What Darian DeVries Said After Indiana Basketball's 77-64 Loss vs Michigan State

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Indiana men's basketball coach Darian DeVries met with the media after the Hoosiers (17-12, 8-10 Big Ten) suffered a 77-64 loss to Michigan State (24-5, 14-4 Big Ten) on Sunday at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall in Bloomington.

Here's what DeVries said in his near-eight-minute press conference. The transcript is courtesy of ASAP Sports.

Q. Darian, I guess Tucker and Lamar talked about feeling like the effort was there tonight and just couldn't translate into the sequence of plays you needed as a coach. Just sort of what's your message on an afternoon when maybe you do get the effort you need, you get the intensity and the work rate, and it just can't quite translate into the sequence of stops and scores?

DARIAN DeVRIES: I thought our fight was great, especially in the second half. The guys were really battling and competing. I thought our first shot defense was really good in the second half. Then they got nine offensive rebounds in the second half, which were just killers for us because we had opportunities there.

We got it to right there, a two-possession game, get a stop, get the ball, get in transition, get the crowd into it, and it seemed like they just came up with all the loose balls, all the big plays in those situations.

At the end, I thought the guys hung around and hung around. Even in the second half, we couldn't get enough second possessions offensively to get over the hump. Again, they were leaving it all out there, I thought for the most part.

Q. Obviously you get it to within five, and they take back control. That was the issue in the second half. The first half, giving up the 45, how big of an issue did you feel that was? Sort of them creating a little bit of space that made you guys have to fight the whole way?

DARIAN DeVRIES: I thought the first half in the man, and we switched them a decent amount in the first game. In the half-court, we had done a pretty decent job. They really hurt us in transition in the first game. So I thought they took advantage of that and got us a little more on the high-low in this game where the last game they were coming more from the wing. So they got us there a little bit.

We made some adjustments to slow that down. Still on the interior, like one-on-one we had to bring bodies and they were springing out and knocking down threes. That's where it made it hard.

I thought our zone was really good for us today. I thought the guys did a good job of really managing the game with our zone. They haven't done a lot of that in games. I thought overall they did a good job there of communicating, and had a few breakdowns, but we just felt like that was a better alternative than them running their offense, throwing it inside, having Fears in space and having to play it a little bit like they're not as used to.

Q. Players have come in here the last couple of losses and sounded very dejected about how things have gone. How do you as a coach push the right buttons, and what do you think will be the way to get your message across like you guys can bounce back from this? In the locker room, what are you telling them? How do you approach this team specifically with a four-game losing streak?

DARIAN DeVRIES: Tell them it's a long season and we're almost at the end of it. We had a tough four-game stretch in the middle of it and bounced back and played some of our best basketball right after that. We came home, beat Rutgers, beat Purdue, went to Oregon and won. Similar deal, we had a rough stretch.

There's a short amount of time here for the greater season and then Big Ten Tournament to go on a run. That has to be our mindset. That has to be our focus, just leave it all out there and finish the job. We have one more home game left. It will be a big game for us. We've got a Quad 1 in Ohio State and then the Big Ten Tournament. Our focus has to be on the next one and find a way to try to beat Minnesota.

Q. They made a lot of big threes in that game, a lot of late shot clock threes. I think Kur Teng was 6 of 8 from three with some late ones in the possession. Was that a deal where you were kind of missing the scouting report with him or things just got a bit away from you with the long possessions?

DARIAN DeVRIES: I thought there was a few he certainly got clean ones. I thought there were some of the late shot clock ones we were there, and he just made them. A few of them were off of scrambles, off of offensive rebounds. I know there was at least one in the second half that was a big one. Fears hit a couple, and I thought they were all timely ones too.

Some of them, we had a really good defense. They just made them over the top of a challenged arm. Some of the open ones, those are the ones that hurt when you give them something, and that gets them going, and then they maybe make some of those that are a little more challenged.

Q. How surprised are you with the way the last couple weeks have gone? It seemed like after the Oregon win you guys had hit this higher level. Are you surprised about the way this last handful of weeks have been?

DARIAN DeVRIES: I thought we were playing really, really good basketball coming off of the Oregon game. Went to Illinois and had a tough stretch there, Purdue, came home to Northwestern at home, and that was one we felt we really let get away. Tonight we knew it was going to be a battle again. I thought we competed our asses off tonight, just wasn't enough.

Q. What do you think of the offense you guys ran tonight, shot selection?

DARIAN DeVRIES: I didn't think our offense got nearly enough movement. I thought Michigan State did a really good job of keeping the ball in front of us. The first time around they did a little more hedging, which gave us some go back opportunities and things.

I thought tonight they were a little more connected and made it in those two-on-two battles. They were able to just kind of switch it. Now the ball's in front of them.

I thought we had a lot of late clock with no movement, not enough action there for us. That's certainly a reason why I don't think our offense was as good.

Q. Tucker and Lamar, the only guys to score a field goal in the second half. Tucker said something about going down swinging earlier. Do you feel like they're the reason, if you guys do go on and win, to push you guys forward?

DARIAN DeVRIES: I think Lamar and Tucker are two guys that needed to score. Obviously, we'll take scoring from anywhere. Sam gave us a good lift, especially in that first half, too. All of that's going to contribute. But those are two guys, for us, we certainly need them to be active and be aggressive and create opportunities not only for themselves but for others.

Q. You said the first half defense was good. You said you thought they worked hard tonight on the court. So what was missing tonight in your eyes?

DARIAN DeVRIES: I didn't think we had the offensive piece throughout the game. I just never thought we got great offense possession after possession. I didn't think there was a lot of consistency there defensively. After the first eight, ten minutes or so, I thought we were much better.

I thought the second half was really just the rebounding. If we had gathered some more of those offensive rebounds, but they were there. There were a lot of bodies on, a lot of hands. If we had come out with a few more of those and maybe we're in transition and get the crowd really into it and see what happens.

Q. Conerway seemed to play well against Purdue and Northwestern. No minutes in the second half tonight. What led to Jasai Miles getting those minutes instead of Conerway?

DARIAN DeVRIES: We thought Jasai was playing really hard and was very active. So we decided to go with him.