INDIANA UNIVERSITY BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 27, 2021

Mike Woodson

Postgame Media Conference

Indiana 90, Marshall 79

Q. Did you remind Trayce, you still have five on him, not in this building but at one point?

MIKE WOODSON: No, I never even mentioned that to Trayce. Them days are long gone for me but it's a hell of a game for him.

You know, he played pretty much the whole game, and I rode him. A few times in time-out, I asked him, was he okay, "And he said, "Hey, I'm good, let me go."

So we rode him, and we needed all 43 points.

Q. Were you at all surprised that they were singling him the way they did?

MIKE WOODSON: Early on I was. I expected -- I mean, we practice as though he was going to get trapped the whole game, and they didn't start trapping until the end of the first half.

So when I came back in that halftime, I tried to put guys in position based on how they were going to trap, and we ended up -- I mean there were times he was beating the double-team, and then there were times he kicked it out to guys with wide open shots that were made. That was kind of nice to see as well.

Q. Defensively, they got you a little bit inside. Talk a little about that and the fact that it was -- they had the lead at halftime?

MIKE WOODSON: Again, it's the first time we've been tested. I mean, hey, it's a part of basketball. But as a coach, man, you always want to see what your team is made of. We got down as much as 12, and it wasn't no need to panic or anything like that. I mean, we weren't playing well at that particular time.

I made some substitutions. I came back once we got down 12 with the first unit and I thought our defense picked backup, Xavier, especially, where early on, when Khristian got in the game, we just weren't into the ball.

Taylor and Kinsey controlled our defense pretty much the whole game where we were beating our coverages. We weren't getting them to our coverages, and that hasn't happened much since we've been together as a unit. So that's something we've got to work on and make sure that it doesn't happen again like that.

Q. Did you feel like at some point in the first half, you guys realized, hey, this Marshall team is pretty good and we have to play a little bit harder.

MIKE WOODSON: I mean, we all watch film. They watch film on them, and I thought they were prepared.

And we don't take anybody lightly. It's not that type of deal. You know, we knew that they were a good team. They are well-coached. I know D'Antoni's teams. I've worked with dan. His offense is as good as they come.

I thought again our coverages weren't solid early on and they were getting behind our defense for layups. I mean, they had I think as many points as we had at halftime in the paint, and that hasn't happened since we been together as a ballclub.

So you know, it's something that we were challenged. I mean, hey, it happens in basketball. But me as a coach, I want to see who is going to step up and make plays, and tonight I thought we did in the second half.

Q. How have you seen Trayce grow as a vocal leader since you took over? Is that something you've pushed him along with?

MIKE WOODSON: Not just Trayce. When I took over the team, this team didn't say a whole lot, you know what I mean. And I told him, it's okay to talk some trash amongst each other. You know, our practices have been so competitive, man, when we do compete in practice against one another.

I got everybody now talking. They talk trash to me now. So I mean, hey, that's a good thing because we need communication when you are playing on both ends of the floor.

Q. 15 turnovers tonight which is more than you usually like, but I think only six of those came in the second half and a team that basically lives off of turning people over. Were you at least happier with the second half and happier that you got out of there with 15 turnovers against a team like this?

MIKE WOODSON: I'm extremely happy. At the end of the day, we knew what kind of game we were going to have. I knew it wasn't going to be a low-scoring game. D'Antoni's teams are not like that. They score the ball.

And I thought, you know, we played the second half better than we played the first. We gave up 42 points the first half and 37 in the second.

So you know, our defense was pretty solid. They hit a few shots coming down the stretch but for the most part we were pretty solid in the second half. I know they made the one run, but we were able to answer that run and get the cushion that we needed to win the game.

Q. You've talked about this in different ways and we've asked you about this after other games, but how much does Trayce give you as a passer when he is that magnet for a defense, his ability to make the skip-pass and see the cross-court pass; I think he had three or four assists tonight on threes.

MIKE WOODSON: Again, he's grown in that area and to make it all look good, guys got to make shots behind those passes, and we're starting to make shots, you know what I mean. Our three-point shooting tonight was pretty good again.

So we are going to need that as we continue to journey as a team. It can't just be Trayce and Race inside. We've got to have guys making plays on the perimeter as well as at the rim.