From audio courtesy of L.A. Times:
Mick Cronin:
DOWN 16 WITH AROUND FIVE MINUTES LEFT, HAVE TO PLAY PERFECTLY AND ALMOST DID, BUT TOO BIG OF A HOLE TO OVERCOME?
“Yeah, look, first of all, they’re really good, they were ready to play, they’re healthy and when they’re healthy, a lot of people think they’re the best team in the Big Ten at home. They haven’t had a Big Ten loss in here with their whole team, so they’ve had a lot of games with Ivisic out and the point guard, Jakucionis, so they’ve had games without those guys and obviously they’ve not been the same team with Jakuciounis and without Ivisic out there making threes at 7 foot 2, but look, we got exposed defensively tonight and different guys not being able to guard the ball and stay in front of it–that’s just, you saw that. That was my biggest concern, obviously we didn’t have a lot of prep time–we played Saturday and it’s Tuesday and we had to travel across the country, so that was a huge concern, but look, it’s not an excuse, we had time. But I know this was a tough matchup for some of our personnel and I don’t want to name names.”
REGRESSION?
“No regression at all. Look, they hit a desperation three [actually a two] at the end of the clock or we may win the game. How much were we down, two or three, when the guy hit that? The guy hit a fallaway three, it’s a ridiculous desperation shot and we’re going to have our chance to win the game on the road at Illinois, where I told you, at full strength, they’re as potent offensively as anybody we’ll play all year. And Tyler’s still probably 80%, Aday’s nowhere near ready–the sickness has really thrown him off, so I thought it was a valiant effort by our guys, but defensively we failed the test.”
REBOUNDING?
“Look, what happens with us, we win the turnover battle, but yes, they had a few too many offensive [rebounds].”
TYLER WAS TREMENDOUS OFFENSIVELY, SOME OTHER GUYS WERE QUIET LIKE ERIC, KIND OF AN OFF NIGHT FOR A FEW GUYS?
“I would say we got off to a bad start, we didn’t have any ball movement, our passing was the dead opposite–again, I tried to prepare them for this environment and I thought the environment had us out of character early in the game and again, I’m not going to single people out, so that’s on me to get that job done. It took us a while to settle in and get some guys that would probe and pass, probe and pass. As the game went on, I could get somebody to probe and pass, we’d either get the layup or get the three. We had too many guys probing to shoot tough shots early in the game, so I didn’t get the job done with that. As we got more comfortable and I got the right guys that could probe and pass, we started scoring, we got back in it and Bas missed a good attempt to cut it to four at half. If he gets that to go–they could have called a foul, I mean, they called every foul on us jumping into guys. They could have easily called a foul on the last play of the first half, so we get back in it, but the story of the game is defensively we got exposed, our inability to guard the perimeter by some guys and their ability to spread you out because Ivisic can shoot the ball and then we finally settled down to probe and pass and got our offense going and found a team–to get to your question for your comment about making a comeback–we found a team that could play at both ends, actually get a stop and probe and pass and find the open man and get a stop. Because there was a time we were probing and passing and scoring early in the half and we couldn’t stop them, so we got–some of these games, as you know, you’ve been around, matchups tend to be more that–people don’t realize–well, they lost, they played bad, they [exasperated noise] no regression, the kids stayed together, their attitude’s great, they’re focused on Friday already and it was a chance for us to execute late game, which we did everything until Dylan let Boswell split the trap–we were down with 28 seconds left. We’ve got to either foul or get that guy in that trap so we can get a hard trap and we’ve got to be more aggressive right there, but up from 2:28 to :28, so two minutes, was a timeout and we were down eight, 76-68, [and he told them] ‘You’ve got to score and you’ve got to maximize every possession, you’ve got to either get a layup or an open shot [inaudible].’ On the other end, you cannot foul late in the clock, you’ve got to make them take a shot and get the rebound, you can’t give up a layup,’ so they did two straight minutes with great execution. So there was a lot of positives; you don’t always play bad when you lose. There was a lot of good tonight, but we did get exposed defensively.”
TOUGHEST ENVIRONMENT YOU PLAYED IN ALL YEAR?
“Yeah, you’re watching it.”
WHAT DO TO PREPARE FOR THAT?
“Um, I mean, look, our guys are used to playing Arizona, we played–that was not a neutral game in Phoenix, you know, their fans are raucous. Rutgers was sold out, Maryland was sold out, but yeah, they’ve got a great homecourt advantage here for sure. That fuels the defensive energy. I’m more concerned with some veteran guys that I’ve got to do a better job of making sure we come out with better decisions on offense to start the game on the road. But again, this was a tough matchup for reasons I really don’t want to say on camera. But they do that to everybody because Ivisic spreads you out. You know, they’re 7-2 guy’s a great shooter, he doesn’t post you up.”
