What Tamar Bates Said After Indiana's Loss to Penn State in Big Ten Tournament Semifinals

CHICAGO – Indiana sophomore guard Tamar Bates scored 14 points on 6-for-12 shooting off the bench, but the Hoosiers fell short in a 77-73 loss to Penn State in the Big Ten Tournament semifinals.

Here's what Bates said after the game.

Q: Tamar, a couple big-time plays for you to help re-ignite things in the second half. Obviously it didn't end the way you wanted, but take me through kind of what went down late to start that run?

Bates: I mean, we just stressed on fighting 'til the end. It was a lot of time on the clock to where we could make plays to help us get back in the game, so I was just trying to do my part to do so.

Q: What are the emotions in this locker room right now?

Bates: Well obviously we're not too happy that we came up short of our goal to win the Big Ten Tournament, but we know the season's not over so we're still looking at the bigger picture. We still got goals on our list that we can check off, which is going to March Madness and winning the title. So guys aren't hanging their head too much because we still got a lot of ball left to play.

Q: Tamar, can you illustrate how difficult it is to play against Penn State defensively when they run the clock down and they have such good shooters. What makes it difficult to keep them under wraps?

Bates: They have such a good team because you got Pickett and he's so good at getting down hill, but everybody on the floor one through five can shoot the three ball, so we got to guard the line and our defense is predicated on being in and getting out and helping each other and building walls. It's just like sometimes it gets a little tough, especially when you're not trapping anything. When guys are just playing one on one, and like you said at the end of the shot clock, when they're hitting tough shots over the top it's like we just got to live with it."

Q: Talk about the bigger picture and being in this next step of the tournament. How much confidence do you guys have when you look back at the season as a whole and going forward to starting a tournament run on Thursday or Friday.

Bates: I just feel like we're really prepared because we've seen I guess just pretty much every part of a season from the time we lost three in a row, we won five in a row. So I feel like the fact we went through a lot of adversity this season and came back from it, we got some time to get ready, get some guys some rehab, get our bodies right and we'll be ready to go and prepare for whoever we play in the first round.

Q: Tamar, this team has reached some high levels this year, but it's hard to maintain that high level. What's the level of frustration that every time it seems like you guys have reached a certain level, there's a little step back. What's kind of the feeling in the locker room about that?

Bates: I wouldn't necessarily call it a level of frustration or a step back, it's just basketball. We're not going to win every game, and obviously we go out there to win every game, but we just know that with the guys we got in the locker room, we trust each other and we're just going to go back to drawing board and put the work in like I said, get ready for the tournament.

Q: What gives you confidence this team can make a strong run in the tournament?

Bates: We just believe in each other. We believe in our coach. We believe in the staff. I'm going to continue to say the same thing. Everybody in the locker room, we believe in each other even though we just took a tough one tonight, we know that we'll be prepared. We'll go back and practice and we'll get our stuff right and just be ready to compete.

Q: When you talk about the rollercoaster and highs and lows you guys have had this season, going into the tournament what do you need to do to try to develop a little more consistency?

Bates: It's not really, we won't change up too much that we've been doing. We will have a few more days to prepare between games in the tournament and with travel and all that, so I just feel like it comes down to the team that's the most prepared and I feel like we will be because a lot of the things that we see as setbacks, we learn from to make sure they don't repeat themselves.

Q: For you individually, getting some shots to fall today, how big could this game be for you going into the tournament?

Bates: I'm just trying to do my part, do whatever I can to help the team win. The coaches continue to instill confidence in me, no matter how the season went up to the point we're at now in terms of my personal play. They just know that when I come off the bench providing a spark on both ends of the floor, it just makes us that much of a better team.

Q: Tamar, what do you think Penn State did defensively when there were some offensive struggles for you guys when they pulled ahead a little bit there in the second half?

Bates: Their traps when we threw it down to Trayce were solid. We had to kind of play on the backside, and they were rotating really quickly. We just had to adjust to, but I mean we got the shots that we wanted most of the time, some of them just started to fall a little later than we expected. We got it down to one point, but we just fought and fought our way the last few possessions.

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