Here's What Mike Woodson Said After Indiana's 77-57 Loss to UConn

Indiana coach Mike Woodson met with the media Sunday after the Hoosiers lost 77-57 to No. 5 Connecticut at Madison Square Garden. Here is the full transcript from his postgame interview, plus the full video.

Becky Rigel | Nov 19, 2023

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NEW YORK — Indiana coach Mike Woodson met with the media Sunday after the Hoosiers lost 77-57 to No. 5 Connecticut at Madison Square Garden. Here is the full transcript from his postgame interview.

QUESTION: Offensively, Ware, Malik I think had 19 of your first 25 points. They were most of your offense. What needs to happen to get other guys more involved?

MIKE WOODSON: I think better ball movement. When you go back to the Wright State game I thought we had better ball movement, better body movement and set screens. But you’ve got to give Connecticut all the credit. They were the most physical team. Both teams battled early, but to start the second half, they took us out of everything we wanted to do in terms of ball movement. So I have to do a better job in getting better - I can’t make shots for them, but I have to get them in a better position to be better offensively.

Q: Only 13 three-point attempts. It felt like guys were trying to find those windows and maybe couldn’t. Doest that go into some of the same issues like being able to get the court spaced in ways that gets guys those shots?

WOODSON: Well again, their team is very good defensively and the looks that we did have we didn’t make. So that puts so much pressure on you to get stops defensively. We’ve just got to get better offensively. Defensively we did some good things but we just didn’t sustain it over the 40-minute ballgame.

Q: In terms of the foul trouble, X goes out after 2 minutes, how much does that throw you off of what you wanted to do today?

WOODSON: Well again, its like I told X, he had the two (fouls) when I put him back in. The third foul was a foul. You take yourself right back out of the game after I put you in. I have to trust that you can get through the half with the two fouls, and it was clearly a foul. That didn’t help matters. X is a big part of what we do. He’s got to become better at running our team, and he has to be smart about not picking up fouls.

Q: Following up on Xavier foul trouble, what do you expect from the other guards when that happens and how do you evaluate it?

WOODSON: We expect the other players to come in and pick us up and sustain what we are trying to do. It was 43-50 and I think we cut it to seven. We get a big rebound and X, instead of letting the traffic go, decides to go through traffic they tip the ball and end up with a 3-point play. I thought that was the biggest play of the game.

Q: What do you think of Kel’el (Ware)? He didn't have two point bucket today, but then he was sometimes more the 3-point line.

WOODSON: Well I was a little disappointed. If you look at his start for us. A lot of his work has come in the paint and it's like he didn't want any parts of it tonight, and I told him that. He’s seven feet tall, he has to get in there and mix it up, and he kind of floated around on the perimeter shooting threes. That’s good when you are up 20, but hell when you are down, you got to get in there and mix it up.

Q: How best do you explain getting beat on the boards 44-22?

WOODSON: Well, that’s the difference. If you go back and look at our stats the last three games, that’s been very glaring. All it is, our guards are not rebounding. We try to leave it all up to Malik and Ware to get all the rebounds. Between Mackenzie, X and Galloway, we had five rebounds. Granted X didn’t play significant minutes but we have to do a better job of rebounding. I thought that was the difference in the game. They weren’t a much better team aggressively in terms of rebounding and getting after us defensively so we have to rebound and figure it out from here.

Q: You played a team that won the National Championship last year and they could win it again this year. What do you think you learned most about your team today?

WOODSON: We have to get tougher. We're not tough enough. Not yet. Not tough enough. We put so much pressure on our defense to get stops and then come down and have terrible offensive execution, and that’s on me. I take pride in trying to keep everything balanced so I have to do a better job of getting them in better position to score the ball.

Q: Coach, Malik did have a really good game today. How do you channel that going forward against big opponents and Big Ten opponents coming up?

WOODSON: I think that’s promising. He played great against a great team and he should build on that. He did a lot of good things but again, keeping him out of foul trouble. That hurts when you don’t have him on the floor. I thought he played well enough to keep us in the game, but foul troubles plagued him too.

Q: To follow up on the rebounding, do you feel like from the guard side of rebounding, do you feel like it’s an effort thing, or something schematic? What are you seeing?

WOODSON: It’s all effort. That's all it is. It takes a little more effort to stick your nose in there where toughness is. We just have to get our guys in there to help rebound. It was glaring tonight that we just got out toughed and I don’t like it. I’ve got to figure it out.

Q: X’s foul trouble obviously put CJ in a more expanded role today. What sort of progress have you seen from him the last few games and what do you need to do to get him rolling from three point range a little more?

WOODSON: Well again, it’s not just CJ, it’s Kaleb, Walker, all the guys that come off the bench, Gabe. I trust when they come in and they can get things done and make plays but it wasn’t working for anybody in terms of how we played and I’ve got to get that fixed.

Q: UConn’s starting guards Newton and Spencer at 23 points, 18 points. What do you need differently from your guards from a defensive standpoint to limit them?

WOODSON: Well, to keep X on the floor, that might help. You know, I thought Galloway battled. He didn’t play too bad. But you know, their guards outplayed our guards. X only played 13 minutes, so that’s not going to help matters for us. That’s not taking anything away from Gabe, because Gabe comes in and he competes, but X is a senior, you expect him to finish the damn game on the floor, not sitting next to me.

Q: Are these the kinds of games you guys need to play in November, December to get ready for the Big Ten?

WOODSON: Absolutely. That’s why they are scheduled that way, We knew this game would be tough but I was so anxious to get to the game just to see where we were as a ball club and they kind of put us in our place and we have to go and regroup and figure it out from there.

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