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INDIANA UNIVERSITY BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEJanuary 8, 2020Al DurhamTrayce Jackson-DavisJustin SmithBloomington, Indiana Indiana - 66, Northwestern - 62 Q. Justin, I know you had struggles in the first half. Can you talk a little bit about how you managed to kind of stick with it and made some plays in the second half and down the stretch? JUSTIN SMITH: Yeah, I was a little bit surprised coming out with five turnovers. I didn't expect to do that. But I kind of really took a step back and realized I had to probably slow down a little bit -- trying to make something happen a little bit too quickly. In the second half I was kind of able to get back to how I had been playing this season, and luckily it played out well. Q. It seemed like everything seemed to change between basically one segment between media timeouts. I think you guys were down 10 at the under-12 and basically erased that lead pretty fast. What was said in that timeout and what changed for you guys collectively at that point? AL DURHAM: We just emphasized on our defense. We had to get stops. Our stops led to our offense, and honestly just defense; we have to put more pressure on the teams that we're playing and let that lead to offense and that will disrupt them, I guess. Q. Al, couple of losses, Coach had been upset with guys hanging their heads when things started go awry. Tonight down 10, didn't seem to be much of that. Seemed to be a lot of chatter and talking going on that you guys could try to find a way to get back into this thing? AL DURHAM: Because we know how good we are. We know how good we are defensively. So we know if we locked in on defense we could get out and run and play our game. So I feel like we just amped each other up and played off each other. And anything I can do or my teammates can do to amp up each other and get us going, we'll do. Q. Justin or Trayce, Al in particular, out of that timeout or right at that 11-minute mark, started picking up full court, and it felt like it really set a tone defensively. Could you guys feel a difference in the way that maybe Northwestern was having to handle that pressure bringing the ball up the floor and the way Northwestern was struggling to get in its offense? TRAYCE JACKSON-DAVIS: Most definitely, especially with Al picking up, instead of getting their offense started with 28, 27 seconds, it was more like 21, 20, so they had sped up their cuts speed up what they were doing. I thought we had a big emphasis on the ball and we locked in on D. Q. Combined at the table you shot 26 free throws. Pretty much you guys were the guys that got to the line tonight. How much of a point of emphasis was that in the second half as opposed to shooting 3s which it didn't seem like you guys were doing much of? JUSTIN SMITH: We wanted to get back to what made us successful early on in the season, which was getting to the foul line and knocking them down. It wasn't like an apparent decision -- hey, we're not going to shoot as many 3s; it's just kind of how it happened. But I think it's, going forward, it's a good idea to use our length and our strength inside to draw fouls and put pressure on the defense inside. Q. You guys mentioned the ball pressure how that improved defensively. How did you guys sort of take away the layups? You had some cuts early where guys got open underneath the rim. What did you guys do better as the game went on to take some of those away and stop giving some of those easy opportunities? AL DURHAM: Pressure, pressure on the passer. A lot of help defense and just getting over the screen and beating the man to where they get the layups at, like in the post, around the block area. So, we were just beating them there and picking up the pressure on it, so they didn't have clear vision to throw the pass. I feel like just the pressure and help defense really picked up at that time. Q. The first 30 minutes or so, did you guys feel like you had the proper energy? Or did you feel like maybe something was lacking there the first 30 minutes -- JUSTIN SMITH: We were definitely lacking some energy. Why, I couldn't tell you. I just think it's kind of, we need to be more engaged going into it. I think we kind of got a little comfortable, especially with the lead early on. And then they kind of hit us back and we didn't respond until, like, I think, it was like 10 seconds left in the second half. So you know we have to come out -- we came out with good energy. We have to continue that energy throughout the entire game to continue to be successful. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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