CONCERNED ABOUT WEATHER GETTING TO INDIANA?
“I moved to L.A. for great weather. People are like, what’s the weather in the area? Tough for me [to say]. I don’t know. We live in L.A., we say this, it’s bad weather when it’s raining, so I don’t know. I’ve been coaching a game, I don’t know [about the weather], so we’ll get to Bloomington somehow.”
Tyler Bilodeau:
COACH SAID MAYBE OFFENSIVELY EARLY IN THE GAME YOU GUYS STRUGGLED TO GET IN A RHYTHM.
“Yeah.”
WHAT WAS HAPPENING? DO YOU THINK THE ATMOSPHERE WAS RATTLING YOU GUYS?
“Yeah, I mean, I think they were playing good defense, but I think we were just sped up a little bit. I think everyone was to start the game and so that’s why we started off kind of slow.”
YOU GOT INTO A RHYTHM EVENTUALLY. WHAT WAS HAPPENING AND HOW WERE YOU ABLE TO GET IN THAT RHYTHM?
“Yeah, well, my teammates knew that those pick-and-rolls I was probably going to get open. They did a great job giving me the ball. I missed my first couple, but I just said I gotta keep shooting.”
YOU GUYS HADN’T LOST IN A LONG TIME. ALMOST FORGOTTEN WHAT IT FEELS LIKE?
“I mean, yeah. Losing’s never fun, we never want to lose, but we just gotta learn from this, get better in practice tomorrow.”
COACH SEEMED ENCOURAGED. FEEL LIKE YOU’RE IN A GOOD PLACE RIGHT NOW GOING INTO INDIANA?
“I mean, yeah, like, I think we are. But like I said, we just gotta focus, focus on Indiana now but learn from this loss. We gotta get better defensively, especially myself. I can’t be that bad defensively — but all of us, everyone included.”
WHAT WERE THEY DOING ON YOU DEFENSIVELY?
“Just a lot of screens, causing a lot of havoc which is just communication things. Quite a bit.”
Skyy Clark:
ALMOST DID EVERYTHING PERFECTLY TO COME BACK FROM 16 DOWN. BUT WITH 5 MINUTES LEFT, WHAT DO YOU THINK FUELED THEM? I THINK YOU MADE 10 STRAIGHT SHOTS AND THEN GOT STOPS.
“Nah, yeah, obviously we don’t want to lose. So, we’re going to do whatever we can to scratch back in the game and give us a chance to win. But we just can’t let ourselves get down (inaudible). I think if we play how we usually play on defense and rebound, then it would have been a totally different outcome.”
YOU KNEW WHAT THE ENVIRONMENT WOULD BE LIKE. DID YOU TRY TO PREPARE THE GUYS FOR IT? IT FELT, TO ME, LIKE THE TOUGHEST ENVIRONMENT YOU GUYS HAVE PLAYED IN THIS SEASON.
“Yeah, I definitely — I mean, I played here. So, I know how the fans get. I told them it would be loud, they were going to be heckling and be saying some crazy things, but we just gotta stick together. Whoever got blue on, that’s who we would (inaudible).”
THEY OBVIOUSLY WERE RIDING YOU PRETTY HARD. WHAT WAS THAT LIKE FOR YOU THE MOMENT YOU STEPPED ON THE COURT FROM THE MOMENT YOU LEFT?
“Nah, yeah I mean, I was just tuning it out. Like you said, I already knew what to expect going into the game. (Inaudible last sentence).”
COACH UNDERWOOD STOPPED TO TALK TO YOU FOR A SECOND. DID HE HAVE A NICE MESSAGE FOR YOU?
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nah, it’s all love with the coaching staff, it’s all love. I know that. I talked to them before the game and we talked after the handshake line. (Inaudible, trails off last sentence).”
COACH SAID IT WASN’T REGRESSION BUT MAYBE THINGS GOT EXPOSED A LITTLE BIT. WHAT DID YOU SEE DEFENSIVELY TONIGHT THAT WAS A PROBLEM?
“I think the biggest thing was not switching. I think we gave up a lot of easy buckets just not switching, especially on guard-to-guard stuff. On stuff like one through four, stuff that we usually do. When the crowd’s in it, it’s loud, it’s hard to hear, and just some stuff that we gotta figure (inaudible).”
YOU GUYS HADN’T LOST IN A MONTH. HOW HARD IS IT TO FEEL THAT AGAIN AFTER THAT NICE RUN YOU’VE BEEN ON?
“It’s hard, but it just shows us that we’re not invincible. This is the Big Ten. Illinois is one of the toughest places to play in all of the country. We gotta come in and (inaudible) stuff to come and get a win.”
AND YOU’RE GOING TO INDIANA.
“Yeah, that’s another tough place to play. So, we know what to expect. We’re going to get in the gym these next two days and focus on what we need to do to (inaudible, trails off).”
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