What Darian DeVries Said After Indiana Basketball's 83-77 Loss to Nebraska

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Indiana basketball coach Darian DeVries spoke with reporters following the Hoosiers' 83-77 loss to Nebraska on Saturday afternoon at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall in Bloomington.

Here's what DeVries said during his 10-minute press conference after Indiana blew a 16-point lead in the second half. The transcript is courtesy of ASAP Sports.

Q. Coach, they scored 53 in the second half. You guys, it felt like you did a really good job especially later in the first half with the defense. What maybe in your eyes went wrong there in the second half defensively for them to -- it's hard to win when you give up 53 on the home court.

DARIAN DeVRIES: Yeah, absolutely. I think the number one thing was just the paint touches they got, and then there was some high ball screens and things that we messed up some switches, which we did a good job of, you know, for a good part of the game.

Then second half we didn't communicate that well enough, and they were able to get to the rim and got a few free-throws there early to start and got some of those paint touches.

Then a few of the live ball turnovers, you know, the 14 turnovers, it's a pretty simple deal. You take care of the basketball; you win the game. We got that lead, and then we had, I don't know, four out of five possessions I think we turned the ball over during a 10-0 run when we had the lead up to 16. That's just something that you just can't do if you're going to beat a good team.

Q. In the speech you had with the team after the last win, you said this is a really good team. You kind of had a chance to prove it out there. You had them down. How hard is it when you have them beat and it just kind of crumbles like that? It was a Quad 1 opportunity, and it just...

DARIAN DeVRIES: Yeah, it's disappointing, for sure. We played well for a good 25, 27, 28 minutes, whatever, and then just had a bad stretch in there, and the game flipped.

That's why the turnovers are a big piece of that. We had I can't remember if it was 15 or 16, and Tucker picked up his third and forty foul on back-to-back possessions. Then they went on a 10-0 run right after that. That was a big turning point in the game I thought where he picked those two up.

Q. Coach, the ability to sustain what you did so well for the first 25 minutes, the key to that, and then how do you grow from this, learn from this?

DARIAN DeVRIES: Yeah, it's something I talked to the team about, and we've been talking to the team about. When they're executing the way that they did the first 25 minutes, it looks really good, and they're doing a great job, and they're defending and getting movement and things.

As soon as you get away from that a little bit and now the turnovers or maybe the lack of communication on a few of those possessions, now all of a sudden everything you've built up for 25 minutes goes away in a hurry.

That's something we've had a few moments this year where that's happened. We've talked to them a lot about it's that next play mentality, win that next play, and not compound mistakes. I thought tonight, again, for a stretch there was a period where we let one mistake turn into two.

Then instead of digging in and really making sure now we get a quality possession the next time, we compounded it with another turnover. It led to back-to-back to back. All of a sudden your lead is gone, and momentum is real. It shifted pretty quickly there.

Q. After Tucker picks up those two questionable calls, gets his fourth, what did you need to see from the other guys in that situation when you don't have Tucker on the floor?

DARIAN DeVRIES: I think the same thing they've done all year. It's not like he hasn't been on the floor before. They've always done a great job. I just think we didn't have the type of possessions we needed after he went out, again, and most of them it was just turnovers. We didn't even get shots at the goal.

I thought we might have one or two in there where I think Lamar drove it hard and tried going through contact, whatever, and we didn't get one there.

But outside of that, we just didn't get very good possessions. Our movement wasn't as good. That's when we were really getting them was getting them side to side, getting them in angles, and getting a paint touch, and then a kick-out three. I thought we looked just a little stagnant and stood around a little bit, and that allowed them to sit in their gaps and could load up on us.

Q. Obviously they were able to it set their defense when they got those turnovers and were able to get run-outs. Did you see them change anything in the second half differently than what they were doing and what you were able to break down in the first half?

DARIAN DeVRIES: Not really. They were a little more hugged up, which is even for them throughout the game, they weren't pulled over quite as far as they normally are on some of the stuff, because they really kind of zone up on man-to-man.

So typically you don't get to the rim very often. They don't give up very many twos. My guess is they were a little more concerned with their shooting. So we were able to get more opportunities at the rim tonight when we got them moving, as long as we got them in action.

I thought for the most part we scored plenty of points minus the turnovers. I mean, our offense was the turnovers, but it wasn't necessarily our offense that got us beat. It was the turnovers and then the defensive breakdowns in the second half. That's the biggest difference.

You can't give up 50 points at home. It just can't happen.

Q. As a coach, do you ever have a love/hate relationship with the three-pointer?

DARIAN DeVRIES: Not really. It's a big part of what we do. Obviously when you are a three-point shooting team, you want to make sure you're getting the type of threes, the quality three that you want to get. That's important.

But we recruit to it. We play to it. It's all about just making sure, though, that you get some.

There was probably a few in the second half that I thought we got a little anxious trying to get it back on a couple of possessions instead of relying on some movement to then get a better one. That's more just being better on offense than it is about whether you shoot too many threes or not shoot too many threes.

Q. I was talking about Nebraska.

DARIAN DeVRIES: They shoot a lot, too. I think, what, did they get, 34 of them up tonight? Yeah, they spread you out as well. That's similar to us. That's where you got decisions to make on how much can you help in those gaps and take away the threes.

Then all of a sudden you get some driving opportunities, which I thought they did a good job of taking advantage of in the second half.

Q. I know you've talked so much about the emphasis of not turning the ball over and how big that is to kind of win games consistently, but it seems like there's been ebbs and flows throughout the season. You guys really started the season taking care of the ball pretty well, and then you had a rut where you were turning it over more, and it kind of creeps back up today. As a coach, in game how do you kind of try to stem the tide with the turnovers? It seemed like a lot of them today were self-inflicted mistakes, not them doing anything else. How do you communicate with the players and change the momentum when that's happening so often?

DARIAN DeVRIES: We told the guys at halftime. I think we had six turnovers, and I felt like a lot of those were just self-inflicted. It wasn't even them being aggressive and coming, raking the ball out or something. They were just those type of turnovers you hate as a coach.

I told them if we turn if over five or less times in the second half, we're going to win the game. We just didn't do it. I thought, again, that just won the game.