What Darian DeVries Said After Indiana Basketball's 81-75 Loss at USC

LOS ANGELES — Indiana men's basketball coach Darian DeVries spoke to the media after the Hoosiers' 81-75 loss at USC on Tuesday night at the Galen Center in Los Angeles.

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

Q. I guess obviously a number of things happened in this game. Curious, factors that led to the outcome in your mind. What was at the top of your eyes?

DEVRIES: I thought the biggest thing was, we had talked before the game, we couldn't put them at the free throw line and they shot 31 free throws. So that's a big starting point. I just didn't think we had the same tenacity that we've had here these last few games. We seemed a little half a step slow tonight. Kept trying to battle. Kept trying to get back into it. Gave a nice little run there late to give ourselves a chance. But unfortunately just couldn't come up with that one more play to get us over the top.

Q. Obviously Lamar has a great game. But Tucker, Nick and Hunter didn't really score much. They finished 13, 14 combined points. How much of it was not getting the second guy and not getting the third guy scoring-wise?

DEVRIES: Yeah, I thought we had some great opportunities there. I thought Nick's been shooting about as well as anybody in the country. He just had an off night. Tuck had some really good looks as well. They just didn't go down. So we didn't get that second and third score like we've been getting tonight. Obviously Lamar really tried to carry us there. At the rim, we need to finish a little stronger so we can get to the free throw line. We've got to do a better job of drawing those fouls.

Q. Is there a reason you can see for why you guys were a half step slow?

DEVRIES: No, I mean we just couldn't get it done. Again, I don't know if the heavy minutes the other night had anything to do with it. But the guys had prepared well. I thought we had a good two days of practice. They were really engaged and coming into the game, I thought we were ready. We just didn't quite have it tonight throughout the contest. The guys continued the battle, trying to find ways to get it going. A few different times they got down and came back and kept fighting. Had that one last push there at the end and just couldn't come up with a big steal there to tie it home or take it or take the lead with a three.

Q. You mentioned Tucker the other night was fighting through things shooting-wise. What have you talked to him about to try to get him through this stretch. It wasn't necessarily looking for a shot very much. What have you tried to talk to him about to try to get through this?

DEVRIES: I think the biggest thing, everybody, when you're a good shooter and you go through maybe something you haven't gone through before, is just to stay confident. Trust your work. You've done it your whole life. Just continue to believe in that. Sometimes that's hard when you are in a little bit of a slump to continue to find it. He's been trying to really, ‘Hey, I’m not shooting as well,’ trying to facilitate and do some other things while he's trying to work through that.

Q. Is it different, though, than anything? You obviously know his career pretty well. Is it different than any slumps you've seen from him offensively?

DEVRIES: Yeah, just from a shooting standpoint. It's just one of those things that happens that he hasn't experienced before. He'll get it going. He's just got to stay confident with it and continue to work and believe in himself. I know we all do. His teammates all do. So, it'll come.

Q. I believe rebounding-wise, it was 40-25. What did you see on that end?

DEVRIES: I didn't think we were hitting as well, making as much contact as we had. I thought we gave them some free runs at the basket. Some of them we were in some rotations where we were coming late to get to them. Again, between the free throws and the offensive rebounding, especially in the first half. The second half was better. We only had three there in the second half. Overall, it wasn't quite what we were looking for.”

Q. It looked like right before the handshake line you were chatting with one of the refs a little bit. Was there a specific area of angst there at all?

DEVRIES: No. Just normal stuff.

Q. You guys got it down to four or five multiple times, just couldn't make that shot. Did you feel like that was the theme of the night?

DEVRIES: Yeah, I think overall. Couldn't get that three to go, and then we couldn't follow it up with that stop. I thought there was a big stretch in there where Arenas got loose for a couple of threes, a couple of tough baskets. It seemed like we had some deflections. There were things too where there were loose balls and we just didn't come up with enough of them. I thought our activity was pretty good. Again, some of them just would end up in their hands. All of a sudden, they're at the rim and at the free throw line.

Q. Tayton Conerway comes back. Was that always the plan? You felt like this second game was where he'd be in?

DEVRIES: Yeah, we weren't sure if he was going to be ready yet, but the last couple of days, he made pretty good progress. So, he was able to practice a decent amount yesterday, and then felt like he was good in warmups today to go for some limited minutes at least, so.

Q. When he's back 100 percent, do you have a decision to make with the starting lineup or do you assume he's coming back? How have you thought about that?

DEVRIES: We'll see where it's at when we come back. Right now, we'll stick with what we've been doing and see how it plays out from there.

Q. Just to make sure he played well enough tonight, he's good to go, nothing re-aggravated or anything. He's back to playing.

DEVRIES: I mean, we'll see after the game what it looks like and if there's any reoccurrence or anything like that, but.

Q. From a team standpoint, how important are the next couple of days of practices getting back on a normal schedule?

DEVRIES: It will be big. We're actually staying the night tonight so we can travel tomorrow. We don't get to use that as a practice day or anything. It's not an off day, so it's just a travel day. Then we'll practice on Thursday and Friday to get ready for Saturday. So, our biggest thing is we've got to get back, get some rest, regroup, and then get ready for the next one. That's what this is. We've been playing good basketball and had a rough one tonight, but we can't let it linger. We've got to get refocused and get ready for Saturday.