Opening Statement

Well we're proud that we found a way to win in a game that seemed to have a lot of different emotions, runs, some high level guard play on both teams, and then Iowa fought tooth and nail for 40 minutes. Great basketball game. We're fortunate that we got this one in the left column.

On what has turned around Vlad Goldin's game

I think the one thing that's understated in all this is being comfortable where you are with your teammates, the new surroundings. It's tough, you see it in all sports. Guys get traded and it takes them a little bit of time to get acclimated to terminology, to the way their teammates play. And so I think that's part of it. He's just been a guy that you can see when he's really locked in and focused there's a different level of play and I think now he's finding that level of play. I can't speak on it, he's always been kind of a slow starter. He spends a lot of summer working on adding things to his game and whatnot and then when it comes time to win, sometimes we forget how difficult it is during the summer. So I think just recently it's been a reminder of how difficult it is to win a possession, a four minute game, a 40 minute game. So he just seems a lot more determined and he's changing the expectations by the game.

On the guard play and Trey Donaldson

I thought Trey really, he set the tone early with tempo. Got downhill, got to the rim, got our big baskets. He does a lot for us. He's a game-changer on the ball defensively. He gets the ball out of his hands, especially in transition. And so he does a lot for us. We have so many different weapons. You see tonight, Namari didn't get very many shots. Obviously that's a byproduct of us going for twos and the attention that three point shooters are garnering allows us to get shots at the rim. I thought Will Tschetter was great. I thought our front line played really well. We're getting positive contributions from a lot of guys. There's still a few more on our roster that they're going to break through sooner than later.

On whether he feels like the team is gelling at the right time

If you would have asked me two hours ago, I probably would have said yes. I'm joking. I like where we are. We have good guys. It's tougher now that the rotation starts getting shortened a little bit and some younger guys who are used to being in the rotation aren't playing quite as much because the Big Ten's different. When you're a freshman in the Big Ten, you check-in. Turn on any game today, if you're a freshman that checks in, usually they go at you and they test you. You've got to get to the point. I think Coach Beilein had a famous saying that I'd heard as a young coach. You've got to fit in before you stand out. Everyone on our bench coming into the game that's not a rotation guy, they've got to be able to fit in before they have an opportunity to stand out. We need those guys to continue to get better. Now is where it gets really challenging where these games are coming fast. The outside noise, the tension we're getting now. I don't know if we're ranked or not ranked. I think we're ranked in one of the polls and we're not ranked in one of the other. All this stuff that doesn't matter to me. It does change the complexion of what we think about and things like that. Overall, yeah, I like where we are. We have guys who work well together and they put in the time.

On the last play and whether it was what he drew up

We thought they would pay a lot of attention to Vlad and Danny in an all-screen that's been so effective. We just used those two as a decoy essentially. Trey threw it in. I told them to go at nine. Probably in that particular play should have gone at six or seven. We wanted to get there early enough. We felt like if Roddy got downhill, Danny and Vlad were going to have an opportunity on the glass. You're splitting hairs. Do you want to play for the last shot and make sure they don't get another possession or do you want to get it up off the glass? You've got to feel like you're going to score at least 50% of the time if Roddy can draw help and get Vlad and Danny with a running start going towards the offense rebound. Hats off to Roddy. He made a really good play. Vlad, Danny saved good screens. Trey chased it and looked like an RPL keeper in football. Those guys executed well. That was option number one. It was the guys that made the play.

On whether Iowa's recent experience at the buzzer gave them something to look at

It probably hurt you because we were trying to take away the same concept that they did against Northwestern. They did something completely opposite. Fortunately, we took away the easiest play because they got it for one second left against a team that switches. They got a decent look. Obviously, Coach McCaffery's been doing this for a long time and knows how to generate quality shots at any point in a 40-minute game.

On what made Iowa hard to defense

A lot of things. Those guys, they move really well without the ball. They're cutting. They're poised. They never turn the ball over. You're defending continuously for 20 to 30 seconds if they don't score in transition and they put pressure on the rim in transition by running the floor, the five's run. I thought the point guard did a really nice job of controlling the game, getting the paint, not getting sped up, just keeping his dribble alive and just anticipating someone's eventually going to break down. Obviously, though, those shot makers, Sanfords, those guys, they stepped up and made some shots. I thought some of them were pretty well-guarded. They made some plays.

