Indiana basketball head coach Mike Woodson spoke with the media following Indiana's Tuesday night loss to Wisconsin in Madison.
Below is his full Q&A, as well as a transcript for his conversation—once it becomes available.
Q: On why the season has slipped...
WOODSON: We’re just not a tough team right now. We’re not. Mentally we’re not tough. You figure we have a game like we did at Purdue where we really competed for 40 minutes, and then we come in here and we lay an egg based on how we started the ball game. You spot teams on the road 20, it’s going to be tough to get back in them. And again, that’s on me. We’re pushing and pulling and scraping and just trying to get what we can get, and guys just didn’t step up tonight. We’ve got to get it fixed because we only have eight left, and five of them are at home. We’ve got to figure out all our games at home, and the three that’s out on the road, we’ve got to try to figure those out as well.
Q: On difficulties defending Wisconsin’s 3-pointers…
WOODSON: Again, their bigs got away — that was the difference. I thought Malik and Ballo did an awful job in terms of guarding the bigs. We were terrible in transition early — they got a few there. But you figure if you can take some of those away, you’ve got a game. You make nine at halftime, and that was well over of what we wanted to do coming into the game in guarding the 3-point line. I thought we were better in the second half in that regard. But the first half put us out of the game basically, because it was tough getting back after that. They got up 20.
Q: On explaining the lack of energy coming out in a game like this one…
WOODSON: I don’t know. It’s hard for me to explain it. We’re running out of games and I have to figure these next eight games out because it’s going to be very pivotal for our basketball team in terms of making tournament play.
Q: On the message to the team down the stretch of the season…
WOODSON: Again, it’s not rocket science. Right now our backs are against the wall, we’re not playing great basketball, we’re playing in spurts. I thought the last three games prior to tonight we played pretty good ball. We came up short on—if we just maybe had won one or two [referencing Maryland and Purdue] of those, you’re feeling good about yourselves. I got to figure out a game where we can get thse guys back feeling good about themselves and see where it goes from there.
Q: On if the losses are beginning to weigh on the team…
WOODSON: Sure it is. Sure it is. None of these guys like to lose, I don’t like to lose. I don’t like the way we’re playing. I did, prior to coming into tonight’s game, I thought at Purdue we played great. Maryland game we played great, we played a great half and an awful last minute. We were awful tonight.
Q: On what keeps a team together during a losing streak like this…
WOODSON: You’ve got to lean on them, but you’ve got to help them too. These guys are, they’re kids. Playing big time programs, big time basketball in the Big Ten ain’t no joke. We have to help each other, that’s kind of how I look at it.
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