What Darian DeVries Said After Indiana Basketball's 78-77 Overtime Win vs Wisconsin

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Indiana men's basketball coach Darian DeVries met with the media after the Hoosiers' 78-77 win over Wisconsin on Saturday afternoon at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall in Bloomington.

Here's what DeVries said in his eight-minute press conference. The transcript is courtesy of ASAP Sports.

Q. Obviously a lot of different guys contributed to today. I'm curious about your thoughts on Lamar, not just today, the 25 points, but the way he's been playing in Big Ten play, averaging 23, I think it was, coming in. Your thoughts on what he's been giving you guys all season?

DARIAN DeVRIES: Lamar, he's an elite player. I even think from like a pro standpoint, I think he's one of those guys that people aren't talking about enough because he's going to play in that league for a long, long time. He has all the things you need, the intangibles, in addition to like he has that one skill that everybody wants, and he can throw them in there.

And he's a winner. I love everything about him, and he continues to showcase what makes him so special.

Q. This is kind of a simplistic question, but you have played some of these close games -- Purdue, UCLA, now this one. What has a team that's already got a lot of experience but maybe is trying to navigate this end of the season together for the first time get out of winning this way specifically?

DARIAN DeVRIES: I think it's great. I even mentioned earlier we went to Puerto Rico, and we had a game where we got down 20, a meaningless game, like we talked about, and we were able to come back and win on the last-second shot. That was where you saw a little bit of like these dudes don't quit. They keep competing. They keep fighting. I think you saw it again tonight.

There's some things out there we'd like to clean up a bit. We get a double-digit lead there late, we don't need to go to overtime, you know. But again, they found a way. They didn't give into it. They kept fighting. They kept in the huddle encouraging one another, and I think that's a sign of a veteran team. They didn't panic inside the huddle. They just knew you've just got to make that next play, and they were able to do that.

Q. With the charge, you've talked about Conor Enright making winning plays, another example. What did you kind of expect in that moment, and what did you see from that play?

DARIAN DeVRIES: Again, we were trying to get a quick trap, see if we could get a quick steal. We thought we had enough time to try to take a few chances there, and if we could get them sped up, try to get one first.

Conor just does what he does. He keeps competing, keeps fighting, and that was a huge play for us.

Q. Right before Lamar hit the layup late, the last time you hit a shot was 5:30 left in regulation. Offensively, what do you think happened? Why did the shots stop falling? What changed in your eyes?

DARIAN DeVRIES: Some of them, I thought Wisconsin did a good job keeping us in front of them, in front of us a little bit better as the half went on. A few of them we just missed, and that's life, right?

I thought we had a few clean looks in there. I thought Lamar and Nick had a few looks from 3 that I'll take those every night. We just didn't make them.

As I said earlier, the thing about it, a night like tonight, where you're 5 for 22 from 3, typically the way our roster is built and how we're playing, that's a hard night for us. We were able to win that game because we held them to 38 percent from the field. So our defense did just enough.

There was times in there where it wasn't great, but again, the defense did just enough to get the stops we need when we needed them to allow us to win that game.

Q. Two things. One, the way Alexis played, especially from halftime on, and then the way Tucker came through and flirted with a double double, didn't quite get it, but the way those two played.

DARIAN DeVRIES: I thought Sam was tremendous that second half. We were able to take advantage of a few switches. That's why they were able to stay in front of us a little better. They were switching a little more. We were able to throw it inside.

I thought the guys did a good job, ran a few things to try to get it to him, but they got it to him, and Sam did the rest from there. He had five blocks on the game, eight rebounds. That's a big night.

I thought Tucker just, again, he's our connector out there -- 45 minutes and eight rebounds and knocked some shots down tonight.

So I thought both those guys just did a really good job of playing through it. Tucker, obviously with a lot of minutes, and Sam maybe in a role that he hasn't had a lot of this year, but he's able to take on that role, take advantage of what they were doing, and go make some plays.

Q. You mentioned the 3-point shots not falling. When they aren't and you guys put up 44 points in the paint, how important is that moving forward for the rest of the year?

DARIAN DeVRIES: We've really been trying to do that a lot more. These last five, six games, we felt like there's a couple games in there where we just weren't being aggressive enough driving the ball. Even though we don't maybe have a lot of wiggle to our -- with some of our ball handlers, I thought the guys have been doing a much better job of just finding creases to get in there, finish at the rim, get fouled, and then get some kick-out 3s. So we weren't as reliant on it.

A lot of nights we're up in that 30 range in attempts and tonight we were at 22. If we're making them, we fire a few more up there, but we just weren't hitting them as we normally do. So I thought the guys did a good job of adjusting and adapting.

Even Lamar, he didn't just keep -- he didn't shoot 16 3s, he went and got fouled, got to the rim. So I thought that was good for him to take that adjustment to the game.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about Jasai Miles continues to play a more important role for you guys moving forward? 25 minutes tonight, a season high. Specifically his defense and the energy he brought to you guys.

DARIAN DeVRIES: He's doing a good job. His roles continue to expand here. He's coming in, giving us good energy. He gives us some length on the defensive end. He's been trying to go to the glass. He had a big offensive rebound in there. I don't think we converted on it, but he went and got a big play for us.

He's doing good things. That length and athleticism, ability to rebound, that's something down the stretch we're going to continue to use.

Q. Wisconsin got 14 offensive rebounds but none in the final five minutes of regulation and zero in overtime. What was the difference between earlier in the game and late, and how much of a factor did that play in the win?

DARIAN DeVRIES: It felt like they got 10 of them in a five-minute stretch before that. I thought the guys did a better job. We were -- they were taking a lot of long shots, long rebounds. We talk about it all the time. Our guys were going to crash, something we don't really want them to do in terms of just running underneath the rim. A few of those long shots came off deep, and we weren't able to get them.

I thought they did a better job that last five minutes of really going and finding bodies before they went and ran to go retrieve it.

Q. As Wisconsin closed the gap and got back in the game second half, you kind of opted to let the team play through it, didn't call any timeouts to try to stop their momentum. What's your thinking in that in terms of just letting the game keep going, letting them try to play through it versus try to bring everyone together and try to slow down?

DARIAN DeVRIES: It depends maybe a little bit how the game is going, how they came back. Did it happen fast? Is it slow? Is there a media coming up, whatever. Our guys, they understand what we're trying to do.

So if it's a timeout, a lot of times it's just to give them a rest. Maybe we could have used one in there somewhere. I'd have to go and look more at the tape to see if there might have been a spot for us to do that.

Overall, I trust those guys out there. They know what we're trying to run. They know what we're trying to get. Like I said, we'll see were we getting the shots we wanted or not. It felt like we had a few good looks and opportunities in there. We just didn't make them.