What Darian DeVries Said After Indiana Basketball Went 3-0 in Puerto Rico Exhibitions

CAROLINA, Puerto Rico — Indiana basketball coach Darian DeVries spoke with reporters following the Hoosiers' 81-80 victory over Mega Superbet on Monday afternoon inside Coliseo Guillermo Angulo.

Indiana overcame a 20-point halftime deficit to finish 3-0 during its Puerto Rico exhibition slate.

Here's the transcript from DeVries' post-game press conference ...

On the game ...

"Yeah, some summer entertainment, keep everybody engaged throughout the game. I mean, this was a great trip for us. These last two games, we learned a lot. We had two opportunities against a really good team. Unfortunately, both games played out very similar, where we gave up big leads, and then had to fight back.

"But again, I love the resiliency. I love the fact that we stuck with it, stuck with it, until we found a little crack and were able to kind of take advantage of it. And there was plenty of learning as to why we were down in both games, too. So there's both positives and negatives, which is what these trips are for. They're great learning opportunities for us to grow from.

"Now, we get to go back home, take a couple weeks off. As a staff, we got some great film, some great data to work with as we now begin the fall workouts and get ready, ultimately, for our season."

On the slow start ...

"Yeah, it took us a long time to get going tonight. We were just a little slow getting out of there, out of the gate. But again, I thought the guys, they just found ways, and most of it was on the defensive end. We started to spring stops together that got us some advantages on the offense, we were able to get in transition. Did a much better job in the second half of getting to the free throw line. We were much more physical, offensive rebounding, driving, getting to the paint more.

"Got Lamar going in the second half, and that was two games in a row where he's really sparked us in the second half. So again, awesome for us. Love the fact that we were able to come out with a win, and that guys made some really big plays for us down the stretch."

On what wasn't working to get Wilkerson involved in the second half and what changed ...

"Yeah, a lot of it, we just didn't have much movement. And I don't know if we were just a little fatigued or what it was, but we weren't as crisp. We weren't making them, their pieces, move and chase us around enough so they were able to stand by our shooters way too much, especially in that first half.

"But once we started getting into some actions and things and getting guys on the move, now we were able to create a few more spaces, able to set some pindowns for Lamar, where they lost him on the weak side. And then Lamar, just challenged him -- he's got to be aggressive. Challenged Tucker, he's got to be more aggressive that second half to get our offense going a little bit."

On shot charts and if he liked them stylistically ...

"I hadn't seen the shot charts yet, but I think in general, watching the game, the last few games, I think stylistically, yeah, we're playing to how we want to play. It's just things that we got to, when we get fatigued, that we got to continue to fight.

"And most of that comes down to that movement, being able to give yourself up so that we can get another guy an open shot, and then hopefully on the next possession, someone else is giving themself up with a cut or a screen, so that we can get an opportunity for another guy.

"So those are the things, as an offense, I think we'll continue to get better at. It just takes some time to work through. But again, there are some great things. I think we always scored enough. It was just our defense wasn't quite as sharp tonight, I didn't, think for a complete game."

On how much he's learned off court over the past week ...

Yeah, I think off-court, it's been great to see the guys the way they've interacted, not only amongst each other, but with the people at the hotel, with the people that are giving us food, our fans, whatever it may be, I think they've handled themselves in a very good way.

"And I think they've come off very positively here, and it's great to see them and how they've kind of -- you can see them growing together and connecting together over the course of this week."

On how Indiana's kayaking trip and facing wind resilience translated onto the court ...

"I think all the activities we did, whether it's jet skiing, kayaking, we went and ran a little clinic here at the school. So there was a lot of different activities we did. We went on a boat ride, snorkling, all that stuff. Beach volleyball. We don't have very good volleyball players, by the way, but they were still competitive. They wanted to win that game.

"But no, we've done a lot of different things, a lot of different activities that puts guys in uncomfortable situations. A lot of guys never kayaked before. A lot of guys (are) afraid of sharks, and they still jumped in the water, which was kind of cool, too.

"But it was a great week. Awesome opportunity for us to be down here and take advantage of this being our trip for this year."

On what he gets from playing the same team twice back-to-back ...

"I think it showed they did a really good job of taking the day in between and preparing and getting themselves ready to make adjustments. I thought they did some really good things there that, some things that worked for us on Saturday weren't working today because they had made those adjustments to it.

"So from our standpoint, we did a lot of ours. Had to do a lot of ours in-game because we didn't do a practice or anything in between. But thought the guys did a nice job in the second half of making some defensive adjustments, even with things that we haven't really worked on much.

"And we started switching five ways with our bigs, and those guys did a really good job of sitting down, staying in front of guards. I thought the guards did a nice job, fighting in the post, and not allowing them just to get some easy entries. So again, there's some good stuff there that I thought they made some good adjustments in-game."

On DeVries' confidence in players getting downhill if opponents stick with Tucker DeVries and Wilkerson ...

"Yeah, I think it's a combination of things. When they're going to stay that close, A). you got to get downhill a little bit more. And B, we got to use them as screeners. So now they can take advantage of the guys trying to deny them. Now they can almost free their own guy, free up a guard coming off and getting off clean. And now we're playing downhill and at the rim.

"So I think our versatility and our depth, our balance, I think is going to be a strength of ours all year. There's going to be nights that they'll take those guys away, but I think we have enough other guys that can go take advantage of those opportunities and the way the floor gets spaced if they're going to stay hugged up on those two shooters."

On Indiana's two-big lineup with Reed Bailey and Sam Alexis ...

"I thought it was pretty good, and it's been hard for us to do that much this summer, just because we don't have enough guys to play both sides of the ball, so we haven't been able to get them both in at the same time a ton. We've worked on it.

"We got a lot more opportunity here, because you have just the five guys out there, and we could sub more. But I like what they did. I thought they brought some good length, obviously our rebounding. But they also were figuring out how to play off of each other on the offensive end.

"Sam's got a little bit more of that back-to-the-basket game, where Reed's got a little bit more of that face up and drive type deal. So we'll continue to work with that lineup, experiment with it as we get into the fall."

Related stories on Indiana basketball