The weekly Indiana basketball radio show, Inside Indiana Basketball, returned on Monday evening, featuring the head coach of the Hoosier men's and women's teams.
Teri Moren starts the show at 6:30 pm with women's play-by-play voice Austin Render, and Mike Woodson meets with men's play-by-play voice Don Fischer following Moren and Render. The show broadcasts live from the Chop Shop in Bloomington, and can also be streamed on the team's respective Facebook pages.
Here's a rundown of the notables that came out of the season's first show:
Inside Indiana Basketball with Mike Woodson
- Woodson was very excited to see where his team was as a unit heading into Sunday's exhibition opener versus UIndy. "I wasn't excited the first half," he semi-jokes. Indiana has had some competitive scrimmages against one another, but the opportunity to play against an actual opponent was valuable for IU.
- "We just didn't show up the first half. I don't know if it was nerves setting in early in the game..." IU missed too many layups, free throws and endured too many miscues on the defensive side, Woodson says. Indiana didn't execute well offensively, either. He credited that to UIndy's defense, but the Hoosiers responded in the second half the way they needed to.
On the halftime conversation: "Coaches gotta do what they gotta to do sometimes and you hope like hell they respond. I thought they came out and played well the second half, especially our second unit. They were great throughout the whole game, I thought."
On his desire to have two playable units this season: "It's important, I think, when you go through a grueling season of college basketball, especially trying to navigate the Big Ten. You gotta have enough bodies to do that."
"That's not to take anything away from – our bench gave us what it could the last two years. Coming into this season, we tried to recruit for our bench. Yeah, we were recruiting to bring talented players in to start, but we had really three solid starters in Malik, X and Gallo. Then we had to think about the surrounding pieces as we were out recruiting."
Mackenzie Mgbako, Gabe Cupps and Kel'el Ware were great pickups for Indiana, and the Hoosiers haven't yet seen what Jakai Newton could provide just yet, but Anthony Walker and "big Payton" Sparks were nice additions as well.
"You start placing pieces, but you just don't know how it's going to fare until you really start playing. Practices have been really competitive where the white team has pushed our first unit, so I'm not shocked that they played well."
- On Gabe Cupps: "He was so anxious, hell, he probably wanted to play the night before. That's just his approach to playing basketball. I wasn't shocked the fact that he came out and had poise and looked like he belonged, because he's just that type of competitor."
- Woodson says he didn't get to see enough of the lineup with both Johnson and Cupps on the floor at the same time. In the NBA, Woodson played two point guards at the same time and the results were "very positive." Expect the three-guard lineup of Johnson, Cupps and Galloway to see the floor again in the Marian exhibition Friday.
- On Johnson and Galloway's ascension to leadership status: "Trayce (Jackson-Davis) and Race (Thompson), they're not walking through this door. You gotta reach and go find guys that's been in college like X and Gallo, that's been at it for awhile. Y ou put them in position to be captains and decision makers and hold players accountable, and kind of be an extension of me and my other coaches. That's a work in progress right now, because it's new to them.
"Î'm not expecting it to happen overnight, but the fact that they've got some years under their belt, I'm expecting a lot out of those two."
- Woodson tells a fantastic story about his experience getting into coaching for the first time. Credits Cotton Fitzsimmons, Herb Kohl and Bob Knight. Knight was a major factor in Woodson first entering the coaching ranks.
- On dealing with being a coach in today's college game: "There are a lot of moving pieces. The parents, the AAU coaches, their family members – it's different. When we came out of high school and went to college, all my mother cared about was me getting an education. She could care less about basketball. The fact that I made the commitment to play here and play for Bob Knight, I could never think about going home and crying to my mother about a tough day with coach Knight. She would throw me out of the house.
"These young kids, more than ever, they nourishing. They need mentoring. There's a lot that comes with just coaching, because these kids have their ups and downs and they got some issues as well. Sometimes they don't want to talk about it, you gotta figure them out and try to reach them."
- Back on the subject of the UIndy game, Woodson says Indiana had some promising aspects and some things that need work. Notes the defensive rotations on the backside of their defense and closing out to shooters as areas that IU has to improve.
- Indiana's 28 fastbreak points is "probably the most we've had since I've been here," Woodson says. He also appreciated Indiana's high assist-to-turnover ratio as well.
