What Mike Woodson Said After Indiana's 61-59 Win Over Penn State in Big Ten Tournament

Indiana extended its win streak to five games with a 61-59 victory over Penn State in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament on Thursday at the Target Center in Minneapolis. Anthony Leal had the game-winning tip in with five seconds left. Here's the full transcript of Mike Woodson's postgame press conference.

Jack Ankony | Mar 15, 2024

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — Indiana snuck away with a 61-59 win over Penn State in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament on Thursday at the Target Center.

Senior guard Anthony Leal was the hero, flying in for the game-winning tip in with five seconds left. Penn State's Puff Johnson missed a three at the buzzer, so the Hoosiers advance to face Nebraska on Friday at approximately 9 p.m. ET.

Here's the full transcript of Mike Woodson's press conference after the win.

MIKE WOODSON: "The only thing I got for you is both teams played extremely hard. Their team is well coached. They've kind of had our number the last few years. I thought our guys fought from the very beginning till the end. It was just one of those type of games, an ugly game, but we made the plays we needed to make coming down the homestretch.''

QUESTION: "A similar question, especially about the veterans you had in the backcourt. You talked about Ace Baldwin, obviously the play Anthony makes late on. Just without Trey, the steadiness of guys like Anthony and X just kind of giving you, even though on a night where the shots aren't falling in either direction very much, kind of key plays.''

WOODSON: "The fact that the game was such an ugly game, neither team could really make shots. I expect X and Anthony to lead. They're seniors. That's what seniors should do after going through a program or playing college basketball for a number of years. X is not fully there because he just hasn't played a whole lot. Hell, we played him 37 minutes tonight, and I just think his presence on the floor changes our team. But I thought tonight overall defensively what we set out to do was really, really good tonight for 40 minutes, I thought.''

Q. "A few weeks ago you mentioned that you've had a few teams in the past have, I guess, clicked late in the year. This year's team has kind of followed a very similar path. What is it about this team that's kind of enabled this late success?''

WOODSON: "Again, I keep mentioning Xavier, but getting him back gives us some stability a little bit in the backcourt, and defensively we've picked up. Offensively we've made shots. We didn't tonight, but in the previous four games, we've really been shooting the ball extremely well from the three-point line, and we've been making our free throws. So when you defend and you do those two things, we're sharing the ball, I mean, I think in our last four games I charted, we were No. 1 in the Big Ten in assists. So everything is clicking. In order to beat teams in the Big Ten, you've got to play at a high level every night, man.''

Q. "Anthony was saying that he felt the Illinois game was maybe a turning point for your guys in the final six minutes. Did you feel that as well that you figured out the late game situations and have not made as many mistakes down the stretch after that game?''

WOODSON: "There's been a number of games. The Michigan State game, Izzo's team took us right to the end, and we didn't buckle. We made winning plays to secure the game. Defensively, we were very solid in that game as well. We just -- it's taken us a while, man, to really put it together. Unfortunately, losing Gallo hurts, man, but we can't stop here and complain, man. We've got to just next man up. Whoever plays has got to give us something while he's out there to help us win.''

Q. "Mike, Anthony spoke about the change of the defense on ball screens from the base. Can you elaborate on that and just how well the plan that you guys put into place was implemented?''

WOODSON: "The first two times we played Penn State we dropped, and they just dissected everything that we did. The second time we played them, we tried to trap, and they made threes. They made nine threes in one game and 12 in the next game. So we just tried to stay as close to Baldwin as we could. Our bigs were more up, where he actually saw bodies, and we tried to play in to get out. We guarded the three-point line extremely well. They shot it well last night, and tonight we were really good in guarding it.''

Q. "Two quick things if you don't mind. One, are you hoping for Trey to be able to play at all this weekend, or do you not know?''

WOODSON: "I don't know at this point. I really don't.''

Q. "Secondly, going all the way back to November, you had a lot of games where you needed to play well down the last stretch too. I know we talked about Illinois, Michigan State, all this stuff, but it kind of goes all the way back to the start of the season, right? These guys being comfortable playing in the last few minutes?''

WOODSON: "We had a lot of early games where teams really pushed us to the limit, and we didn't buckle in those games. But, again, missing X during the stretch that we missed him, it just, we went into another tailspin. When we went on that four-game losing streak, man, we were all reaching and searching. The last few games we've been able to flip it and turn it around, and that's pretty good for our ball club.''

Q. "I think on Senior Day you said that Anthony has kind of always stayed ready, even in seasons where maybe he hasn't played as much. Could you kind of expand on that. What does that look like specifically? How do you know he's always ready? How good does it feel for him to have some game-winners he's had this year?''

WOODSON: "Coming from the NBA, in the 34 years I spent there, we call that a pro, a true pro. He has hung in there with me because he hadn't played a whole lot, but in practice he comes to work every day, and he knows everything that we're doing on both sides of the ball. So from a coaching standpoint, we feel comfortable knowing, if we throw him in there, he's not going to embarrass us, himself or our team. He's come in and given us a helluva lift, and tonight he hits the biggest shot of his college career, the putback. So that's beautiful for him, I think, in terms of the hard work that he's put in. I couldn't be more proud of him.''

Related stories on Indiana basketball