What Mike Woodson Said After Indiana’s 70-67 Loss To Michigan
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Mike Woodson had his usual press conference after Indiana’s 70-67 loss to Michigan on Saturday, but it wasn’t the usual postgame environment.
On Friday, Indiana athletics announced that Woodson would be ending his tenure as coach at the conclusion of the season. Woodson has been Indiana’s coach for the last four seasons.
In its Friday statement, and again on Saturday, Indiana said Woodson’s reasons for his decision and any commentary on his team as coach would not be discussed. When asked questions that skirted that topic, however, Woodson was honest in his answers.
Here’s the full transcript of Woodson’s press conference:
On guiding the team through an unusual week and an unusual stretch of games …
Mike Woodson: Well, it’s been emotional. We’re dealing with young men, young kids that’s trying to figure it out.
But we’ve still got seven more games to play. And it’s my job as their coach to try to push them to realize that they can still win basketball games.
Whether the losing streak and off-court distractions have weighed on the team …
Woodson: We haven’t been the same team for a while. And for whatever reason we’ve dug a hole. I’ve done a terrible job in really putting them in the best position possible to win, I think.
But emotionally, these kids have taken a beatin’ a little bit. And it’s my job to try to lift their spirits and keep ’em heading in the right direction because there’s still a lot of basketball left.
Seven games is a lot of games, and we’re still trying to play to stay in the Big Ten Tournament and then see where that takes us. But we’ve got to start winning some games here soon to do that.
On the second half rally and what it says about the players who contributed to it …
Woodson: Well, you’ve got to tip your hat and give them a lot of credit – I do – because they could have folded it up and called it a night. But they fought the second half. Michigan scores a lot of points. We held them to 70 points, and the second half they only scored 27 points.
So I thought defensively we made a nice adjustment the second half. And guys fought, but Michigan was the better team tonight. So you’ve got to give them credit. They played their asses off.
On whether the team hasn’t been the same because of the losing streak or getting booed in a 25-point home loss to Illinois in January …
Woodson: I mean, you can look at it in all kind of ways. I’m not even going to go there. I thought at that time we were playing pretty good basketball. I think we were 13-4 and 4-2 in the Big Ten without our leading scorer. And then all hell broke loose, and we just haven’t been the same.
On what Woodson would change to put the team in the right position …
Woodson: I mean, maybe that’s the false statement. I think we’ve had some games where we’ve had an opportunity. The Purdue game was an opportunity to win. The Maryland game. So we fought and we were very competitive. The Wisconsin game, the first half, was just nonexistent.
And tonight, we just couldn’t make shots the first half. And I thought they had their way from an offensive standpoint because our defense wasn’t there.
But the second half we were a lot better. We rebounded with them the second half, and we did some things I know we’ve been capable of doing all year. So hopefully that will be a good sign as we head to Michigan State.
On why the team talent hasn’t translated into wins …
Woodson: I wish I knew. As the coach, your roster is changing every year, and that’s no excuse. And you think you’re putting the right pieces in play.
And I think our guys got wonderful intentions, man, and they do want to win. But it hasn’t worked the last three, four weeks for our ball club.
So my job, again, as the coach is to continue to push them and keep them in a good frame of mind and hopefully something good will click. And we need to get a game under their belt so they can start feeling good about themselves.
On being able to settle in on a five that works in second halves, but it never being the same five …
Woodson: Well, again, that part of it has been tough because we’ve been up and down individually and as a team. But tonight I went with guys, basically senior guys, to try to win this game the second half. And I thought they played like seniors. We just fell a little short.
On riding Indiana kids Trey Galloway and Anthony Leal the rest of the season …
Woodson: We’ve been riding with them. It’s not like they’ve been sitting there next to me; they’ve been playing. We just gotta get other pieces in play to join in and help them.
I mean, tonight we were competitive coming down the stretch and getting back into the ball game. If we can bottle that up, along with how we played at Purdue and the Maryland game here at home, hopefully something will click for our team and we can get off this slide.
