Highlights From Mike Woodson on 'Inside Indiana Basketball' Radio Show

Here are the most notable comments from Indiana basketball coach Mike Woodson on his weekly radio show "Inside Indiana basketball" with Don Fischer.

Jack Ankony | Jan 9, 2023

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Indiana Hoosiers

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Coach Mike Woodson appeared on his weekly radio show "Inside Indiana Basketball" on Monday night at Southern Stone Restaurant, alongside play-by-play announcer Don Fischer.

Woodson and Fischer discussed recent losses to Iowa and Northwestern and previewed Wednesday's upcoming road game at Penn State. Here are the highlights from the show.

On Indiana's 91-89 loss at Iowa...

Woodson was happy with the team's strong start to the game, getting out to a 28-7 lead. "The practice time that we put it, it showed form the very beginning when the ball was thrown up. We did every thing we set out to do, the defense was really good, and offensively, the ball was moving."
Indiana forward Race Thompson went down with a knee injury in the first half, which Woodson thought had a big impact on the game. “From that point on, defensively, we weren’t the same and that just can’t be.”
“Probably one of the best halves we’ve had until the five minute mark when Race went down.”
“Right now we’re kind of playing defensively in spurts, and that gets you beat.”
“We’ve lost two key guys, but our opponents don’t care about that, really they don’t. We try to build this team that when if someone gets hurt, the next guy’s got to be ready to step up."
Mike Woodson was clearly upset when Iowa coach Fran McCaffery's second technical foul was reversed, allowing him to stay in the game. “When you let coaches cross the line like that, you open up a can of worms for something bad to happen.
"[McCaffery] did it twice, and it’s unacceptable and I made it very clear to the commissioner because I would never go into another coach’s space … That can never happen again."

On Indiana's 84-83 home loss to Northwestern...

Woodson was upset at Northwestern's final basket of the first half when Matthew Nicholson beat Trayce Jackson-Davis down the floor after a Jackson-Davis layup with five seconds left. “Unnecessary bucket, which I thought was the biggest bucket of the game." Indiana was down seven at halftime after this sequence.
Woodson thought Indiana's defense was out of sorts to start the second half. “They were somewhere else to start the half, and we paid for it.”
“From a defensive standpoint, we have to be solid throughout the game and you can’t play in spurts where you blow a lead or your opponent gets a big lead and now it’s catch up time and you’re desperate.”
“We gifted them so many buckets with the turnovers ... Those are things that are correctable." Northwestern scored 25 points off 16 Indiana turnovers.
“I thought CJ [Gunn] and Malik [Reneau] came in and gave us some good minutes." Gunn scored two points on 1-for-5 shooting in 15 minutes, and Reneau scored eight points on 4-for-5 shooting in 24 minutes.

On how Indiana is responding to losing...

Woodson gave credit to Iowa and Northwestern for playing well, but he thinks Indiana's recent losses are due to what his team is doing wrong, not so much what the opponent is doing right.
“Any time you lose games you hope that your team don’t crumble.”
“You get players, especially young players that lose their confidence and start to think too much, and yes, we have players like that.” Woodson said he needs to impart confidence in his players to avoid this.

On Indiana's recent defensive struggles...

“When I look at our stats from the four Big Ten games, they’re staggering."
Woodson said Indiana is shooting 47 percent from on 2-point attempts and 41 percent on 3-point attempts, while Indiana's opponents are shooting 43 percent on 2-point shots and 31 percent on 3-pointers. "You say, how can you be 1-3? Well, you go to turnovers, you go to putting guys on the free throw line.”
“To me, we’re beating ourselves ... We’re not playing hard enough, and that’s on me.”
Trayce Jackson-Davis said on Sunday that Indiana is giving up too many straight line drives, and Woodson agrees. “That’s something that we haven’t done a lot since I've been here as a coach, and that’s something you don’t ever want to develop.” Woodson said this is one of the things he writes on the board and emphasizes before games, but it’s been a big problem lately.
“We played some zone, too, and that’s the first time I’ve ever played zone in the college game ... I’ve never been big on zones."
“I’m just going to always fall back to man ... But I thought the zone helped us get back in the [Northwestern] game.” Woodson said the zone defense was successful in five of six possessions.
“You still have to be a good man-to-man basketball team and rebound the ball.”
“When we do it right, I think you saw a good first half defensively when we played Iowa.”
“It ain’t panic mode. I’m not that type of coach, it’s just getting guys to compete harder, play harder.”
“[The offense] has been great, but again it’s all about defense to me, man ... If you can put both together, it becomes a deadly combination.”

On Jalen Hood-Schifino...

Hood-Schifino scored 21 points at Iowa and 33 against Northwestern.
"I thought he played well, but I look at the total package, man."
"He’s a point guard, and he had six turnovers and they were terrible turnovers and that’s unacceptable.”
Woodson was upset with Hood-Schfino's missed defensive assignments, too. "He can't walk away from that game and think it's OK.
Woodson said Hood-Schifino is very coachable. “He’s great in that regard ... He understands where I’m coming from.”

On Trayce Jackson-Davis...

Jackson-Davis scored 30 points and nine rebounds at Iowa, followed by 18 points, 24 rebounds and eight assists against Northwestern.
“It is amazing. He hasn’t been able to practice much.” Jackson-Davis has been dealing with a back injury throughout the season.
“We didn’t know if we were going to get him back anytime soon.”
Woodson said Jackson-Davis didn’t want to come out in the Iowa game, and Woodson didn’t even ask him in the Northwestern game because Indiana was losing.
Woodson said he needs to figure out a time to get Jackson-Davis a break with Malik Reneau or Logan Duncomb off the bench.
Woodson said he has to start thinking about how he’s going to manage Jackson-Davis' playing time to keep him healthy for the long haul.

On Jordan Geronimo...

"I look at how he finished the season last year, and it was really promising. I’ve got to help Jordan. I do. I brought him in this evening before I came over and sat with him [and said], 'This is your opportunity to shine and help us. You’re going to play more minutes if you’re able to produce."

On the upcoming Penn State game...

Don Fischer pointed out that Bob Knight used to say before road games that every court has same dimensions whether you're on the road or at home. Woodson said, “It sounds good, but I wish it was that simple ... You have to have a different mentality when you go on the road.”
“They are playing good basketball.” Woodson noted that Penn State was beating Purdue by six at halftime but ended up losing by 13.
“They play hard, they shoot a lot of 3s and they got a guy named [Jalen] Pickett that kind of drives the car. He kind of gets everybody involved."
"We’ve got to stay committed on the defensive end.”
"[Pickett] runs everything for their ball club, so we’re going to have do do a job on him but not leave open shooters."
"They play small ball. They have a center that’s 6-5, 6-6 that’s guarding our bigs.”