What Darian DeVries Said After Indiana Basketball's 81-60 Loss to Michigan State

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Indiana basketball coach Darian DeVries met with reporters following the Hoosiers' 81-60 loss to Michigan State on Tuesday night at the Breslin Center in East Lansing.

Here's what DeVries said during his near-seven-minute postgame press conference, during which he addressed Indiana's second half struggles and the Spartans' 28-2, game-deciding run.

Q. Big scoring drought in the second half kind of led to Michigan State extending the lead and separating. What kind of went wrong during that time and what is kind of going wrong in multiple games here with the scoring droughts?

DEVRIES: Yeah, I thought, again, I think it got tied up there with about 11:30 to go and then after that, I thought we had some poor offensive possessions, which was the same thing that happened to us the other day at home, where we had some turnovers, maybe a couple of non-quality shots, and that led to their transition and you can't give them transition, especially here, and that's where the game just flipped.

Q. Darian, when you fought your way back and you had it tied at 53, what did you think you could do the rest of the way to get over the hump?

DEVRIES: Yeah, I thought we talked in the huddle — we even had a few threes there that, back-to-back, that we just missed — but I liked the way we were playing, I liked the way we were guarding. And then just, like we've talked about, just stringing a few bad possessions together and they just compounded themselves. And we used a couple of times to try to slow it down, but we just never got back to getting stops in the half-court or in the open floor.

Q. Hard to keep them off the foul line?

DEVRIES: Yeah, I mean, we knew there was going to be some issues there with some of the interior play. Like, we're going to have some matchup problems with some of the rebounding things, and obviously we got crushed in the glass there, so that was a big part of it, too.

Q. Coach, 29 points off of your 14 turnovers, is that something that's fixable in the run of play, or is that something that has to be taught in practice?

DEVRIES: It's something you prioritize every day in practice, but, yeah, it's something that's very fixable. It's like we've talked repeatedly about — where are these turnovers coming from? Who's causing them? And in most of the cases, they're decision-making turnovers. It wasn't because we were getting trapped, and they were getting deflections that way. A lot of them are self-inflicted activity, obviously, by Michigan State, but they're still decision-making turnovers that we've got to do a better job, especially when you're in that parsed portion of the game. It's like you've gotten yourself, it's a tied game, there's 11 minutes to go, being able to play off of two feet, make those sound decisions, still run good offense, still be aggressive, but prioritize the basketball more. And, like I said, that's disappointing for a veteran group as we have to be turning the ball over in these type of situations.

Q. On that, are you kind of surprised that it happened again? Like, I mean, it was obviously a big part of the last game, too, and just sloppy, right? I mean, had you kind of thought you'd improved in that area? Like, it just kind of really struggled again in that regard, the sloppiness.

DEVRIES: “Yeah, I really thought we would. I mean, the guys get it, they understand it, they know, what importance that is in both areas of defensive rebounding and turnovers. We said it from day one, those are the two biggest factors, in my opinion, in winning and losing basketball games, and tonight we got beat in both.”

Q. Darian, I'm wondering about the first half philosophy on Jeremy Fears, defending him. It looked like he was sagging off him, and then also the two steals that he had to let run out. How much did that maybe change the tone of the game?

DEVRIES: Yeah, I thought in the first half, I think we were up 17-10, and he picked Conor's pocket and was able to get a layup there. The second one, I don't remember quite as well, but in the second half. But I thought his ability in transition to get from A to B, when we weren't able to get him under control, was a problem for us. He was really dynamic in that way. So it was either off of turnovers, long shots, whatever, if you can't get him slowed down earl it's really hard, because the bigs are running and they're sealing, and it's hard to give a lot of help because you're wrestling down there with the bigs. So I thought he did a really good job of being aggressive getting in the paint and finishing.

Q. What about the follow-up trouble, do you think, effectively? You guys defended early in the second half, especially against Kohler where he's inside. Kind of bangs away there against you early.

DEVRIES: Yeah, in the first half, I thought it was actually more of a problem for us, just because we had to sub a lot more to try and protect those guys. I know Tucker picked up his third pretty early, but I didn't think it really impacted a whole lot. I mean, we took him out for a while, but not long enough. I thought we were able to play through the fouls. So I don't think the second half really had a lot to do with fouls necessarily. Just playing through those last ten minutes and that fatigue, and that's something we've got to fight more.

Q. Coach, Tucker hit that first shot on, I think it was the first possession of the game, then goes 0 for 6 the rest of the way. What's been his struggle in conference play, and how has he tried to traverse that?

DEVRIES: Yeah, I mean, he's obviously going through a little bit of a shooting slump right now. For him, it's a longer one than he's had. He's been putting in time after time after time, and he actually shot it great today in shoot-around. Shot it great in our full practice yesterday. Hit that first one, thought maybe that would be the start of it. But it's going to happen, just, again, he's got to find his way back out of it.

Q. It seemed like when they were denying or doubling Lamar, that was when the offense went cold. What do you guys need to do to get the offense going when Lamar slows down?

DEVRIES: Yeah, I thought they did a good job making his catches tough. We had some things to try to slip out of some screens and create some opportunities there. We just, a few of them were there, we just didn't finish the play. We ended up turning it over instead of getting a layup out of it. Ended up getting in their hands, going the other way.

Q. This is obviously a roster that's old, and as much as you kind of preached playing with a lot of juice, a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of times on the road, it feels like you guys have just spiraled and haven't been able to catch it. Is that surprising? To have a roster that's old, experienced, and played a lot of high-level ball that you just kind of haven't stopped a lot of runs.

DEVRIES: Yeah, I think to a degree for sure. And again, I think it's been a little bit of the turnovers. It's been more of a common theme. I mean, there's always a little something else. And I thought the turnovers tonight was what flipped it again in the second half. Once we went from that tie game to all of a sudden, they're playing in transition. And, now you've got the crowd going and energy. And you just can't allow those type of runs if you're going to beat a good team.