Penn State head coach Mike Rhoades speaks to the press following the Nittany Lions men's basketball game versus the Indiana Hoosiers on Saturday, February 3, 2024.
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00:00 Pressure defense is part of your philosophy. Is that as effective as your pressure has been this year in terms of, not necessarily maybe a turnover, but in terms of speeding Indiana up out of their mentality?
00:13 Yeah, so we might not always turn people over, or good players over, or good teams over, but you're changing their plan of attack, you're changing their rhythm. They don't get into their, run one of their plays or their sets at 22 o'clock.
00:30 It might not be until 15, so now they can't get to the second or third level of their play. They might not get smooth into an entry on the side, or blow up a play, they gotta reset it.
00:41 All that stuff, we talk about that being a cumulative effect of our defense. So we did turn them over 13 times, great, but we had a 10 second call. It just changes your psyche.
00:55 We had, I think at one time we had 33 deflections, if you count deflections. You don't always get deflections, but it messes things up. So all that is, the one thing we talk about we call stunting.
01:07 Where you have the ball and I stunt like you think I'm coming to trap you and I don't, and you pull back and dribble. The guy guarding you now is back in front in a better defensive position on the ball.
01:18 All that stuff adds up, it's all cumulative. And the ball gets sailed sometimes, you take a bad shot out of it, you get sped up, you're running the ball down from behind.
01:27 So I can go on and on, and we work on all of it because there's just different ways to press teams to get them out of kilter.
01:34 Hey Mike, going back to the 12-8 threes, how confident were you coming into the game that that was something you could take advantage of against this IU team?
01:42 We've been shooting the ball better, so we knew we needed to make some threes because you just can't get in front of the rim against where we're new every time.
01:51 And we're going to have to keep that ball up every time. So I just felt like we were going to get some good ones.
01:57 I thought early in the game we got some really good ones and inside-outside passes, and they're the easier ones to make.
02:03 They're the ones you step in with momentum. So I think that just helped us get some confidence early. A couple guys got going exactly as you nailed, so it was huge.
02:12 Coach, you guys allowed 26 points on the paint in the first half, just 14 in the second half. What changed defensively?
02:19 It just got a little bit tougher. We changed a couple matchups sometimes. I thought the guys off the bench helped us.
02:24 I thought Q was just better in the second half, walling guys up. That was huge.
02:29 I thought we guarded the ball on the perimeter better in the second half. I thought in the first half, Galloway got downhill.
02:36 Yes, Galloway looked very chewy, got downhill a couple times. I just thought we guarded a little bit on the perimeter, and I thought we balled up better at the rim.
02:43 We've had some issues at the rim on defensive toughness at the rim. We're getting better at it. It was better in the second half.
02:52 Back-to-back wins on the road. It's been really tough to win games in the Big Ten this year. What's this do for your team's confidence the rest of the way?
03:00 I hope it gives them confidence to understand that the plan that we have works when you take it on the road.
03:07 They experienced that twice this week. It doesn't mean we're going to win the next one on the road, but that's the way you prepare.
03:13 That's the mindset and approach we have. You play on selfish basketball on both ends of the court. You be all about your teammates.
03:22 It always gives you a chance to win, especially on the road.
03:25 Thank you, Coach. Thanks, guys.
03:27 [BLANK_AUDIO]