What Darian DeVries Said Before Indiana Basketball's Rematch vs Purdue

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Indiana basketball coach Darian DeVries speaks to reporters Thursday afternoon before the Hoosiers face No. 7 Purdue at 8 p.m. Friday night inside Mackey Arena in West Lafayette, Indiana.

Here's what DeVries told reporters during his 10-minute press conference.

Q. Mackey Arena is known as one of the wildest environments. What's the biggest hurdles when you go into something like that as a visiting team?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “I think there's probably a few components. No. 1, just the communication aspect of play calls and that type of stuff, being able to relay that stuff. Then anytime you get some environment, having your team be able to stay composed during those stretches and stuff. So that's what makes all the sports, home courts, so advantageous, is having that type of environment behind you.”

Q. I feel like I've heard you say a lot this year about how much you just enjoy the team that you have. What's special, what's unique about this group that just makes showing up here so fun each day for you?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “I think their intentionality with their prep is pretty awesome. Every day they come in after a good win, a tough loss, whatever, they come in and they're really focused on how do we prepare for that next game. And they put a lot of thought behind it, a lot of purpose behind it. And that makes it fun as a coach that they're bought into what you're telling them, they're trying to get better every day. And they've been very consistent with that really from June till now. And it's a long season and to have a group that stays that committed to it says a lot about it.”

Q. You hear a lot about how it's hard to beat a good team twice. You guys got Purdue here at home. What's it gonna take for you guys to beat them in Mackey Arena, a very hostile environment?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “Yeah, we're gonna need to play very well. They've been playing incredibly well. They had a tough night with Michigan the other night. But Michigan, I think on that night, they played about as good as anybody in the country. Purdue's been, they've been playing incredibly well. Before that, they beat Iowa, they beat Nebraska, they beat Maryland. So they have a really good team and they're at home and they're tough to beat. So we're gonna have to play well, we're gonna have to make some shots. We're gonna have to do a lot of things you're gonna need to do to win a tough road game.”

Q. What's unique about prepping for a team the second time? I assume some of the game planning from the prior game, you gotta throw out for various circumstances or reasons. Can you just walk us through that?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “Yeah, I've always thought that when you play a team the second time, whether you won or lost, it's like when you won, do you try to do the same stuff? And how much, because they're preparing for that, and how much do you change? And then vice versa. So you gotta be able to do different stuff and have different wrinkles for sure. But it still comes down to a lot of things like the X's and O's are what they are. And you're gonna tweak some things to try to find some advantages. But all those other things still matter. The turnovers, the rebounding, and those are the things that we gotta do well to give ourselves a chance.”

Q. Yeah, you mentioned rebounding. What's kind of been done this week in practice to alleviate those concerns from Illinois?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “I don't know that we ever eliminated them. Illinois got us pretty good on the glass. So it's something that we knew was gonna be a challenge going into that game because of their sheer size, the way their roster's built. So we gotta do a better job there if we're gonna win this game. We can't give that many second chance opportunities. And 15 for a team like Illinois is way too many.”

Q. Yeah, with Tayton, he's obviously back. I mean, is he fully healthy at this point? I mean, are you expecting to kind of get him back more in the rotation? And then kind of second part to that, with Jasai and Trent, they seem to have kind of switched spots, basically. What was the rotation the last couple weeks? Why has Jasai moved ahead and maybe Trent kind of been going down the last couple weeks?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “Yeah, I think Jasai ended up grabbing some of TC's minutes when he was out. So he kind of filled some of that now that TC's working his way back and stuff, those minutes and things will be a little bit game to game as we go through the year and see how everybody's playing. And then some of Trent's minutes usually coming in for Tucker. There's been a few matchups where we wanted a little more perimeter. So we went with Jasai a couple times. But still have great faith in all those guys that when their number's called, they're coming in, they're ready to go and give us great effort, which they always do.”

