COLUMBUS, Ohio — Indiana coach Tom Crean met with the media following the Hoosiers 81-68 win over No. 10 Ohio State on Sunday afternoon at Value City Arena.
Watch and listen to his postgame comments in the embedded media player below:
After loss at Illinois, Hoosiers prepare for another road test at Ohio State
by Justin Albers in Media | February 9th, 2013
Two days after Indiana’s disappointing loss at Illinois, Tom Crean still felt like his team had wasted a great opportunity for a conference road win. But Crean knew it was important for his team to immediately shift its focus to Sunday’s opponent, Ohio State.
The No. 1 Hoosiers practiced longer than usual on Friday and also had a lengthy team meeting to discuss what went wrong in Champaign and what needs to be improved before they take on the No. 10 Buckeyes.
“If we’re going to be good, it’s not about bouncing back, it’s about making sure that you’re getting better,” Crean said Saturday. “Because if you spend a lot of time bouncing back and worrying about your mentality, then all of a sudden that cuts into your preparation, that cuts into what you need to do to win the game. We’ve been really good with that. They were really down the other night and we knew that we had some squandered opportunities.”
In Friday’s lengthy practice and then again on Saturday, Crean used Victor Oladipo to guard Yogi Ferrell and simulate the defense of Ohio State’s Aaron Craft. There’s no doubting the fact Ohio State is a very capable offensive team, but Crean spent most of his time Saturday talking about the Buckeyes’ defense. And that starts with the pesky Craft.
“He gets into your body. He’s got quick feet, quick hands,” Crean said. “He’s extremely physical on the ball, and he gets up into you, he uses his hands very well. He’s got the respect of the officials, I think that’s certain. But his athleticism is really unique with his foot speed and his hand speed.”
Added Ferrell: “I know he’s a great defender so I can’t really play with the ball. I’ve definitely seen him get up into guys, and that’s what he’s gonna do. He’s as quick as me as well, so I might try to use my speed as an advantage, but I know he’s definitely going to want to turn the ball over.”
HD Video: Crean, Ferrell preview Ohio State
by Justin Albers in Video | February 9th, 2013
Tom Crean and Yogi Ferrell met with the media Saturday afternoon to preview Sunday’s game at Ohio State.
Watch both press conferences in the embedded media players below:
Notebook: Dissecting the decisive final play
by Justin Albers in Media | February 8th, 2013
No. 1 Indiana was outscored 13-2 down the stretch Thursday night, so the game’s final play certainly wasn’t the only reason the Hoosiers fell 74-72 at Illinois. But since it was what ultimately ended the game, let’s take a closer look at the way Illinois scored the deciding two.
Brandon Paul, who had scored 21 points, took the ball out for the Illini with Victor Oladipo guarding him. Sam McLaurin lined up in the corner guarded by Cody Zeller. D.J. Richardson, who shot Illinois back into the game late, came off a high screen from Tyler Griffey and wound up well behind the 3-point line on the right wing. Richardson was initially guarded by Yogi Ferrell and Griffey by Christian Watford, but the Hoosiers switched on the screen. Joseph Bertrand was on the other side of the court, guarded by Will Sheehey.
After the initial screen didn’t produce any results, Richardson continued to move toward the right baseline and the inbounder, Paul. Watford attempted to follow Richardson. McLaurin, meanwhile, set a hard screen on Ferrell, and Griffey cut to the basket. But Zeller, who looked like he was supposed to switch with Ferrell after the McLaurin screen, didn’t follow Griffey.
Layup and ballgame.
“It was a broken play for them,” Indiana coach Tom Crean said afterward. “We were not going to give them a chance to set up and win the game on a lob. They were out of timeouts, we had two, I wouldn’t change that for a second, not calling a timeout there. We just didn’t communicate well. … Pressure of the moment a little bit.”
Added Zeller: “I guess it was just a miscommunication. I haven’t seen it yet.”
Hoosiers can’t put the game away
In the end, the Hoosiers lost on Thursday because of a bad defensive breakdown. But they would never have been in that situation if they had continued to execute offensively down the stretch like they had for much of the game. Indiana was so good offensively at times in the game that ESPN’s Seth Greenberg said the Hoosiers were “putting on an offensive clinic” during the halftime show.
HD Video: Tom Crean reacts to loss at Illinois
by Alex Bozich in Video | February 7th, 2013
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Tom Crean met with the media following No. 1 Indiana’s 74-72 loss to Illinois at Assembly Hall on Thursday evening.
Watch and listen to his postgame comments in the embedded media player below:
Defense earns Indiana win over No. 1 Michigan
by Justin Albers in Commentary | February 3rd, 2013
Like it did last year, Indiana took down No. 1 at Assembly Hall on Saturday night. Only this time, no court storming was necessary.
While it will go down as an upset by the rankings, these are the kinds of games the Hoosiers are expected to win these days. That’s a credit to Tom Crean, who has rebuilt this thing from nothing.
No. 3 Indiana 81, No. 1 Michigan 73.
“Indiana is a heck of a team,” star Michigan guard Trey Burke said. “I’m glad we got an opportunity to play them tonight.”
I’ve been critical of Crean in the past for his occasional failure to make adjustments (See: Wisconsin), but he came up with a masterful game plan against the Wolverines. He figured Burke would get his, but Crean devised a defensive game plan to keep any other player from going off.
The Hoosiers almost completely took freshmen Nik Stauskas and Glenn Robinson III out of the game, holding them to a combined 12 points on 4-of-16 shooting.
“They were locking down on Glenn and Nik, not letting them get the ball, and then putting good pressure on us,” said Michigan coach John Beilein.
Added Burke: ”They kind of made us win the game just from the point guard and the center position. Indiana did a good job of denying them. It was tough getting them the ball.”
This is not the same team that so often won games because of its ability to outscore teams. With Victor Oladipo and Yogi Ferrell leading the charge, this Indiana team now prides itself on its defense.
When shots stopped falling as they occasionally did Saturday night, the Hoosiers’ defense kept a Michigan team full of offensive firepower from claiming the lead.
“We felt that the Indiana defense they saw last year was what they remembered,” Crean said, “and we wanted to give them something different because we did not guard them as well as we should have a year ago. We really wanted to prove to ourselves tonight that we were a much better defensive team against a team that’s that good.”
Silencing the critics: Hoosiers beat top-10 team on the road
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.”
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