a better percentage, got to the line, and even had fewer turnovers. Our defense was just so bad that it did not matter. Give them a lot of credit, but we have to get better defensively. We need some guys that value that end of the floor as much as hitting shots on the offensive end.
On his frustrations with this game…
JOHN GROCE: Indiana was shooting 80-something percent there to start the second half. Some of it was some good offense from them, but some of it came from our guys. I did not like our body language at all. Some of our guys were out there hanging their heads. I thought the deficit affected our effort. We do not do that. We are not supposed to do that. That is a reflection, in my opinion, of having more pride on that end of the floor. We need to value the defensive end as much as we do offensive, and we need leadership out there. We need more of that on the court. All I can say is that we are going to have to keep trying to get it out of them. Some of them, vocal stuff is not natural to them. We need someone to step up. Some of these guys' eligibility is over, Tracy Abrams is in street clothes, and that's not changing.
Players Mentioned
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