Coach Q&A: Darian DeVries reacts to Indiana's win over Lindenwood

Indiana basketball head coach Darian DeVries spoke with the media Thursday night following Indiana’s win over Lindenwood.

Below is his full Q&A, as well as a transcript of the conversation (to be added once it became available).

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Q. You’ve wanted a loud gym, really loud and juiced up gym. When you’ve got guys that say, okay, we’re flat, is that surprising, alarming to you? How do you respond to that?

DARIAN DeVRIES: Yeah, a little bit. Especially I thought the last couple days of practice our guys, I thought they really learned from some of the things that happened in our last game. I thought they responded really well in practice from an energy level; here are some of the things we got to fix.

You know, it wasn’t — they were playing hard tonight. Just wasn’t the same juice.

Again, part of it may be when the offense isn’t flowing they got to learn how to fight through that. These are all things early in the year that as you’re getting going you learn how to win games in a lot of different ways, and that’s an important thing to have and quality to have.

I thought they did a nice job tonight defensively again in the first half holding them to 17 percent. That’s back to back games in the first half our defense was really good. Start of the second half on both these games it wasn’t quite as good.

I did think our defense again is what changed the game around in the second half. So we were able to get the lead, push back out, and a lot of that was because of defensive intensity just picked up.

Q. I guess do you see a difference in maybe the — talking about the defense — in the response to some of the offensive malaise that kind of hit and drifted away? Basically did you see your team play through that defensively without seeing shots go in maybe a little bit better tonight?

DARIAN DeVRIES: I think for the most part, yeah. There were still a couple stretches where we had some empty possessions that maybe — we’re at our best when we’re available to get into the ball and apply pressure and disrupt.

I thought in the middle of the second half, 15, 14 minutes to go there, I thought the lineup change came in and they did a really nice job of coming in and picking up and disrupting their catches on the wings. And then our fours and fives, Sam was great really all night. Had a really good game and was a big factor in getting that lead pushed back up for us.

Q. If you would expand a little on Sam Alexis, what he’s bringing, what do you like, and what are his opportunities here as you get further into the season?

DARIAN DeVRIES: Yeah, I love what Sam’s doing. He’s bringing the physicality. Even more so is the rebounding, energy level, enthusiasm. I just like what he’s doing for us right now.

He’s going to play a huge role for us all year like he already is. I just like what he’s doing. I think he’s getting better and better every day, too; getting more and more comfortable on the offensive end; the defensive end he is really doing a nice job coming in and cleaning up from the backside.

I think he had four blocks again today. That’s that type of rim protects we need from him and he’s doing a great job with it.

Q. Lamar, even he breathed a sigh of relief after he hit the last one. What do you tell him? Or like you said, let shooters shoot. Do you let him go through it and shoot through it?

DARIAN DeVRIES: Yeah. I mean, if he was 4 for 17 tonight that means there is an 11 for 17 coming soon. He can let them rip whenever he wants. Like we always tell our guys, basketball is basketball. The best players in the world have off nights. He had an off-shooting night. That means we got a good one coming.

It’s always about let’s make sure we got the win even on those nights. So he’s going to have plenty of good nights, too.

Q. With the offense, looked like they were switching on the perimeter. Did you like what he were able to figure out and adjustments you were able to make?

DARIAN DeVRIES: Yeah, I thought we were able to get a few things there that were better. Got some backdoor opportunities, layups. So I thought there were some good things there.

Again, that’s something we’re putting a lot more time into because it’s not how we play defense, so what we’ve done all summer and fall, even though we worked on it at times, when we go against each other we’re working on ourselves.

It’s something the last couple days I thought we did a really good job in our practices the last couple days of really exploiting some of that switching. It didn’t have maybe as good of carryover as we would’ve liked, but something I know that we’ll continue to get better and better at as we see it more.

Q. When you go back to the drawing board, on one hand how do you address the conference of team coming out flat, but also on the other hand, how important is it for your team to learn how to win games at this time of year when you are maybe a little flatter than you would like?

DARIAN DeVRIES: Yeah. We talked about a little bit of that energy and stuff. We came out and we were up 12 to 2 or whatever, so they came out to start the game in a pretty good space.

It’s just didn’t keep going. That was more of the issue. And then we didn’t get the normal like just 6-0, 8-0 runs. It was a little choppy. I think it’s just learning as a group when the offense isn’t going, just to really embrace the defensive side and let that be our identity and let that be where your enthusiasm comes from.

Did a good job with it. Like I said holding them to 17 percent in the first half; we’ll take that on a lot of nights.

Q. You were talking about the offensive flow kind of not being what you wanted it to be earlier. What have you seen different in the last couple games compared to the first three games?

DARIAN DeVRIES: A little bit how we’re being guarded. Like we talked about, the switching. We don’t get to move it quite as easily. In some of the actions where they’re not switching, you set a pin down and now a guy comes off a screen and he’s got an advantage because his guys is trailing; versus when they switch it they are coming off a taking away that next pass, so now you got to get to a second action.

It just takes a little bit for us as an offense right now. That’s what we’re working hard at getting better at, is how do we exploit that and use that to our advantage.

Like I said we’ll get there. Just hasn’t been very clean these last couple games.

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