Opening Statement

Yeah, very proud of our guys to stay the course especially immediately after the Minnesota game when you get beat on a half-court shot, you can have a tendency to play afraid to lose. And I thought our guys, they kept their composure, they stayed together, and they played with great poise down the stretch, especially our free throw shooting. I thought all of our guards made big free throws, Vlad made several big free throws. So just a compliment to our guys staying the course and finding a way to beat the Northwestern program that we think is, we just talk about as a staff, they're as physical as anyone that we can remember playing. They play a really practical smart brand of basketball where they challenge every catch, they challenge every spot, and they just have a really good feel for reading the tails of the game. So very happy to get out of here with a win. We've got a lot to clean up and we have to improve, but we're still learning a lot about ourselves. And tonight it was nice to see Roddy Gayle have his pop back, his athleticism back. He's been battling some minor injuries. And then Rubin Jones obviously made some big threes and big plays and defensively I thought we sat down and guarded very similar, in a very similar way we did at USC where they're trying to isolate us and we had a real team mindset to get the ball stopped.

On Roddy Gayle bouncing back

He was extremely important. And Roddy played really well early in the year and then he's been banged up and it's such a, it's difficult because, you know, there's a thing that came out this week that there's three of the most efficient players, there's 30 of the top efficient players in college basketball and we had three of them. We had Vlad, Danny, and Trey. So when you have three guys playing with that level of efficiency, you're tending to look towards them, look for them, lean on them to create offense. And tonight two of those three didn't have, they probably had their worst game as far as shots falling and then the ball dropping. And Roddy, thank goodness, stayed ready and determined and, you know, that's the type of team we're gonna have to beat. Nimari one night, Roddy one night, Rubin the next. Those young guys continue to get better. We still have a few guys on the bench that they're gonna have their moments and we're gonna need every one of them because as you guys can see, I think there's three home games today and all three of them look very similar to this one. So it's gonna be a slugfest every single night in this league.

On Vlad Goldin playing well when others weren't shooting well

Vlad does a lot for us and now he's knocking in free throws in the threes early when we were struggling to get anything going. You know, in theory it loosened them up. The one thing I was disappointed in is we're a team that likes to get out in the game to open up. We don't really want to be in a bunch of wrestling matches and for most of the game we played in a wrestling match and I thought the game started to loosen up with about 11 minutes to go because we forced some turnovers, got out in transition and we weren't able to capitalize. And I think if we would have made those plays, it would have fueled our defense even more. It would have caused us to get even more energy and more aggression. But when they don't drop and we turn those over and for us to have 11 turnovers in 45 minutes and I think three or four of them were plays like that that just, you know, we drop a lob out. But whatever the case, I thought we handled the basketball. We passed and caught much better tonight than we have recently and especially earlier in the year.

On the reviews and 'non-basketball stuff' during the game

It's tough. It's tough because you just, there's a, you know, I don't want to comment on any of the stuff you can't control. So I won't, I don't know. It's part of it. Whatever the rules are, whatever treatment, whatever it is, we're going to live with it and we're going to control what we can control. And we've got to adjust how the game is being officiated. We've got to adjust how the game is being played and we have to play smarter, more disciplined basketball so we don't put ourselves in position where someone else can control what happens, what the result can be.

On whether he would be OK with some calls being wrong to keep the flow of the game going

Yes, I would. I think that if we challenge, I think we should lose a timeout if it's egregious. But I mean, once again, I'm not, I'm not making these rules. If I was making rules, I'd change several. So there's no point for me to sit here and talk about any of those. Do I like it? No, the fans don't like it. I don't think television, maybe they still, I don't know. I don't know who likes it, but the officials are trying to do their job and they're trying to get it right and that's the most important thing. But I think you can freeze frame anything and make it look one way or another.

On winning even when the ball wasn't going in the basket

To answer your question, yes, I think it, I do, I think it'll give us confidence that there will be nights when we're on the road and we're down five and we're down eight and we can just stay the course and find a way to win ugly. I think experience, I think evidence is great for confidence. And so this group who's still learning how to win, learning how to play together, learning roles, learning, I mean, everything that we learn through this game of basketball. So yes, to answer your question, this experience and this evidence will help us going forward.

