What Darian DeVries Said After Indiana Basketball's Crushing Loss to Northwestern

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Indiana men's basketball coach Darian DeVries met with the media after the Hoosiers (17-11, 8-9 Big Ten) suffered a 72-68 loss to Northwestern (12-16, 4-13 Big Ten) on Tuesday night at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall in Bloomington.

Here's what DeVries told reporters during his five-and-a-half-minute postgame press conference. The transcript is courtesy of ASAP Sports.

Q. Coach, you guys had a couple chances there in the first half to maybe extend the lead to double figures; let them hang around. Felt like they built some momentum late in the first half. It's not really the first game where you guys have had a chance to punch the lead out and ended up biting you. Why do you think this team has not been able to, so to speak, put teams away when you have them in that vulnerable spot?

DARIAN DeVRIES: Yeah, I agree. I thought we had a good little stretch going. We got the lead built up to 11 there in the first half. Thought we had some opportunities there to really press that thing open.

A lot of times it's come down to second-chance opportunities, things like that. They get a put-back, maybe a couple empty possessions in there, too. Just our overall consistency of sustaining 40 minutes has been an issue for us in multiple games, so certainly showed up again tonight.

Q. I recognize from your perspective it's not going to be the only reason for outcome. What was your perspective on that sort of call, no-call late on Tucker, and was there any kind of communication with the officials? We attempted through pool reporter protocols to talk to them. But from your perspective, any communication?

DARIAN DeVRIES: Yeah, it's a tough play. It happens fast. You know, that's just what it is.

Q. Is this as hurt or as heartbroken as you've seen just the whole guys this year, that team, and just hard of a loss as it was tonight?

DARIAN DeVRIES: Yeah, I mean, it was a tough loss. We have a big home stand here. This was the first game of it. We're at that point in the year where games have become very meaningful and it was an opportunity. We certainly wanted to get started off on the front of the home stand with a good note.

You know, didn't happen, so there is still -- like I told them, we have to make sure that we put it away. We got a big game on Sunday and then we got to come ready to go. Very good Michigan State team.

We're going to have to really look in the mirror a little bit and get some things figured out before we play again on Sunday.

Q. You mentioned after the Purdue game you were happy how the team responded in Michigan, quickly turned the page and kind of quickly put it to bed. Was there a hangover from the last two losses? Did you feel the team struggling at all? Energy in practice, anything like that?

DARIAN DeVRIES: No, I didn't think so at all. Thought we had great practices. I thought the first half to be honest really indicated they were ready to go. They came out and played really well. Two, three things in there that we would've liked to have extended that lead a little bit, but overall the first half we were very crisp on offense. I thought we were very locked in.

I thought defensively did some pretty good things. They got a few put-backs there that we tried to clean up at halftime. Talked about that a lot, trying to make sure we cleaned up the interior.

That's a tough matchup for us. Whether to switch, not to switch, double team, not double team. He just puts you in some really hard spots with our size.

Q. There was a stretch in the second half I think you guys went 0 for 11 from the field. Any particular issues that you saw for the reason for that?

DARIAN DeVRIES: There was a few clean ones in there we missed. Again, I thought in the second half we got a little stagnant with some things. There wasn't a lot of movement. We weren't able to create advantages as much as I thought we did in the first half.

I thought in the first half we did a much better job of creating advantages, getting those kick-out threes, corner threes because they were having to try to catch up a little bit.

I didn't think we did as good a job of that in the second half.

Q. Darian, you guys turned a bit of a corner late January, early February. Won five games out of six. Had some really good wins in there. Now just things are kind of trending the other way. How has this team lost that momentum that they had and what's the path forward?

DARIAN DeVRIES: The path forward is just keep fighting, keep pushing forward. The Illinois and the Purdue losses were tough. They were two tough games, two tough teams. Not a lot of people going in there and winning.

I thought our guys were ready. Thought they came out and had good focus in practice, good energy. Thought they came out and played well the first half. Unfortunately the second half we weren't good enough.

Q. Lamar said maybe they got comfortable in the second half, complacent. What are your thoughts of how the intensity was in the second half?

DARIAN DeVRIES: I thought it was really just us not being able to contain Martinelli was the biggest piece. Not getting stops. There was some offensive rebounds in there as well. Some big possessions where we didn't come up with some of those loose balls.

And then offensively just couldn't get anything going. We were 0 there for forever, and allowed them to stay in the game, stay in the game, stay in the game, and all of a sudden now you got to make some plays. We just weren't able to make the ones we needed to.