What Darian DeVries Said After Indiana Basketball's 76-74 Exhibition Win vs Baylor

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana men's basketball coach Darian DeVries spoke to the media after the Hoosiers' 76-74 exhibition win over Baylor on Sunday afternoon at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

Here's what DeVries said during his near-eight-minute press conference.

Q: I guess what was it about Baylor that gave you guys a little bit of trouble early in the game? How do you adjust and how useful is it to have a challenge like that before the games count?

DEVRIES: "We had talked like as a staff, it's just hard for us in practice to simulate some of that speed and athleticism and playmaking. So we thought this was going to be a great opportunity for us in an exhibition type setting to get to experience that. And I thought the first half you could see struggle with that at times.

"And I thought at halftime when we came back out, we kind of re-adjusted. I thought we were much more aggressive second half defensively especially. So, I thought they did a nice job of kind of taking what they saw in the first half, changing it and flipping it in the second half."

Q: How important is it to get as a coach, you can't draw these exhibitions up, but end-of-game situation work and kind of to see that not just against your own team, running drills, two-minute drills, something like that. But how important was that for you to get to see today?

DEVRIES: "Yeah, it was great for us because there was a stretch in there as the lead was starting to evaporate a little bit, where it's like we're not trying to run a lot of our stuff. So it's kind of like we just let it go. Normally we would probably have called the time out in there, but I wanted to see how they'd respond.

"And I thought they did a nice job of that same thing with some of the last few minutes, we didn't want to run a lot of our stuff. So we kind of let them just kind of play and play off of one another. So I thought they did a good job there of finding ways to go make plays and execute when they needed to, be able to hit some shots there to tie that game up.

"But what a great learning opportunity for us to have this, have the game come down to the wire. I thought it was really good for us and we don't play for a while. So got some great tape to go look at."

Q: A number of coaches have said something along the lines of basically when we put our ones against our twos in practice, our twos don't have the length, athleticism and all that, that they will be facing. How much of a piece of that is this in exhibitions like this? And can you just sort of take us through what you learn and what guys go through?

"Yeah, it's just something we can't simulate in practice. And even with some of the injuries we've had, we've been really shorthanded from a practice standpoint to maybe get some of that out of our practice setting. And so this is awesome for us. I would do these games all the time.

"I think it's great to either be at home or road, have some atmosphere, be in front of fans and watch how guys respond to different type of situations. So for us, there was every scenario that could happen today was going to be a good thing for us because it's something that we could learn from.

"Whether you lose handily, win handily, close game, whatever, however it plays out, there's going to be opportunity for us to go back on the practice floor and get some things figured out."

Q: I recognize this is kind of a loaded question, but were there moments -- you talk about, especially down the stretch, just seeing maybe guys, how they figure it out for themselves -- were there moments when you felt like you could tell this team had played together a little bit more than it normally would have at this time of year because of the summer practices, because of Puerto Rico?

"Yeah, it's hard to tell for sure, but I certainly felt like they had a little bit of calmness. I think you could tell some guys have played a lot of basketball. They've been through it a little bit. I think even our Puerto Rico games, both games against Mega, where we were down 20 and had to find ways to come back in those games, were good for us as well.

"So we've had several games here in an exhibition type setting where we've had our guys challenged and have to respond to some type of adversity. And that's always a good quality to find ways to come out on top."

Q: You mentioned in Rosemont, you were excited about here to learn where you guys were at. Where do you feel like you're at?

"We're getting better. I think that's the No. 1 thing. I think there's an identity that we have defensively has really come a long ways. And I think you saw that in the second half. I think defensively we have a chance to be really good on first shot opportunities. I think our guys are, we got some guys that are really committed to it. They understand, they communicate well.

"The area you saw today that we got to improve the most is the defensive rebounding. We are undersized, so we have to really be technical in hitting people. We can't allow people to just run in there and jump. We're not winning a lot of those jumping contests. So that physicality is going to be important.

"We give up 16 offensive rebounds, but we held them to 29%. With that first shot defense, excuse me, our first shot defense was good enough to hold them to that. If we had just rebounded better, it could have been a really good second half defensively. So that's where it's at now offensively.

"I really like, I thought our guys, it took a while for them to kind of get into it a little bit again. Because we're being pretty vanilla in what we're running on offense, which was great for them. So, they had to learn how, against people taking some of our stuff away, 'How do we score?' And I thought they made some good adjustments as the game went on with that too."

Q: Going back to Puerto Rico and then this game, you've had three games now where you've had deficits against pretty strong teams. And you've responded to that adversity each time. What does that kind of tell you about the guys that you have in this locker room? And is that encouraging for you as a coach to kind of see that every time that's happened so far, you guys have met the challenge?

"Yeah, I think it's a great quality, and hopefully it continues when it goes in the win-loss column. But it is something that matters. You get three opportunities out of four that we've had so far where we had to come from behind and figure out a way to make some adjustments and come back to find a way to win. I thought a huge part of the game today was we're down 13 with about seven minutes to go in the first half. And the game can go a lot of different ways right before halftime.

"I challenged the guys in the timeout of don't let this get to 20. This can't be what we just do all the time. So I thought they did a really good job of fighting back and getting it down to four at halftime. And now you've got a much more manageable second half, as opposed to, 'Hey, it's not going well,' and letting that thing slide up to 20 for us."

Q: Obviously, it didn't matter today, but you get two guys foul out. How do you balance the over-aggressiveness and keeping the foul trouble low?

"Yeah, I'd much rather them be aggressive right now this time of year. And then some of it's adjusting to officiating too. We haven't had a lot of officials in practice, and to be quite honest, we don't call much in practice. So, some of that will start to work itself out as we're playing games. But yeah, it's critical.

"We can't just let people stay in the game from the free throw line. And we can't have guys that we need on the floor sitting over by me. So that is one of the things that we got to continue to clean up. And I do like the fact that we are being physical as opposed to, 'Hey, we didn't foul, but we had no physicality, no toughness to us.'"

Q: You played Sam for most of the second half, and he came away with seven rebounds and three blocks as well. Just what did you see from him on the interior that really helped your defense out to stop Baylor in that second half?

"Yeah, I thought Sam was great in the second half. Again, we challenged the whole team at halftime about their physicality, their toughness. I thought Sam came out and gave us some great physicality, blocked a couple shots. Thought he was very active in the ball screen coverages. He was covering up for guys, playing both sides of the ball on those ball screens.

"So I thought that was really good. I just liked his energy and thought he was the guy that kind of got us going a little bit, so that's why we went with him a little bit longer."