What Darian DeVries Said After Indiana Basketball's 87-78 Loss to Louisville

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana men's basketball coach Darian DeVries and senior forward Tucker DeVries met with reporters Saturday afternoon following the Hoosiers' 87-78 loss to Louisville at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

Here's what the DeVries duo said in their near-nine-minute press conference.

Q: Yeah, Coach, I guess in your eyes, how much of this is the difference in three point, you know, the points from threes versus how much some guys maybe learn how hard you really have to go every possession from a get go.

DARIAN DEVRIES: Yeah, I thought even early, to be quite honest with you, is we were battling this offensively. They did a really good job early defensively. We couldn't get loose, we couldn't get a lot of space. You know, we were competing defensively, we just, when you're not scoring, it makes it really challenging. You're down 16-0, 16-2, against a team like that, that's tough. Because I think we're really good. I think they do a really good job offensively of making you pay when you make mistakes. And defensively, I thought we gave great effort, but there was a few mistakes that we made, they made us pay. And then I thought defensively, they were really hooked up tonight. I thought they did a good job of making things tough and challenging. And we had some moments where we were able to break free and get loose a little bit, but overall, it was just too big of a deficit to overcome.

Q: And after that first six minutes, do you see things you look at and go, ‘Okay, these are things that we can carry forward or not?’

DARIAN DEVRIES: “Yeah, there's plenty of positives, like every game, there's positives, there's negatives. I thought our ability to continue to fight was good. If you give into it at all on a team like that, then you can be down 30 or 40 pretty quickly, because they can do that to you. So I thought our guys' composure, even after the rough start, they continued to just battle and chip away, chip away. We were able to get it down to, I believe, 8 or 10 in the second half, and then put it right there. And then, unfortunately, they pushed it right back again. So we could just never quite get over that hump to get us within a couple of possessions.”

Q: I guess kind of to follow on that, Darian, it seemed like Minnesota had some success with this too. Just really overplaying the three-point line, and kind of not giving you space there, how do you, as you talk about sort of, how do you shake free of that? How do you make a team back off like that, and kind of what wasn't working on that, maybe in these last couple games, in terms of making a team back off, defending the perimeter the way they did?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “Yeah, I mean, if teams are gonna get up and challenge you, you have to be able to get to the rim. And there are different ways to do that, but if they're pressed out, taking away threes, you have to be able to drive and get to the rim and finish. Drive and get to the rim and get fouled, or back cuts. Those are other ways that you can put pressure. I thought, you know, Louisville did a good job of taking those away, because we tried to get to some of those actions as well, but they were pressuring us the way we did. In the second half, we opened the floor up a little more, got a little more dribble penetration, got to the rim a little bit, got to the free throw line more, just by playing in space. So those are some different ways that you try to beat it.”

Q: Obviously, hard to win when you give up 87 points and they make 13 threes. I mean, what did you see just in terms of the quality looks that they were getting from the three-point line? Was there any consistent theme in terms of how they were getting free for some of those looks?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “I thought we did a really good job on Brown, especially, Conwell, moments, we did a really good job. They're two really good players. And then you have McKneely, and he's the one that hurt us the most. Not that the other guys didn't, but McKneely's the one we lost a few times. He's the one we made the most mistakes on. And as a guy like that, he's elite. When he's got space, he's gonna make them. So that's what I talked to the team about. We did a lot of really good stuff. Those three, four, five mistakes that we made on McKneely, he made them. And that's something we just got to learn from. Continue to just prioritize why every possession, every guy on the roster, no matter what they're running. ‘Hey, here's A, here's B, here's C.’ Those guys, they all played their roles really well tonight. I thought he hit some really big ones at times that just, when we were starting to climb back into it, he was the guy that pushed it back up.”

Q: Yeah, with the fouls. Tayton Conerway only played, I think it was 21 minutes, like eight in the first half, foul trouble, obviously. But how much does that change the complexion of the game when you guys kind of have continual kind of foul trouble, guys having to be careful, even if they don't come off the floor, just playing through it, that type of thing?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “Yeah, I think for Tayton, I don't know if he ever got in the flow of the game. He got a couple of fouls, had to come sit. We had to try to protect him the whole first half, and never really got into a good flow. And he is the one guy that we talked about with that pressure, that has the ability to, with his speed, to be able to get downhill, get to the rim, get to the free throw line, make plays for others. So that was unfortunate that he picked up those two quick early fouls.”

Q: How do you feel like you guys handled responding after that loss on Wednesday? And were there any kind of signs or tells that maybe you guys weren't in a great headspace, at all?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “No, I thought our approach today was great. I thought our guys, I thought we competed really hard, and we did. Were we perfect? No, but like I told the team before the game, is, like, ‘Every night you line up, you just leave it out there and give everything you got for that 40 minutes as an individual and as a team.’ There'll be nights that may not even be good enough. And I'm not saying there wasn't plenty of other things we could have gotten better at and corrected tonight, but we competed. Our guys played their tails off, they left it out there. I was proud of them from that standpoint. Was there things that we could have done better? Yeah, absolutely. But I liked the way we approached the game. I liked our mindset. I liked our toughness, physicality. I thought that's what we need to do every night.”

Q: Tucker, what do you guys need to do to avoid the sort of slow start you guys had tonight? Is it just a mentality thing? Is it kind of the way you guys approached the beginning of the game, I guess? What do you guys need to change there?

TUCKER DEVRIES: “I mean, I thought, kind of like he said, they came out ready to play.

And to be honest, I thought we played really hard and a lot harder, but there's certain things execution-wise or just really being dialed in on the defensive end, like he kind of said, the defensive mistakes wasn't really a lack of effort or physicality. It was just some of those mistakes we got to clean up. But I think changing the game could change a lot of things, because I thought as we settled in, we played a lot better after that first kind of run from them.”

Q: Coach, specifically, especially against a backcourt like this, what more are you looking for from your guards out there? Both offensively and defensively in a backcourt matchup like this?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “Yeah, defensive end, again, I thought those guys did a really good job.

I mean, Mikel Brown, he's getting drafted. He's probably a top five pick. Ryan Conwell is their leading scorer. He's a really good player. And then you talk about McKneely is the third guy that you got to worry about from a shooting standpoint. They just put a lot of pressure on your defense from stretching you out. And also, ‘Hey, I got to be able to contain these two guys that can really take you off the bounce.’ So, I thought our guards really fought, especially doing a good job — and I know Conwell got some free throws in late and stuff — but overall, they did a really good job. We just lost McKneely a few times. And then I even thought, you're picking and choosing something. They're two bigs hit a couple of threes in the first half. Just things that you're probably living with, but they made them. So those are part of that stretch of getting us down and behind. Those things are hard to overcome against really good teams.

Q: Coach, what about the spark you got from Dorn? He's done that now a couple of times. Is that something you think he could consistently do?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “Yeah, Nick's a really good shooter. He's starting to work his way back, doing some good things, starting to get more and more comfortable. He just hasn't practiced very long. He's been out there (for) two and a half, three weeks. So, he's starting to find his feel and his rhythm and things like that. And his game legs are starting to come. So, I thought he did a really good job of staying with it there in the second half. And was able to get free and give us at least a fighter's chance with a couple minutes to go. You just never know when something can happen. But he at least kept us close enough to maybe it could have gotten really interesting.”