EAST LANSING, Mich. — Victor Oladipo (19 points, nine rebounds, five steals), Cody Zeller (17 points, five rebounds, two blocks), Christian Watford (12 points) and Jordan Hulls (12 points) met with the media following Indiana’s 72-68 win at Michigan State on Tuesday.
Watch and listen to their postgame comments in the embedded media players below:
Tom Crean, Cody Zeller and Jordan Hulls met with the media on Monday afternoon to preview Tuesday’s game at Michigan State.
Watch and listen to both press conferences in the embedded media player below:
Indiana won its third game in seven days on Saturday with an 83-55 romp over rival Purdue at Assembly Hall. The Hoosiers scored 1.23 points per possession and limited the Boilermakers to .82 points per trip in the lopsided win.
Here’s a look at five takeaways from IU’s fourth straight win over Purdue:
· Will Sheehey shines: After Victor Oladipo went down with a sprained left ankle late in the first half, IU’s sixth man was thrust into a more prominent role and turned in the best offensive effort of his career. Sheehey finished with a career-high 22 points and set a school record by shooting 9-of-9 from the floor. The junior from Stuart, Florida scored 16 of his points in the second half and the damage came from all over the court. Sheehey hit two 3-pointers and scored at the basket, including back-t0-back layups that pushed the lead to 20 at 53-33 with 13:52 to go. Afterward, Sheehey said his increased aggressiveness wasn’t the result of Oladipo’s absence. “I just try to stay aggressive regardless of what the situation is,” he said. “That’s just the way I am as a player.”
· IU made the right call holding Oladipo out for the second half: With a comfortable halftime cushion, Tom Crean decided to hold Oladipo out for the remainder of the game after twisting his ankle with just under a minute to go in the first half. Given the upcoming schedule and Oladipo’s importance in IU’s quest for a deep run in March and April, it was only logical to proceed with caution. Crean said that Oladipo wanted to re-enter the game and the junior even rode a stationary bike near the IU bench to stay warm, but Tuesday’s showdown with Michigan State looming, Oladipo was reduced to the role of cheerleader for the second half. “I just don’t think any of us were comfortable enough to say, ‘let’s go do it.’ He wanted to go back in, but we just weren’t going to do that at that point,” Crean said. “I don’t think that anybody felt, medically, that it was the best thing to do at that point.”
· A.J. Hammons was a non-factor: After scoring 30 points in the first meeting on Jan. 30 in West Lafayette, Purdue freshman A.J. Hammons didn’t score in the first half and finished with just six points on 3-of-10 shooting. Rather than going with Cody Zeller, Crean deployed Christian Watford to slow down Hammons for a different look defensively. The change in strategy paid off as Watford was aggressive and never allowed Hammons to consistently establish position in the post. The defensive performance from Watford was just another example of how he’s evolved from a player who struggled to defend his first two seasons to a veteran that can guard multiple positions. “He can guard anybody,” Crean said. “I’m glad that people are seeing that. He’s got a toughness to him.”
Cody Zeller (19 points, nine rebounds), Will Sheehey (career-high 22 points) and Christian Watford (14 points) met with the media following Indiana’s 83-55 win over Purdue on Saturday at Assembly Hall.
Watch and listen to the press conference in the embedded media player below:
Quotes after the jump.
Tom Crean, Yogi Ferrell and Cody Zeller met with the media on Friday afternoon to preview Saturday’s game with Purdue at Assembly Hall.
Watch and listen to both press conferences in the embedded media players below:
In the days following Indiana’s shocking loss at Illinois on Thursday night, Tom Crean spent a good amount of time trying to teach his team how to close out games. The Hoosiers had squandered a late lead against the Illini, and left Champaign with a heartbreaking buzzer-beating loss.
Crean showed his team film of the last five minutes of several games this season in which the Hoosiers, as Cody Zeller put it, “played for the clock to run out” instead of playing to win.
The Indiana players heard Crean’s message loud and clear, and they applied it in Sunday’s critical 81-68 victory at No. 10 Ohio State.
“We looked so immature, how we handled that last five minutes of the game,” said junior guard Victor Oladipo. “We’re too old for that, even Yogi [Ferrell]. Yogi’s played enough games now that he’s too old for that. We’ve got to make sure that never happens again.”
So when the No. 1 Hoosiers (21-3, 9-2) built a sizable second-half lead on Sunday, they made sure they didn’t let it go. They answered big Ohio State buckets with scores of their own. They controlled the pace, continued to attack the basket, and looked like a team that expected to win on the road against a quality Big Ten opponent.
There have been wins this season that prove the Hoosiers are a different team than they were last year. The Minnesota first half. The Michigan State game. The Michigan game. The North Carolina game. The Purdue game.
Indiana’s win on Sunday is another one, and perhaps the biggest one. The Hoosiers won at home last year. They beat Purdue on the road last year (albeit, not by 37 points). But it had been 13 years since the Hoosiers beat a top 10 team on the road. Coming off their worst loss of the season, the Hoosiers may have just earned the second biggest win in the Tom Crean era (Kentucky: 2011).
“That’s a big deal,” Crean said. “It’s not just beating a ranked team — Ohio State is really, really good. We have, at times, not had the firepower to compete with them, and then last year as we were getting better, we didn’t have the toughness to compete with them in here. But that’s all part of the growth process.”
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Victor Oladipo (career-high 26 points, eight rebounds) and Cody Zeller (24 points, eight rebounds) met with the media following Indiana’s 81-68 win over No. 10 Ohio State on Sunday at Value City Arena.
Watch and listen to the postgame reaction from both players in the embedded media players below:
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