INDIANA UNIVERSITY BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

February 3, 2024

Mike Woodson

Postgame Media Conference

Penn State 85, Indiana 71

Q. Obviously you guys had a number of issues there. Why do you feel you guys with some regularity struggle with defending the three, other times coming into this building getting, you know, eight, nine, ten -- today 12, made threes against you guys?

MIKE WOODSON: Well, in the Big ten Conference, we have been guarding the three pretty well. It's an indication that we've defended the three pretty well. I just thought tonight, second half, we were so flat coming out. I mean, something I hadn't seen. I mean, I look at their first possession to start the second half and they got I think three, four cracks at it but we couldn't come up with loose balls or rebound.

I mean, it was like we were a step slow, and it's kind of disappointing because you play a good game against Iowa and then you come back and basically lay an egg.

Q. Talking about that second half, did you feel like it was maybe a response to their defensive pressure that that sort of 1-2-2-press they were putting in, and speeding you guys up and getting you out of rhythm?

MIKE WOODSON: Not really, I mean, I thought we handled the press early. Built the lead based on them doing the same thing. I mean, we didn't have -- I think we had 13 turnovers.

So that's been in the ballpark in terms of where we want to be at 12 or less. So I didn't believe the press really hurt us.

I thought defensively, our switching and recognizing they run a lot of what we call ghost screens. We just didn't handle them correctly. I mean, we weren't up to touch tonight. I mean, just thought we had good intentions when we started the game because we came out aggressive and it just kind of wore -- wore away.

Q. That effort in the second half, I mean, do you want more fire from your guys in response to that? Who are you looking to? Can you coach them out of that, or is that something that players have to recognize and kind of show up and do it themselves?

MIKE WOODSON: Well, sure I want more fire. I mean, come on. Yes, I want more fire to my guys. They didn't fight tonight in the second half and that's kind of disappointing.

So we've got to go back to work and see if we can work our back because I mean, that's a game that I thought if we played well, we had a legitimate chance to win and I thought we did play well early on, and we just had too much slippage defensively the second half.

Q. How much of that flatness is just energy and effort and not showing up?

MIKE WOODSON: Again, I'm not going to throw my guys under the bus. They didn't just perform the second half. They didn't. They didn't. They were flat as hell.

Q. Given what you're saying about the defense, how much thought did you give to going back to kind of a small defensive lineup that's given you success over the last two games?

MIKE WOODSON: Well, again we were small at times. When they took their big guy out, we went with one big and we had small guys around him. That wasn't the difference.

The difference was we didn't switch correctly. We didn't do a lot of things defensively that got us the lead early. I mean, they didn't do anything differently. We've just got to go better over a 40-minute ballgame.

Q. Have you seen anything that lends your team susceptible to the long runs in the second half that you guys have given up this year?

MIKE WOODSON: We've had our ups and our downs this year, no doubt about that. But I look at the points, you gave up 85 points, you're not beating anybody in the Big ten doing that. That's not us, you know what I mean. You have a chance when you're trying to hold teams to 65 under in the Big ten, and when we've done that, we've been pretty successful.

Q. When you look at the offensive rebounds Penn State had or some of the turnovers you had, it feels like at times a waning focus from your squad. What do you feel leads to those moments?

MIKE WOODSON: Again, over the course of a game, you have break downs, and I thought tonight, the fact that we were flat, we just didn't have anything going the second half. I mean, they dictated everything from the very beginning and once we fell behind, it was just tough to get back.