Q. And you mentioned kind of the effort kind of has been kind of consistent behind the scenes and what you've seen in games. But in terms of improvement, do you think it's been sort of straight line up or have you kind of struggled to try to get them to a higher level? And is it hard when you have kind of moving pieces, you've had injuries, you've had different things, to sort of kind of keep going up a level?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “Yeah, I think some of the struggles at times has come from either the rebounding, there's been different components every night. There's been some really good nights too, but some of our offense is a lot of times tied to some of the shooting aspect that we have to be able to make shots. It's just how we're built. And when that struggles, we can find some levels in games. But it still comes back to even during those levels, the other night at Illinois, if we would just defensive rebound to give ourselves more of those opportunities, that's been better. I think offensively, we've gotten a lot better these last three or four weeks. I think we've moved the ball pretty well. We've been able to get more paint touches and things. And I think that's been good to us. We've got to continue to do that. Defensively, it's just continue to be just more consistent, more often on that end.”

Q. Yeah, after the radio show, I saw you watching the highlights of the Illinois game on the TV there. I guess after a loss, how do you find the balance of focusing on what you did wrong and then trying to prep for an opponent like Purdue?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “Yeah, whether it's a win or a loss, you obviously stay on the losses a lot longer, especially as coaches. So you review the tape, you go over it multiple times. But you only have two days to get ready for that next game. So it's being able to kind of put everything in perspective of, 'Why did it happen? What happened?' Good, bad, and then get ready for that next prep. And make sure that you don't continue to make those same mistakes over and over again. But in those two-day preps, especially in February, you're only doing so much right now. There's only so much that you can put together in the two days. So it's really just getting back to making sure we're really good at the basics, the details of what we're doing at both ends of the floor.”

Q. With Reed, he's obviously had some massive games for you guys. The UCLA game comes to mind. I know there's been others, but it seems like it's been a little bit of a roller coaster for him. How is he handling that? How is the coaching staff, are you guys handling that with him? And kind of what does he need to do to kind of maintain some continuity there?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “And Reed's had some really good games for us. He's continued to work hard and stuff. There's been some games he's certainly been being able to be really effective for us and get to the free throw line and things. So it's been a little bit just game to game of what his strengths are and how he can best use them within a particular game. But he's still doing well, he's still working hard, trying to be assertive wherever he can, and we need to continue to do that.”

Q. I guess looking big picture, this is kind of the final push before the NCAA tournament. You guys are in position to be in position, sort of. I guess, what's it gonna take for you guys to keep yourselves on the right side of the bubble?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “I think the normal thing is you just have to keep winning games. I mean, that's number one, and we've talked about a little bit of coach speak. But the only thing we're really concerned about is our next one, and right now that's Purdue. And you start to look past that, that's when you start to get yourself in trouble. And our focus will just be every night on who's next and what do we have to do to try to win that one.”

Q. On Nick, I think it's like 4-for-28 now, if you look back from, I think, USC game onward. I think 26 of those 28 shots are threes. Do you guys try to encourage him, ‘Hey, try a few inside looks?’ Are you maybe trying to urge him to, I don't know, just try to find easier looks for him to kind of help him free himself from the sump that he's in right now?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “Yeah, I think he's had a little bit of a shooting slump, but it keeps you, the numbers are gonna even themselves out here at any moment. So I mean, Nick's a really good shooter, that next game could be the 6 for 8 game, and he's done a good job of picking some spots. He's had some games here recently, he's been able to get to the rim a few times and drive it. So that's certainly something he's added to his game as the year's gone on, and he'll continue to get better and better at it. But I think for all of our guys, it's just remain confident, because it doesn't do any good to not be. So trust the work, like we always say, he puts in a lot of work into it and it'll pay off for him.”

Q. From the outside, it seemed like Conor Enright followed the game plan to slow down Braden Smith to a tee in the first matchup. Was that how you saw it, and then how important is it to have players that can follow a game plan to that level?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “Yeah, I thought he had to work incredibly hard because Braden's so hard to slow down, and he's such a good player. And it was more than just Conor, it was collectively trying to do that. He still had a pretty good night, because he's just one of those elite point guards in the country, so I have a lot of respect for his game and how he approaches it. So, we'll want to do everything we can as a group to try to slow him down the best you can, but that's a hard job to do.”