Indiana basketball head coach Mike Woodson and Myles Rice spoke with the media following Indiana's loss against Iowa on Saturday night.
Below are their full Q&As, as well as the transcript for their conversation.
Q: On what stood out the most amongst the plethora of things that went wrong…
WOODSON: Well, going into this game, we’d been playing some pretty good basketball. When you got out on the road in the Big Ten, you can’t turn it over, you got to rebound with your opponent, and you got to make shots. We failed in all three areas tonight. That’s something you can’t have when you go out on the road, so we got to be better.
Q: On if Indiana’s effort was lacking…
WOODSON: No, I thought we got off to a slow start, but I thought our second unit came in and get us back in it. But when you have 17 points given to them, based on us just hand delivering the basketball, you’re not going to beat very many teams in the Big Ten doing that. I thought we played pretty solid in the half court defense, but we gave up 26 points. They scored 43 and 17 of those came from our turnovers. Good teams like Iowa, you’re not going to get away with that.
Q: On how surprised Woodson is about his team’s performance…
WOODSON: Well again, you don’t go out on the road—our last road game was with Penn State and I thought we competed from the very beginning to the end. Tonight, we looked totally different. We can’t have games like that when we get out on the road. We got to consistently put yourself in position where you’ve got a shot in winning a basketball game and we didn’t give ourselves a chance tonight.
Q: On Oumar Ballo’s four early turnovers and the message to him...
WOODSON: Well again, I mean, Ballo’s been playing pretty well for us. Tonight he was doing things he hadn’t been doing in this five-game stretch. It wasn’t just Ballo – it was everybody had a hand in it, especially that starting group.
Q: On Iowa’s 26 transition points...
WOODSON: Well, first of all, throwing it away didn’t help. The turnovers didn’t help. And then not getting back, I thought our shot selection was terrible tonight. They played the matchup zone, which I thought we executed once we got back in it, but then we just one pass and freeze with the basketball, and that’s something that you just can’t do. Not against good teams.
Q: On if Indiana is defensively disconnected...
RICE: Nah, it’s just hard to play defense when you turn the ball over a lot. They had a lot of advantages, and we turned the ball over a good amount of times tonight, so they were able to get out. We spotted them points, so that already puts us in that hole, and so it’s hard to beat a set defense or play together when we turn the ball over so much.
Q: Woodson on where the team is chemistry wise…
WOODSON: Well again I’ll never use that as an excuse. We do have new players, there is no doubt about that, but the whole country, college basketball in all sports, have new players. How quickly you put it together, mesh together as a team, will determine your opportunity to win at a high level. And we’ve been playing good basketball, I can’t sit here and complain. The last five games we were very competitive against some good teams. We just got to go back and regroup. The Big Ten’s not going anywhere. We’ve got Illinois coming in here soon. We’ve got a couple days to prepare for them and it starts tomorrow at 5’oclock in practice.
Q: On Indiana's turnovers…
RICE: They were just playing uncharacteristically. During the five game stretch we were playing really good basketball, holding on to it, and tonight we just got a little bit outside of ourselves. It started off slow and it kind of was like an avalanche a little bit. One thing led to another and it kept on going all night.
Q: On Indiana's scoring droughts…
RICE: They started from the beginning of the game, turning the ball over. That kind of puts in your head, like ‘now we have to get those plays back’. It’s kind of hard to try to do that and be in your same flow, but it happens. We just got to be better from the start and be able to play through all 40 minutes.
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