INDIANA UNIVERSITY BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

December 16, 2023

Mike Woodson

Postgame Media Conference

Kansas 75, Indiana 71

Q. Mike, I think you guys pretty much held the lead consistently for about 35 minutes, then it felt like Kansas made six of their last eight shots. What did you see in the last four or five minutes?

MIKE WOODSON: I don't think our defensive intensity was there the second half like we started the game and finished the first half. They picked their defense up. It was obvious. They held us through 31 points and we gave up 43.

For the most part I thought we played a solid game, but they made the plays coming down the stretch. The two threes they made were huge. Then the two buckets Dickinson hit in the paint was kind of the difference in the game coming down the stretch.

Q. Galloway put you on his back for a little while there. Career high. Something you thought you could take advantage of with him? Something you planned differently with him? Was that individual effort?

MIKE WOODSON: He had a good game. It was good to see because he's had his ups and downs this season. But tonight he had a solid basketball game. It just hope he can build on that.

Q. Your thoughts on Ware's performance overall, the points and the rebound and his defense on Hunter?

MIKE WOODSON: Well, I thought he did a good job early on. I thought the two buckets that we gave up, we gave up a layup to Adams, which we didn't take a foul. I mean, it was Ware that let him lay it in.

Then the two buckets that Dickinson got in the paint I thought was huge. I don't know if Ware was tired at that particular time, but he just didn't battle him like he did the first half and throughout the first half.

I thought those two shots were huge for them coming down the stretch.

Q. You mentioned that Kansas picked up their defense in the second half. Held you to 33% from the field. What kind of adjustments did they make?

MIKE WOODSON: We had Malik and Mackenzie both in foul trouble after we built the lead. We stayed around eight, nine, ten points in the second half early on. Those two guys picked up fouls, so you had to pull 'em and try to prolong the game. I thought that was somewhat the difference, too. They were able to capitalize on that.

Q. I know there are actually no moral victories in this program. That's the No. 2 ranked team in the country. You took them nose to nose. How much can you benefit from that going forward with these guys knowing that if they just play a little bit better they're capable of competing at that level?

MIKE WOODSON: Well, it's really the first game that we've had, we've been in a lot of close games, even the early games we've had, and we didn't cave. I thought tonight we didn't make the plays defensively that we needed to make in a game like this.

But it's a game that we can definitely build on, especially after you come out of a game like the Auburn game. I didn't know which way we would go.

I thought we played pretty well. You got to tip your hat to Bill and his team because they did everything they needed to do to secure the win down the stretch. We just didn't get it done.

Q. Did you encourage Trey to be more aggressive and go to the rim?

MIKE WOODSON: No. I encourage him to play hard, do the things that I think he's capable of doing. I thought tonight he finally displayed that.

I mean, I don't think anybody is holding Trey back. He had a hell of a game tonight. I was happy to see that. I just hope he can build on it.

Q. Kansas wasn't a team that was forcing a lot of turnovers coming into this game. Did they do anything different against you guys you didn't see on film?

MIKE WOODSON: I thought fatigue set in. I played cups and Gallo the whole second half. I thought fatigue set in. Gallo had about three turnovers coming down the stretch and ended up with five turnovers. That's normally not him.

I thought the fatigue factor and the fact we played him the minutes that we did kind of hurt us a little bit.

Q. Malik and Kel'el were under 50% from the field today. Did you feel like Kansas did anything different? What do you think led to that?

MIKE WOODSON: Well, we knew coming into the game that it was going to be our starting five pretty much against their starting five. Their starting five won out.

No, I thought Ware didn't get a whole lot of good looks. Malik had a few good looks inside that he just didn't complete. For the most part I thought they played a pretty good ballgame. I got to get Malik rebounding the ball a little bit more. That might help us.

Q. You mentioned how kind of after Auburn you were unsure of how your team would respond. What happened throughout the week? What did you see that inspired confidence not only for Saturday but maybe how things can play out?

MIKE WOODSON: As a coach, I'm going to always have confidence in my team. We just had to go back to work. We put a good week of work in. We kind of put the Auburn game behind us because nobody wants to sit through that. As a coach and as a player, you don't want to go through that. But we did.

I thought we rebounded tonight. But again, we didn't win, so we got to go back to work tomorrow and get ready for our next two games.