Here's What Mike Woodson Said on His Radio Show Monday Night
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Indiana coach Mike Woodson did his weekly radio show with announcer Don Fischer on Monday night, and assistant coach Dane Fife joined the show late as a guest.
There was plenty to talk about after the win over Notre Dame on Saturday catapulted the Hoosiers to a 9-2 record. They're back in action on Wednesday at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall against Northern Kentucky.
Here's what Woodson had to say:
— on fans booing point guard Xavier Johnson
“That irritates me. I just want to send a shout out to all of our Hoosier Nation fans man, because again we’ve got to ride this journey together. Xavier catches a lot of hell from me as a coach, and none of our players need that.
“Listen, we’re one big family, Hoosier Nation has always been a family, and will always be. I can’t tell you how to come to the game and react, but booing is not the way to go for me. Let’s be positive. This team hasn’t been together that long. We’ve had 14 games together as a group, three as exhibition games that don’t count.
“So we’re still trying to learn one another and they’re trying to deal with me as a coach and that isn’t always easy. When I look at it, the the booing part of it was disturbing because I’m not used to hearing that from our Indiana fans because they are the best fans in the world, I’ve always said that.
— on his role at doing the yelling, not the fans
“I just need them to support what we do, support our players, keep them pumped up man, let me give them hell,” he said. “That’s where it should come from, not our fans.”
— on beating Notre Dame despite a slow start
“It was a good team effort across the board. (Notre Dame coach Mike Brey) has got a great competitive team at Notre Dame, a well-coached team. So I was very, very pleased. The ball never moved early on. We were just one, two passes per shot, and that's just not us offensively. I thought early on we were so stagnant in terms of our body movement and ball movement. Those are things we've got to go back to the drawing board and clean up. We just can't start games out like that, but I wasn't really that concerned (about the struggles on the offensive end ) because our defense was so tight from the beginning till the end."
— on Trayce Jackson-Davis' game
"He missed that first layup and I thought that kind of put him behind a little bit. He missed about four or five chippies inside that he normally makes. But at the end of the day, he was solid. He made a couple big buckets down the stretch when we needed him to make them when we got him the ball."
— on playing inside-out, and hitting shots
"We're starting to make the three-ball, which is great, but again, we've got a mixture of inside-out, knowing our strengths are inside" ... "We've got to be near the 40 percent mark (for three-point shooting).
— on holding serve at home, where the Hoosiers are 8-0 this season
“This is our comfort zone. We’re playing in front of our fans, our family. We’ve got to protect home.”
— Dane Fife on his time with Tom Izzo
“It’s not easy working for someone at that level. The things you learn supersedes any tough times that you go through. I’m really thankful for it, but I also think those 10 years were preparing me to come back and be able to help somebody like coach Woodson and get back to where this place deserves to be and should be.”
— Fife on the defensive progress
“We’ve got guys that really understand how to truly win by winning and controlling the defensive end. If we look at players like TJD, Race, Rob Phinisee etc., we've got guys that really understand how to truly win by winning and controlling the defensive end. Race Thompson and TJD, to me, are just two guys that love winning. They put winning above anything else."
— Fife on Indiana's improvement so far
"I think we've improved immensely. We have work to do. We can get better at rebounding, we can get better at taking care of the ball. I'm really pleased with how far we've come, but I also know that we've gotta scratch and claw to continue to see improvements.''