On what Will Tschetter has brought

It's been terribly consistent. Will Tschetter coming into the game and bringing not only intangibles but tangibles as well. I thought his three was a... I don't remember the exact score, but I thought his three-pointer was another momentum-changing play that ignited our crowd. The positives of playing at home, I thought he did that. Just his day-to-day approach is probably the thing. You look at the 13 points and the three rebounds or whatever it is, I'm not a big stat guy as far as individuals, but he just brings so much to our group every single day because he's consumed with winning and he's consumed with his teammates. He's always doing things for his teammates. Usually that karma comes back around and you get that back in the back end.

On honing in on the game plan but also trying to clean up other aspects like turnovers

I thought early on the turnovers were the loudest because we were probably over-dribbled a little bit going into bad spacing. I don't know. We'll look at it again. Once again, I think we shot about 75% from two. We didn't shoot well from three tonight. I thought they defended three pretty well. We had some good looks. It just didn't drop. They looked like they were going in and didn't. If we can turn, if we can figure out a way to fix this turnover issue, and it's got to be all hands on deck. It's got to be the coaches, the players, the managers, everybody involved has just got to focus more on what we can do individually to fix this problem. If we can fix it, then our team becomes a much better basketball team at the drop of a hat. It's weighing talking about it too much and not talking about it enough. We have enough sample size now. We've got to figure out some ways to clean this up. If we do that, then heck, we've got a real solid basketball club.

On the shot discrepancy due to turnovers

Without a doubt. The first thing I usually look at is how many more shots we get than the other team. I've had to stop looking at it because it's frustrating. They never turn it over. We did turn it over. We also have guys that make plays. They made shots. They made baskets. They shared the ball. You look at their offensive rebound numbers. They get 15, but it was only 31% of the back. It's not as if it's a couple percentage points more than we want to give up. It's just the sheer number of shots they get. It could be a great learning lesson for us that if we can figure out a way to turn the ball over at that rate with our ability to finish around the rim. We've got several guys that finish around. Our guards finish well in the paint for guards. Our bigs are finishing much better. If we can clean that one thing up, I think also it would just energize our defense a little bit more when we're not thinking about what just happened in the past.

On working on freedom with his players to shoot the ball

We trust our guys. To be honest, I thought Trey turned one down late, the one he drove and got a great look. In my mind, he caught it. There was space. There were seven seconds on the shot clock. I wanted him to shoot that one. I'm also not over-coaching them. I want them to trust their instincts and play with what they see and what they feel. We've got good players. If you have good players, usually if you can figure out a way to put them in a little better situation, then you've got to let them play and you trust them. In this group, if we can just clean up these turnovers, then this group has a real chance.

On whether he sees the vision of the team forming right now

Yeah, like I said, the most important thing is being connected. Right now, I think we're a connected group. Can we become more about each other and more consumed with helping each other? Absolutely. You always can. We have a connected group. I envisioned us being a much better defensive-rebounding team. That's probably the one thing that, as we imagined what it was going to look like, I thought we would have a dominant defensive rebounding team. We haven't gotten there yet. We're getting better. I think we're okay, but we have a lot of room to grow in that area and that's going to be more gradual. There's a lot that goes into that as well. It's not as simple as just yelling rebound or whatever or doing a one-on-one rebounding drill. It's got to be a real intentional effort and that's one of the things that we have to clean up. That's the only thing I think when I envisioned this group that looks a lot different than what we thought it would.

On having a high shooting percentage at the rim

Yeah, we really just want to take what the game gives us. If you recruit shooters, and we have a lot of shooters, I don't think there's anyone on our roster that... Obviously, Reuben's not shooting a good percentage right now. Rubin shot 42% last year on an extremely successful team. When you recruit shooters, you get layups, or then you take the three. It goes hand-in-hand. I think that's why we're as successful as we are at the rim, because we have good finishers and our shooting allows us to have space and things like that in the paint. That's one of the reasons we've recruited shooters, so we can get high percentage twos.

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