Here's What Mike Woodson Said After Indiana's Slim Loss to Iowa

Indiana lost another close game on Thursday falling to the Iowa Hawkeyes 83-74 on the road. Here's what Coach Mike Woodson said about the defeat. Read the full transcript, or just watch the video of the press conference.

IOWA CITY, Iowa — The Hoosiers made costly mistakes that led them to a 83-74 loss to the Iowa Hawkeyes on the road. 

Indiana is now 12-4 and 2-3 in Big Ten play. Coach Mike Woodson hit the podium for the post game press conference to comment on the close game.

Read the full transcript below, or just watch the attached video instead.

Q: On Race Thompson...

WOODSON: Our press is just for him to get rid of the ball and the fact that he threw it away, which he's never really done that in our press. He's normally made a good pass back, but he just lapsed and threw it right to the guy who went down and dunked it, which was a good play for them, but that's not of my concerns. 

I think Race has handled his position very adequately this year and has done a lot of nice things in terms of handling the basketball. I just got to get more out front with our guards in terms of making the right plays.

Q: On the bigs guarding Race...

WOODSON: Big. They had two big guys in to give Race a spell. Mike was already in the game, and I just came back with Trayce. 

Q: On what went wrong...

WOODSON: Well you could point the finger at that a little bit cause Trayce and Race played a 36 and 33 minute...but again, I got to make sure that our bench is in a good place to secure the minutes and do what they need to do to keep the game going, and we just didn't do that tonight. We were just awful all the way around in that regard.

Q: On if the energy was off...

WOODSON: I don't know if it was the energy. I just think when you turn the ball over 23 times, and eight of those came from our guys out front, our guards Rob and X, that can't happen. 

I got to get more leadership there in terms of them being able to calm the storm, get the ball up and execute something to get us an opportunity to at least score the ball.

Q: On getting over the hump...

WOODSON: I just got to get them to believe. I got to get them over the hump, man. I mean, we're playing well enough. Wisconsin was 39, 38.5 minutes of good basketball. Tonight was 20 minutes of good basketball, and you just can't do that. I got to help them get over the hump.

Q: On playing the bench...

WOODSON: They (bench) got to play a role. They come in and do their job. They got to at least hold the lead or extend it, and even if they extend it, they're going to stay in the game and play. I'll play them until their tongues fall out. 

That's just how I've coached over the years, but our bench is just as important as the guys that start the game, and I got to play them to give them a shot at it. They didn't fare well in that stretch, went on a 10-0 run just like that, so I had to go back to the guys that got us the lead.

Q: On not getting good looks Coach wanted...

WOODSON: Well again, when you're throwing the ball away, when you're not rebounding the ball, you're not making your free throws, that's a bad combination when you're trying to win on the road. 

You got to do almost all of those things perfectly to win on the road, and we didn't do that tonight. I thought we played a great first half, but unfortunately you got to play 20 more minutes, and as good as we were the first half, we were awful the second half.

Related stories on Indiana basketball

• TOM'S TWO CENTS: It takes 40 minutes of solid basketball to win on the road in the Big Ten, and Indiana came up short again, this time at Iowa on Thursday night when the Hoosiers fell 83-74 for their fourth straight road loss of the season, and eighth dating back to last February. CLICK HERE.
• GAME STORY: Poor free throwing shooting, too many turnovers and a lack of rebounding was too much for Indiana to overcome in an 83-74 loss to Iowa on Thursday night at in Iowa City. CLICK HERE
• LIVE BLOG: Here's the play-by-play from Indiana's game at Iowa on Thursday in our live blog, where you can relive the game a step at a time. Here's our live blog. CLICK HERE