Indiana coach Mike Woodson met with the media following the Hoosiers' 100-87 win over Kennesaw State on Friday night at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall in Bloomington, Ind. Here is the full video, and the written transcript is attached.
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00:00 Coach, you guys were down by four in the second half.
00:04 You put in Anthony Leal and that lineup really seemed to spark the turnaround.
00:09 What did you see from Anthony specifically and the group as a whole?
00:13 Well, he's had a really great week of practice.
00:17 After the break he came back and I thought his two days of practice,
00:22 he deserved to play more.
00:24 And I just -- I decided to play him and he gave us a hell of a spark
00:31 when he came in.
00:33 And I mean, just from a defensive standpoint,
00:35 he did a lot of things that we didn't do early in that spot.
00:40 And so, again, this is a team game and when guys are called upon,
00:47 I expect them to come in and play and I thought he delivered tonight.
00:51 Mike, are you left and ready?
00:53 Yeah, I mean, without Khalil tonight, two starters obviously Xavier down.
00:57 What do you make of the way the game unfolded?
00:59 You give up 17-3s.
01:01 What's your kind of takeaway?
01:02 I mean, you do come back again, kind of a second half surge there.
01:05 But what do you take away when you kind of look at this game as a whole?
01:09 We won.
01:11 That's what matters.
01:12 You know, they made a lot of shots, some tough shots.
01:20 It's a part of the game.
01:22 But we didn't fold.
01:25 When we went down four, our defense kicked in, got stops.
01:31 We executed on the other end and got the lead and was able to bring it home.
01:38 So those are the things that I look at.
01:42 You know, things that are fixable are free throws.
01:44 We missed a lot of free throws.
01:46 We've turned the ball over 18 times.
01:49 Those things are all fixable.
01:51 You know, and we just got to keep working.
01:54 [Inaudible].
01:56 Yeah, Coach, Malik's performance tonight, 34 points, plays 37 minutes,
02:00 gets 11 rebounds.
02:02 What impressed you the most about his play tonight?
02:05 He's getting better.
02:07 You know, I mean, everybody talk about development and, you know,
02:13 who's being developed and this and that.
02:15 Malik, based on where he started with this last season
02:18 and where he is today, he's a lot better.
02:22 And I think there's a lot of room to still grow as a player.
02:27 He's just got to keep pushing, and we got to keep pushing him to get better.
02:33 Mike, when did you know that Khalil wasn't going to play?
02:37 Did you get any practice time ahead of time to prepare for that?
02:41 No, not at all.
02:42 You know, he practiced the two days coming back from the break.
02:47 And then, you know, he just wasn't feeling well, so we set him out.
02:55 You know, so Peyton was the next guy up, and he was tremendous tonight.
03:01 I mean, his numbers, look at 10 and 8 and four blocks, two assists in 14 minutes.
03:10 He was pretty special, I think.
03:14 Mike, I know some of this is personnel,
03:17 especially with some of these teams that are going to play smaller
03:19 just by their roster construction.
03:21 But a couple times now you've had some success with lineups
03:24 that were a little bit smaller and in particular closing games.
03:27 Is that something you think, maybe not every matchup,
03:30 but something that you can kind of keep in your back pocket going forward
03:34 that you may have if you need it, I guess?
03:37 Well, again, I mean, sometimes you have to match.
03:42 You know, when I pulled Peyton, I was basically pulling--
03:45 not that he had played well.
03:46 I thought he played well to start the half, second half.
03:49 And I pulled him based on their matchups because they went so small.
03:54 And in doing that, I know we could switch one through five with Malik,
03:59 you know, at the five.
04:01 So that was the reason I did what I did, and I thought it helped us a little bit.
04:07 And then coming down the stretch, it really helped us
04:10 because we were able to switch and not give up a whole--
04:16 I mean, they were making threes anyway,
04:18 but switching allows you to at least keep a body in front of you
04:23 and hope like hell that they don't make shots over the top.
04:30 Coach, going back to Anthony Leal, he's had a pretty variable role,
04:33 especially with you as the head coach here.
04:35 Now this year he's seeing some more minutes now in kind of irregular spurts.
04:39 What have you seen from him in those times, even when he's not playing,
04:42 that still gives you the confidence and trust in him to put him out there on the floor?
04:45 He's a senior and he stays ready.
04:47 You know, I mean, I see it in practice.
04:52 He hasn't done anything in terms of me not wanting him to play.
04:58 I mean, he's been really good in practice, and, you know,
05:04 he deserves to probably play a little bit more because he is playing well.
05:08 And I thought tonight he came in and gave us the boost that we needed.
05:13 So we'll continue to keep our eyes on Anthony and see where we go with it.
05:23 You touched on Peyton earlier, but just a guy who grew up dreaming of playing
05:27 for Indiana getting the opportunity to start here in Assembly Hall,
05:30 what does that mean for him and what all did he provide for you on the court tonight?
05:34 Again, I mean, I'm sure it's special for him.
05:39 This is his first big-time start, and as a coach, I'm anxious to see if he's ready to play
05:48 because he hadn't played big minutes, and he only played 14 minutes tonight.
05:53 But I thought they were a positive 14 minutes to help us win a basketball game.
05:59 So that tells me a lot about him in terms of being ready to play
06:05 because you just never know.
06:08 I mean, we didn't know where it wasn't going to play until this morning.
06:14 And he was ready.
06:16 He stepped in and gave us a major lift.
06:20 That's what team play is all about, and everybody's just got to stay ready to play.