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INDIANA UNIVERSITY BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEDecember 13, 2019Rob PhiniseeTrayce Jackson-DavisJustin SmithBloomington, Indiana Indiana - 96, Nebraska - 90 (OT) Q. Trayce and Justin, when you guys had some of the -- playing in the second half you seemed to be feeding off each other a bit. When some of those jump shots aren't falling, you guys have the success that you have in the interior, what's kind of -- what kind of [inaudible] do you guys have when you're playing together with each other? JUSTIN SMITH: It's kind of -- well, I'd say that we have mismatches down there. If a bigger guy is on either one of us, we can use our quickness. If a smaller guy is on us, we can use our strength. And like you said, our shots were not falling really at all. So it was kind of part of the game plan to kind of go inside and try and get easier baskets and punish them inside. Q. Rob, obviously you dealt with a lot of injuries earlier in the season. How rewarding or satisfying was it to be able to hit some of the shots you did in overtime? ROB PHINISEE: Very satisfying, actually. I mean, really made shots for my team when they needed it. Really just tried to make a big play when we needed it. Q. Trayce, can you talk a little bit about what it was like for you emotionally out there, with it being as tight as it was, first overtime game in your college career, how you kept your calmness in there about you? TRAYCE JACKSON-DAVIS: Just really my teammates. Give all the credit to them. They keep me level headed. They keep me moving on to the next play when I make a mistake. But first overtime game in Assembly Hall, it was rocking. Shout out to the fans because they really helped us get the sixth-man. Q. Trayce, obviously they were trying not to let you have the ball, basically. You only had three in the first half. What did you guys try to do to attack and put you back in better positions to score starting the beginning of the second half? TRAYCE JACKSON-DAVIS: In the first half I didn't really try to put an emphasis on running the floor very hard, and I thought I could beat my man down the floor. In the second half, I tried to run past him and get as deep as I could and try to leg whip over him. And I got a few easy buckets on that, and when you see a shot go in, you just want to -- it gives you the confidence to knock down other ones. Q. Trayce, you've been making some mid-range shots and even some 3s in practice and the workouts. You've been working on turning over your opposite shoulder, going right-handed. How game-ready are those things, and how much do those things help you now that you're starting to get 10 games, 10/11 games into the season? TRAYCE JACKSON-DAVIS: I really just practice those things just in case you have to use them. But I haven't really had to use them that much. I've had a few right-hand shots. Teams are probably going to scout that here in the future, so I'm going to have to use the right hand more, shooting out to 15 feet. I don't think I need to shoot 3s that much right now. But I'm just going to keep working on it. Q. Going back to a little bit of the question, what you talked about earlier, Justin, what are the different ways you guys want to attack a zone when you aren't able to space it with a 3-pointer? It felt like they were bringing you to kind of the free-throw line a little bit tonight to drive the ball. What are some of the ways you guys can use your athleticism to attack the zone (indiscernible) right now? JUSTIN SMITH: Well, specifically this game, they were kind of dropping off of us, especially when we caught it in the middle. So that kind of allowed us to kind of get some spacing and really be able to attack going downhill because it was really a one-on-one. And we were able to use our quickness to get the shots that we wanted and a couple went down. Q. Justin or Trayce, as basketball players, speak to how hard it is for someone like Rob to play at the level he did, given how few practices he's actually been able to play in this year? TRAYCE JACKSON-DAVIS: Most definitely. It's hard to come back from injury on anything, and especially coming back from an ankle injury and playing as much as he did, I thought he really just raised his level and he played really hard out there. And when you're a gamer like he is, you're just going to get things done. Q. On the defensive end of the floor, how satisfied are you with that facet of the game, the way you guys played at all? JUSTIN SMITH: Not at all. Q. What do you think you guys could do better? JUSTIN SMITH: A lot. Everything. ROB PHINISEE: That's it. JUSTIN SMITH: Give Nebraska credit; they played a really good game. But we can't get spread out like that. We can't give up those easy shots, easy 3s. We've just got to get a little bit more tighter on defense. Q. To play off that, basically seemed like the back door cuts were something they were getting a lot of easy layups on. What did you see going wrong there in terms of how they were able to get some of those kind of clean ones? JUSTIN SMITH: They scouted us really well and they saw a weakness in our defense and they were able to exploit it. Really weren't expecting it. And, so, I mean, give credit to them; they did a really good job working on our weaknesses. Q. Justin or Rob, kind of the emotion of Burke hitting the shot to send it to overtime, how did you guys kind of regroup, and how important was it to get off to the quick start in overtime that you guys did? ROB PHINISEE: Really we just tried to keep our composure. You don't want to panic just because he hit a big shot. I feel like our older guys really kept us level headed and I felt like we played really hard in overtime and got the win. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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