- On Indiana scoring 50 points in the paint versus UIndy: "I'm not gonna sit here and say we're going to be the greatest 3-point shooting team. We're gonna make some threes here and there, and we'll get good looks. I think we have guys that I feel good about knocking them down, but make no mistake about it, the game isn't just living on 3-pointers.
"You're gonna have to post the ball some. Two points still count in the game of basketball. Let's not be foolish about this... we have to mix it up.
"If getting 50 points in the paint allows us to win a game, I'm going to take it regardless of what people say.... I think you have to mix it up with transition, threes and a high percentage too."
On Anthony Walker: "He had a well-rounded game, and he's shown that in practice. He came over late, he had to finish school... He was truly behind when we got him, but he's made up a lot of ground because he's put the work in."
- Indiana had Monday off, will clean up UIndy on Tuesday and then begin preparing for Marian. IU will have three three-hour practices this week ahead of the Friday exhibition.
- IU must clean up free throws. Says the team has been around 77-78 percent through practice charting, but was "awful" on Sunday versus UIndy.
- Woodson wants Indiana to get involved in the marquee exhibitions along the likes of Kansas-Illinois, Purdue-Arkansas and Michigan State-Tennessee. Indiana has to think about doing the same thing, he says.
"It'd be nice to bring Duke – bring them down here and play Duke, or somebody huge. We've had Carolina, we have Kansas this year, but to play an exhibition game against Duke, a team like that, man, would be unbelievable. We'd have a packed house, I know that."
Outlook for the upcoming week:
- host Marian, Friday, November 3 – 6:30 p.m.
Inside Indiana Women's Basketball with Teri Moren
- Moren says Indiana's trip to Greece this summer was "phenomenal" for her team. While the Hoosiers played two games on the trip, building chemistry through the experience of an international trip such as the one they took is the ultimate hope from the trip. The chemistry of this year's group, Moren says, is spectacular. "You can see it when they're on the floor together and when they're off the floor together. It's an intangible that you have to have."
- Sydney Parrish said Indiana had six starting caliber players last year, and five of them return this year after Grace Berger's departure to the WNBA. "Syd is right on," Moren says.
- Moren makes note of how much different and more comfortable returning sophomores Lilly Meister and Lexus Bargesser are heading into this season. Freshmen Lenee Beaumont and Julianna LaMendola, as well as transfer Sharneece Currie-Jelks have all blended in well, too. Gives credit to the returners for making the transition easy for them.
- While missing Grace Berger last season for eight games due to injury, Moren said it forced some of her team to grow up quickly, giving the team great experience.
- In Berger's absence, Moore-McNeil was Moren's MVP for her ability to handle everything that was thrown at her, shoulder the load of production and leadership and evolve quickly. She has become one of the great leaders for Indiana, albeit "quietly."
- On LaMendola and Beaumont: "They're two young ladies that are extremely skilled, talented. There's a confidence about them. They're pleasers, and they want to do everything right, and you know that they're not going to get it right probably more often right now, they're going to mess up. They've been so coachable. They have bought into the culture of coming in in those unseen hours, before practice, after practice and watching film – doing all of the extra work that we pride ourselves in doing.
"They're great kids. They're gonna be fan favorites because they have great personalities."
Says the duo had their fair share of nerves during the team's first scrimmage and expects butterflies and early jitters, but says they'll settle in. "Two really highly skilled players for us."
- Sharneece Currie-Jelks is like a freshman to Indiana's program despite her sophomore status after transferring to Indiana this offseason from UT Martin. IU does things differently than a lot of different programs, Moren says, and she's adjusting to that. "It's a lifestyle when you become an Indiana women's basketball player."
- Moren reiterates that her receiving the AP National Coach of the Year title was a complete surprise, and still doesn't know how it got past her for all that time. Calls receiving the news from Grace Berger and Mackenzie Holmes one of the special moments of her career and one she won't forget.
- The Big Ten "isn't far off" from being the top conference in women's basketball once again this season, Moren says. "It's going to be an exciting conference, it's going to be a challenging conference, but I don't think we want it any other way."
- Moren says the program has made Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall's home court advantage just like the men's. Calls it one of the toughest places to come and try and win a game in the sport.
Outlook for the upcoming week:
- host Northwood; Wednesday, November 1 – 7:00 p.m.
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