Here's What Mike Woodson Said After Indiana's 78-75 Win Over Michigan
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Here's everything Mike Woodson said after Indiana's 78-75 win at Michigan with video and full transcript.
QUESTION: Mike, what does that say about the perseverance of your team to hang on like that and pull it out at the end
MIKE WOODSON: Well I thought we fought. My theme coming into tonight’s game was you got to come out and set the tone like we did in the Maryland game and give yourself a chance to win. I thought we turned the ball over a lot in the first half but that was the difference in the second half. At least we got shots. We didn’t make a lot of them but we made the key shots coming down the stretch and got key rebounds when we had to get them.
Q: Coach, what did you like from CJ Gunn tonight?
WOODSON: He was great. He made shots but defensively he was in tune and very engaging on the defensive end and he had four steals. But our bench played great. Walker, Kaleb, big Payton, they were all great off the bench and we’re going to need that.
Q: In your opinion, when you’re up three — to foul in that situation — were you brought up that way?
WOODSON: Well, I didn’t used to be that way. I used to let the defense make sure we got the stops but I’ve learned over the years, because I’ve been beaten all kinds of ways, and doing it and not doing it, but you know with a short clock they didn’t use all of their time outs. They burned time outs trying to set up what they wanted to do but I was going to take the foul. I had one time out left and it worked in our favor.
Q: It put you guys ahead for good with Kel’el. Was that kind of the play call to get him the ball down low?
WOODSON: Yeah, I mean we worked both sides. The ball went around but he made a hell of a move, man. To drop that bucket in and I thought that was the difference in us securing the win because we needed a big bucket at that particular time.
Q: What did you think overall? You guys are on the road without your starting point guard and pull out a win.
WOODSON: We’re a competitive team, man. We are playing hard. I think after that UConn game it kind of taught us we have to play harder. They smacked us in the face and we paid dearly for it that particular game. Since then, we’ve been playing a lot better.
Q: Back to Kel’el, when he makes that shot — talk a little bit about his confidence — what does it do for him in that moment? He looked ready for it. How big is it for a young player like that?
WOODSON: Yeah, but he has made some big shots early this season. That’s just one of the few that he has made, but I just have to think when you make shots like that he has to understand that we believe in him and there is a reason why we’re going to him, so you’ve got to come through and I thought he answered the bell tonight.
Q: Gabe Cupps, he was on McDaniel a lot. What’s the biggest lesson…
WOODSON: Played his ass off. I look at the little things that Gabe does. If he doesn’t score a bucket, I’m good with that. If he’s got shots, I want him to take them but he just knows how to manage the game and he does things on defense that a lot of guards don’t want to do, so that’s why he is playing.
Q: You were trying to get Mgbako those free throws at the end of the game. How hard is it to come in cold like that and make those shots?
WOODSON: You know, you’ve just got to have trust in your coach, the staff and the people around you. He’s a good free throw shooter so I put the ball in his hands and I expect him to make them.
Q: Mike, do you think Galloway is putting too much pressure on himself? He seems more tense this year.
WOODSON: Well, it kind of looks like that a little bit but we’ll get him comfortable eventually because I thought tonight — we missed a lot of layups tonight. I bet we missed 10 or 12 layups. Point blank layups. Those are the things that are fixable. You just have to — when you’ve got a layup, you’ve got to put it in the bucket.
Q: He made some big plays too, so that slow start didn’t bother him…
WOODSON: He did make some plays coming down the stretch. You know, you’ve got to expect that. He’s a senior, man. I expect him to do that.
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