HD Video: Tom Crean reacts to loss to Wisconsin
Tom Crean met with the media following Indiana’s 64-59 loss to Wisconsin on Tuesday at Assembly Hall.
Watch and listen to his postgame comments in the embedded media players below:
Quotes after the jump.
Opening Statement:
“I will have to watch the film but I think first and foremost we just didn’t make enough shots. Tonight when we weren’t making enough shots, especially ones that were open, we also didn’t come down and stay as disciplined as we needed to be defensively. They beat us off the dribble a little bit and the first half our main problem was that we were holding our rotations too long and over-helping on defense, which is something you don’t need to do against Wisconsin. What Wisconsin does is they bait you with their drives and then beat you with their kicks, and we didn’t do a good job against that. When we over-helped they made shots. In the second half they made some shots at the shot clock that reminded me of the McDonald’s Michael Jordan/Larry Bird H-O-R-S-E commercials. When you get momentum going it’s amazing what can happen. They played really hard and they got the momentum. We didn’t make shots like we do and it affected us because now you have to come down and play 35 seconds of defense. Cody (Zeller) had a tremendous first half, there was nobody who could really guard him. In the second half they went with more pressure and we still got the shots and went to the foul line, but we didn’t do a great job rebounding when we missed. We weren’t moving the ball like we should have or like we normally do. I think when we see the film it wasn’t as much them as it was us. They played really well and I’m not taking anything away from the way they played, but we missed shots, especially the open ones, and we didn’t guard the dribble the way we needed too. That’s how they got the win.”
On the team’s play in transition:
“I don’t think we labored; I think once we got down in it we didn’t keep reversing the ball. There were a couple times with the side pick-and-roll that we just weren’t attacking the switches and getting the ball to the other side. We started looking and standing rather than keeping the ball moving. We are a ball reversal team. We are a high execution level team when we are reversing it two and three times and we didn’t do a great job of that tonight.”
On the team’s defensive energy:
“We played really hard. We are always going to play really hard. The energy was good we just over-helped sometimes. We stayed with the ball too long and we missed a few things with our coverages because their guards do a really good job of setting it up and then throwing it back to where it needs to be. We didn’t need to over-help. We didn’t need to have the extra man stay with the ball. Some of that is recognition, some of that is communication, but it was more recognition tonight.”
Filed to: Tom Crean, Wisconsin Badgers