Purdue Postgame Comments: Tom Crean

  • 02/08/2011 9:58 pm in

Here’s a transcript of Tom Crean’s comments to Don Fischer following the Hoosiers’ 67-53 loss to Purdue at Mackey Arena on Tuesday night:

On Indiana’s effort

“These guys really battled and the crowd was not a factor to them. They were ready to go. We’ve had a couple of really good days, they responded to the challenges that have been put forth to them, but they challenged each other. My coaching staff did just an incredible job of creating intensity and making them better over the last couple of days and them responding to it. And them holding each other accountable. And frankly Don, this is what’s so disheartening sometimes in coaching because we play this way, this physical, we win the game on Saturday by double digits. I mean no offense to Iowa at all and the way that they played, but when we play with this kind of toughness and spirit, we’re a different team and it just shows that we don’t have the maturity yet to do this day in and day out and that’s a tough deal. Eventually it’s going to come and we’ve got to get to it as quick as we can.”

On the post play for Indiana

“They were challenged, whole heartedly and they responded. You challenge like that and you’re never quite sure that they’re going to come out the right way. But it was a direct hit and they responded and that’s what you’ve got to have to be good because we love those guys and we know they’re capable of so much more. And myself and the coaches are cheating them if we don’t push them and demand more out of them and let them know that they can be that much better. And they did. And I was really proud of our freshmen. It wasn’t their best games, but they were in there battling in a very tough environment here. And frankly it just came down to being a little too much E’Twaun Moore and JaJuan Johnson at the end of the day.”

On Indiana figuring out how to compete at a high level consistently

“There’s no doubt. There’s no doubt they’re growing. We had 53 deflections in Mackey Arena tonight. I mean that’s pretty big. When you’re getting your hands active like that and that’s not rebounds, that’s plays on the perimeter, that’s loose balls. That’s big. We’ve never had that amount of deflections in a Big Ten game and then you come up here and get them inside of this place. I’m proud of their effort and what I ask them to do is they need to walk out of there knowing exactly what they’ve got to do in two weeks to get that win at home and what it’s going to take. And the bottom line for us, the first thing that stands out that we’ve really got to mature from is that when we get a score from six to eight, that’s the psychological edge for us because I’m sure there were very few people that weren’t expecting them to really go after us and get us, especially on their team. And we didn’t let that happen. So the psychological edge went to us. But when we give up plays and we take a couple of hurried shots, not as good of shots as we can get or we make a turnover, and we allow a team that’s good like them at their home to get easy baskets, those are killers. When you give up a turnover on the road for two easy points, that’s like giving up six because it gets the crowd right into it. We were doing such a good job. We’ve really got to learn from that, but again, I’m looking forward to the day that we’re playing these guys when they don’t have JaJuan Johnson and E’Twaun Moore down in there carrying the load for them.”

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