On getting right after the Minnesota loss

Yeah, even the Minnesota now seems like a month ago. This is, you know, we get in it and now we turn all attention towards Purdue. We've got to have a good week of practice. We have to fix some things. We've got to find some solutions to problems that we faced. That's one thing a coaching friend told me about the Big Ten. He said you need to have most of every, every special situation in before the season because there's going to be times when you just don't have time to practice and you're going to get back at whatever time. You have one or two days prep and then you have to factor an off day. So, you know, like I said, it's January and we're still learning a lot about ourselves every single game.

On whether Northwestern did anything to shut down Danny Wolf and the 4-5 screen

Yeah, they did. And they got very physical with Danny. I do think his threes, he had a step in wide open three. He had some shots around the basket that just didn't drop. So I think it was a combination of when the ball did find him and he was open, he didn't knock it down. And then the others, they defended him very well. But yeah, they did a really nice job in the 4-5 ball screen. They were underneath him. They challenged his catch, pushed his catch out. And then they had another defender sitting in the paint behind Vlad. And so Vlad caught one late, and I don't remember, I think he fumbled it. And it's basically a one versus two. So we've talked about it, that's when we've got to do a better job. And you don't want to add a lot of plays and actions. But we didn't take advantage of how they were defending. But also part of it is that their closeouts are elite. So even when they're closing out, Vlad pulls them into the paint, we skip it and they close out. I thought they closed out as well as any team in recent memory. So once again, credit to their staff and their culture and their discipline. They've got a lot of stuff figured out.

On how to coach players when people are hacking at the ball after a rebound

Sam, I'm very, very frugal. So I'm not going to say anything to criticize officials or any calls that they made. I thought he did, to be honest, when they made the call, I assumed Vlad did something much more malicious than he did. Just because I've coached Vlad for a while. And Vlad is a tough guy that when he gets whacked a couple times, he wants his space back. And so it didn't go in our favor. It made the game a lot more interesting down the stretch. But once again, we can't control that. I don't know what I would coach Vlad differently, maybe drop and go into fetal position. But yeah, it is what it is. I mean, play on. Well, I don't know if it turned the momentum because that's during that stretch when we missed some, we didn't capitalize on some opportunities, but I mean, it was a player who was cooking. I mean, he had it going. He was shooting threes off of our drop against our drop coverage. He was in a really, really nice rhythm and he's evolving into a really solid third scoring option for a team that has a chance to win a lot of ball games. If you look at their record, it's not indicative of how well they've played. Iowa beats them on a 27 foot fall away shot early in the year. Penn State, they lay it up to go overtime and talk about a quirky review, go back and watch last 10 seconds of that game. They think they lay it up to go overtime. They called a goal 10 on the shot before, which wasn't a goal 10. So then they had to reset and they lose that game. So it all evens out. I mean, I'm sure there's a couple of calls. I mean, it's part of the game. You just hope over the course of a 30, 35 game season, you're going to get five that go in your favor and five that don't.

On whether they got the shot they wanted at the end

Yes, I did. Yes, much, much. I thought it was going to drop. Trey got to the rim, broke down their defense and then we had a tip in. I'm taking that every day, twice on Sundays. So yeah, I'll take it twice today.

On whether there were conversations with Vlad Goldin last year about taking more threes

Yeah, we had conversations a year ago. Our philosophy has always been for big guys that never shot them, shoot them every day for a year until you have the confidence and comfort and rhythm and then you'll shoot them. But also last year, our team, there weren't really enough shots for our team last year. We had a lot of guys. We had our whole team back. And so part of it was circumstances. Part of it was he was the only big man on our team, true big man. And so he had to put pressure on the rim. And so it's just, you know, the best way for a five man to get threes off are, I think, defense rebound, outlet and then trail it up and your point guard finds a way to get you a shot or pick and pop. And when you don't have much rim pressure other than that five, we just, we didn't add it and he didn't shoot it this well. And to be honest, this summer he started shooting it well inconsistently. Certain days he did, certain days he didn't. And now in practice when we're doing our shooting drills, and everyone does the same shooting drills, he's knocked it down with consistency and obviously really, really smart play by him to get that two for one in overtime.

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