Here's What Trayce Jackson-Davis and Xavier Johnson Said After Knocking Out Michigan
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Indiana forward Trayce Jackson-Davis and point guard Xavier Johnson had plenty to say after Indiana's 74-69 win over No. 8-seed Michigan in the Big Ten Tournament second round.
Jackson-Davis put up 24 points, 19 of which were scored in the second half. Johnson ended with 17 points to add to No. 9-seed Indiana's 46.4 field goal percentage compared to Michigan's 37.9 percent.
Read their full transcript, or just watch the attached video of the entire press conference.
Q: On what led to Jackson-Davis's big second half...
TRAYCE JACKSON-DAVIS: The biggest thing for me is that in the locker room, Coach Woody got on me. He told me I wasn't playing up to my capabilities, but then he said at the same time, basketball's two halves.
So I went out there, I think it started on the defensive end. I was up, kind of getting in the passing lanes, the ball lanes, and then coming back. And then on offense, having this guy right next to me (Xavier Johnson) coming off the screens, getting easy lobs, I think that got me going.
Q: On drawing on experiences from losses to help win the game...
TRAYCE JACKSON-DAVIS: So basically, the game that I think about is Wisconsin, the first time we played them, what they did to us, and how you watch a team and you start coming back and the one team believes and the other team gets defeated. So we believed we were going to win and we kind of saw them deflating and deflating, and then we finally got back.
So hopefully we can carry that energy because I feel like that we can beat anyone. But at the same time, just getting over that hump, especially to a team like Michigan that's beat us the last nine times, it's big.
Q. On what makes struggle worth it...
TRAYCE JACKSON-DAVIS: Basically for me just struggling, even this game in the first half, not having it go my way, you can't get too down on yourself. You've got to keep playing, and then my guys were always picking me up.
I think the fans were big, even in the first half they were still cheering for us, so that was huge for us, and then going into the halftime, having my teammates believe in me — that's big for us and that's way big for our team. It's believing we can win and believing we have opportunities to succeed.
Q. On how Indiana adjusted its defense...
XAVIER JOHNSON: I just feel like we locked in. With the last 12 minutes, Coach said we've got to get a stop. It's all about getting stops. We're scoring, we just can't get a stop, and everybody looked — everybody held each other accountable for that man, and we just dug in and got stops.
Q. On Jordan Geronimo and Trey Galloway...
TRAYCE JACKSON-DAVIS: Most definitely. JG, he's an energy guy. He's someone that's going to come in and get rebounds. I saw him when I was going up to get some of them. He was a whole head above me, so he's huge for us.
He blocks shots, and then he's a positive influence on the floor. And then, Trey coming off ball screens hard, making the right plays. He struggled a little bit, but got to keep his head up and just keep playing because he had to play through his mistakes, but I thought both their contributions really helped us and really got us the win, honestly.
Q. On how the lineup worked...
TRAYCE JACKSON-DAVIS: I just think with that lineup, you had Trey coming off ball screens, X coming off ball screens, and we had space with shooters. And then JG can also stretch the floor, and me being able to be a lob threat was big. At the same time, it's not just going to always be those five. It's going to be a contribution of different guys every single night, and that's what Coach is big on. It's got to always be next man up.
Q. On the conversations among the team in the final minutes...
XAVIER JOHNSON: I feel like we learned from our mistakes in the past. We've been watching a lot of film. Credits to the coaches, watching a lot of film, learning from it, and just working on it and now we have the chance to go prove it, prove what we working on.
Q. On what Michigan was doing to hold Indiana back in the first half...
TRAYCE JACKSON-DAVIS: I just think they came out with more intensity and energy, honestly. They punched us in the mouth and they just kept punching us in the mouth, honestly. And we carried that over, I think we had a little bit of life kind of going into the first half, and at the start of the second half it was kind of the same way, we really honed in on defense and got stops that we needed and we were putting the ball in the basket.
Q. On stopping Hunter Dickinson in the second half...
TRAYCE JACKSON-DAVIS: I think Hunter's a great player and he had his way in Bloomington, and then he had his way in the first half, honestly. He was hitting shots. The big thing with him was pushing him off the lane, and then I thought our guards really helped him crowd and they were pressuring the back so he couldn't get it.
Q. On what it means to advance...
TRAYCE JACKSON-DAVIS: For me, it's just the next game on our schedule and we play a really good Illinois team, but I've never played on Friday, so it's a new experience for me. I hope I see a lot of fans in the stadium, and we're going to go out and compete.
XAVIER JOHNSON: To me it's just another game as well, just next step to what our goal is as a team. We want to win this whole thing and that's what we plan on doing.
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