What Mike Woodson Said After Indiana's Loss at Penn State

Indiana coach Mike Woodson met with the media via Zoom on Wednesday night after the Hoosiers lost 85-66 to Penn State, dropping to 1-4 in the Big Ten and 10-6 overall.Here is the full transcript of his postgame press conference.

Becky Rigel | Jan 11, 2023

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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Indiana coach Mike Woodson met with the media via Zoom on Wednesday night after the Hoosiers lost 85-66 to Penn State, dropping to 1-4 in the Big Ten and 10-6 overall.

Here is the full transcript of his postgame press conference:

QUESTION: I think somebody asked you after Northwestern about not panicking and not hitting the panic button, To what extent do you feel like you've got to manage these guys mentally and emotionally now just so they don't start to panic after a game like this - 18 threes they give up and the way the game got away from them?

MIKE WOODSON: Well, I've got to manage it. I mean, we've got some young guys. Our two veterans are sitting on the side and they're not coming through that door anytime soon. So, you know, I'm going to have to manage it. Our guys are a little down right now and they should be. They got smacked in the face tonight. And my thing is we just are not competing. At all. And that's on me. I've got to get us competing harder and stronger and we're not doing that. We were awful at guarding. We had a good game plan going in and we just...half of the threes we're right there with a hand and hoping that they miss instead of just getting into the ball and making them put it down.

Q: Coach I'm curious, just from the competing standpoint, how much of that is mental at this point with these guys and is there anything you can do differently to maybe make these guys more sharp in terms of small details?

WOODSON: Well again, I mean we talked about it coming in to the game and we've got to be mentally sharp as well as play hard. And I just think when they get smacked around a little bit we shrink and go away and we can't do that. When we played Penn State last year at home, the first half of that game was just tremendous in terms of how we got up, we touched everybody. Tonight it was just the opposite. If it was one rotation, we didn't make the next rotation. It was just - we're a little lost and again that's on me. We practice it and we've got to bring it to the ball game.

Q: The 18 threes that they had, I know you mentioned you had a hand in their face on half of them, but is it a question of just being slow to the rotations or just being in the wrong positions?

WOODSON: Well, half of them, and like I said I have to go back and look at the film from tonight, but half of them I know we were right there. And you just raise a hand and that ain't good enough. That's totally not good enough. If you're right there, you've got to get up one more step and make them put the ball down. And we just weren't doing that.

Q: You guys were tenth in the country on November 28, you are sitting there one in four in the Big Ten right now. Why do you think things have fallen so far so fast for a team that does have talent?

WOODSON: We're young. Two of our veterans are sitting on the sidelines that we depend on. That plays a major role in it right there. But again, I'm not using that as an excuse. I told these young guys when we got them this year that you've got to grow up quickly. And it ain't just the young guys. You know, the Millers, the Geronimos, the Galloways - they are senior guys. They've got to step up and play and give us more. And I thought Gallo competed but I thought Geronimo was all over the place. I thought Miller was all over the place. So, we've got to get something from those guys. I can't put it all on these freshmen. I'm not going to do that because they aren't playing enough. Jalen is the only guy playing big minutes besides the other freshmen.

Q: There did seem to be quite a bit of overhelping on defense tonight. What are you trying to instruct the team to do to get away from that - it was kind of happening on Sunday too?

WOODSON: Maybe they think that's being aggressive and I get it. When you're trying to dig out of a hole you do things kind of...you know. I thought there were a couple of times we did things we've never even talked about doing in our scout, our walk-through, or practice and you just shake your head and say, "Well, why did you do that?" Those are the things that when they add up, they beat you. Tonight, we had no shot with all of the threes we gave up. We never touched anybody physically, we just didn't.

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