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INDIANA UNIVERSITY BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

December 5, 2015

Bloomington, Indiana

Morehead State - 59, Indiana - 92

Q. What was the key to your big game tonight?
MAX BIEFELDT: I don't think there was anything specific. I just think we were executing better and really reading the defense pretty well. I was just playing what they gave me. I wasn't trying to do too much. Just trying to play my game honestly.

Q. Talk about being more locked in defensively.
MAX BIEFELDT: I think we know our defense needed to get better and really worked on it the past two days. Just simple things, somebody got a little sloppy on, I think we really kind of worked together today and put out a pretty good product.

YOGI FERRELL: Same thing Max said. We really emphasized on defense the last two days, and we played like we practiced. And we wanted to go out there and take away their tendencies. I feel like it's another step as a team to come together collectively and play together on defense.

Q. Maybe a little bit more pressuring them, just one-on-one, is it fair that you guys were maybe trying to get them in a little more defensively, man-to-man, pressure defense?
YOGI FERRELL: Well, the coaches always preach on the ball pressure just to make it harder for them to get post ups, make it easier on our big men like Max and Thomas to where they can get around and not make that post catch easy. We want to go out there and just kind of just pressure the ball really. That's what we want to get. We always talk about deflections. We want to average a high number of deflections of the game, so we try and get those.

Q. Talk about the power of a defensive mind-set.
MAX BIEFELDT: I would say it's a mixture of our mind-set and us playing as a team unit on defense. I think we emphasized these past couple days, all five playing one big defense collectively rather than each guy trying to take their own match-up. I think the help we had, we had guys off the ball getting steals, and it was fun to see guys playing together, all five as one unit.

Q. What's the challenge of keeping that mind-set going?
YOGI FERRELL: The challenge is, you know, daily reminders to our team that we want to go out there and get stops. We pride on getting as many stops in a row as we can. We want to go out there and just stop them, because I mean, defensive rebounding, those are the two things that we struggled at in a few games, but I feel like I said, this game is another step in that direction for us to becoming a more complete team.

MAX BIEFELDT: I would say same thing, team, collective rebounding, not just staring at the ball when it goes up. Everyone finding a man makes it hard for them to get offensive boards and I think for the most part we did that, just playing a unit defense.

Q. What happened after Wednesday --
MAX BIEFELDT: I think it's a little bit of both. We talked, some people will talk one-on-one. I talked to a couple people, I think just that we did show a little bit tonight, taking pride in the defense, just really putting out something -- I think everyone just improving on their weaknesses just going from there.

Q. One of the best teams in the country coming in, what are they good at in terms of forcing turnovers and how did you avoid that?
YOGI FERRELL: What they are really good at, they are long. They are all basically 6-8 to 6-3, so they basically switch everything. They are playing basically perimeter defense and it's kind of hard to get into that lane with those long arms. So what we just want to do is move the ball, get cuts, get screens, because yeah, that is a great team, and I can see them definitely winning their league.

COACH CREAN: Really proud of the effort, energy, attitude, the way they responded. And it's been obviously a long week; it's been a long couple of weeks and I thought they did an outstanding job of learning and applying it and bringing their practice game and practice preparation to the course, and they did it for a long period of time.

We were aggressive on both ends of the court which is absolutely crucial. It's real easy to look at one end of the court and think we're not where we need to be like we weren't defensively the other night, but we weren't aggressive on either end of the court. And tonight, the aggressiveness carried out in a lot of ways with the way we attacked the rim, with the way we got fouled.

We had 62 deflections, which was huge. We had two guys inside not miss a shot. We got tremendous leadership out of our seniors led by Yogi, and five guys in double figures against what I think is a really good team.

And from what we had seen on film and from the way they responded when they got down, and I think they will be a real force in their league and I think this will at the end of the year being a very good win for us. We are excited about the win, and again, they responded in a really good way and tremendously proud of their effort.

Go ahead. I'll answer your questions.

Q. Not just going for steals and big plays, but even squaring up man-to-man and guarding a little bit closer, I don't want to say -- the aggression on both ends, especially defensively.
COACH CREAN: The other night, I said this before, we didn't want to put that team on the free throw line. They were averaging 33 free throw attempts a game. Were we as aggressive as we needed to be? Obviously we weren't, but we weren't as aggressive on either end of the court.

Tonight, we played with more aggressiveness. We were a little more connected in our coverages, and especially with the switching. And their mind-set was excellent. They were rotating well. We were drawing charges. We didn't spend the game in rotation. They rebounded some because they are a very good rebounding team and they send a lot of guys to the glass, but we did, as well.

For us to continue to get better, in every area of the game, it's got to be attack-oriented and it's got to be aggressive and it's got to be smart. That's what we've got to continue to build upon and I thought tonight for the most part we played that way.

Q. Talk about the mind-set of the team being the hunter versus the hunted.
COACH CREAN: Not sure. Really not sure. We're nine games in and it's December, or first week of December. I think your season is a process. And I think what we are going to do and what I've always tried to do is stick to the process of it. It has its ebbs and flows. It has its ups and downs, but it's all how you respond to the learning.

So we don't spend any real time talking about that, just like we didn't at the beginning. I think our whole key is to get back to practice, continue to improve in every aspect.

Q. There were 36 free throw attempts today --
COACH CREAN: Well, I would think so, yeah. I would think when we're aggressive and attacking, and we didn't want to settle for pull-up jumpshots in this game. We wanted to get to the rim or we wanted to make the kick-out, and I thought our guys did a really good job of that.

Q. Can you just talk about Robert's effort tonight?
COACH CREAN: Well, I think they take it from everybody. I think that's what he is. I mean, he's got to be a guy that is challenging everybody. I mean, look at Yogi. Yogi just fights the low post. So if he gets into a switch and he's guarding a four or five man, he's down there fighting it. I mean, I'm still not sure the other night on the blockout on Jefferson where they found the foul. That's just toughness, right.

So Rob has to be the same way. And he's capable, and he's working into that. And he's just got to continue to -- I've got to get these guys going against each other more in practice and break the teams up a little bit so they have to continue to go best on best, and as we have got into preparations and things of that nature, gotten away from that a little bit and I think that will help him even more.

But he's going to get a lot better this year. He'll get a lot better on both ends. I think as his confidence grows in his defense, it will grow in every other part of his game.

Q. What did you like about Max's play tonight?
COACH CREAN: I thought he played -- he didn't miss a shot. I thought he was really good. I thought he played like a leader. I thought he was very aggressive, confident. Has had a couple great days of practice, as they all have, and played very confident.

Q. What's the game plan -- a lot more man-to-man tonight, was that a factor -- do you think this team could become a strong identity of a man-to-man?
COACH CREAN: I don't know if it's that. I think, again, you have to have a lot of different things to be successful because there's a lot of different ways to play, and they play very aggressive with their driving game and basically they are going to run the same offense man or zone.

So it was really more tonight about the switching and not over-helping and being aggressive in that.

It doesn't matter what defense you're in. You've got to be aggressive in it and you've got to have the ability to limit them to one shot, whatever it is. And so we just have to continue to improve in those aspects. We're not going to -- again, any defense you play, it's all man-to-man principles any ways.

So we haven't spent a lot of time switching as much as we have in the past because some of our combinations, but that's something now that we've added that we can do even more of.

You just try to build a whole checklist that you can get to with your team, and when they have experiences to fall back on like this tonight with the switching, it will only help them.

All right. Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297

INDIANA UNIVERSITY BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

December 5, 2015

Max Bielfeldt

Tom Crean

Yogi Ferrell