What Lamar Wilkerson Said After Indiana Basketball's 84-66 Win at Maryland

COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Indiana basketball senior guard Lamar Wilkerson met with reporters after his 24-point performance led the Hoosiers past Maryland, 84-66, on Wednesday night at the Xfinity Center in College Park.

Here's what Wilkerson said during his four-and-a-half-minute press conference.

Q. You scored 16 straight, Lamar.

LW: For real?

Q. Yeah. What happened on the run there? What clicked for you on the run?

LW: I don't know. My teammates just found me, man. We were just playing together, playing the way we practice, and everything was just clicking. I didn't even know I scored 16 straight, honestly.

Q. I think your own run was like 16 to 4, and around 8 minutes into the half, I think it was you, 16, and them, as a team, had like 12.

LW: All credit to the coaches and my teammates finding me, getting me open and stuff like that, man.

Q. Coach DeVries kind of talked about the slow start, but then you guys moving a little bit more. It seemed like that started with you on like 4, 5 cuts. Is that something you consciously thought about, or just something you normally do on the game?

LW: I just have an IQ for the game, man. If teams want to take me away, I'm out here with great players, great passers, like Reed Bailey, Tucker (DeVries), Conor (Enright), Tayton (Conerway). So, if they're driving at me and they're top-locking me, why wouldn't I back door? Not even just for me to get the open pass, but that creates a double gap for them to get downhill or they'll create for somebody else. So, it's just a selfless thing to do.

Q. How much does it mean for Conor Enright and Conerway to have another big scoring game just like they were against Washington?

LW: Man, I see it every day in practice, man. They not doing nothing that they don't work on, nothing that they can't do, that they're not able to do. Having a good team is sometimes sacrificing what you're good at for what's better for the team. So, they can score. I mean, if you put the ball in Tayton's hand or Conor's hand, man, they get in the paint probably 90% of the time, man. So, for them to get in the paint and kick it out and then, but everybody's playing us where they're trying to take away the threes. They're trying to take away the kickouts, the inside-outs. So, they're just getting to the paint now and they're just being aggressive. That's what we tell them, man. Be aggressive. Look to score first and then make the play simple.

Q. I'd probably asked you this. I think it was probably San Juan about when you enter that zone.

When you hit it in a place like this, in a conference game, what is it like when you're in heat check mode, essentially?

LW: Man, it's just another day in the gym, man. All the shots I take, man, I work on them. I'm up, trusting the preparation. So, it's just second nature, man. And, like I said, kudos to my team for looking for me, finding me, and giving me the ball when I'm open.

Q. I'd watch you hit probably 10 threes from right around there pregame. Are there things in this gym you liked early on? Like, is it the lighting? Are there things that you kind of can see, like, ‘Oh, yeah, I'm in for a really good day?’

LW: Man, you give me a ball and a hoop, I love it, man.

Q. The crowd wasn't huge tonight. Is there any extra, like, challenge to that, whether it's not a packed house, they're not being loud and you have to bring your own energy?

LW: Oh, yeah, that's what DeVries was harping on all week, man. We got to be better when we're on the road. When we have a crowd behind us, usually we play great. But it's not always going to be like that. Sometimes we'll go on the road and we're going to be outnumbered. So, we have to stick to what we have. We got to bring our own energy. And that was the game plan to focus on today.

Q. Did you pull anything from the Minnesota game? Because there were a lot of similarities early. Obviously, tonight you guys did a job there you weren't able to. Was there anything you guys kind of leaned on to get over that hump?

LW: Yeah, of course. Every L is a lesson, man. So, we talked about it. We had no energy in Minnesota, man. So, we were trying to come out here and create our own energy. That loss opened our eyes. So, we just came out here, man, and we just tried to, look at our mistakes that we did with the Minnesota game and translate it to where we can come out successful tonight.

Q. How do you go about trying to create more juice? Is it just talking more?

LW: Yeah, energy is very contagious, man. So, when you have somebody that makes a great play like Tayton or you have somebody that makes a great play like Reed or you hit a big three or you get a defensive stop from Conor Enright, you get a stop from Conor Enright, a charge or something like that, man, that's just energy within itself. So, once you see one person juiced up and going, it's just contagious, man.

Q. Was there a point it flipped tonight, do you think, the energy?

LW: Definitely. I think coming in, we was playing a little passive. We was playing scared. We wasn't playing the way that we were supposed to play offensively and defensively. We weren't aggressive in the gaps, aggressive on the ball handlers, stuff like that. So, we went to halftime locker room and we regrouped and then we came out and then we switched to, we flipped the switch.