Coach Postgame Q&A: Mike Woodson reacts to win against South Carolina

Indiana basketball head coach Mike Woodson spoke with the media to discuss all that happened on Saturday afternoon during the Hoosiers’ game against South Carolina.

Woodson spoke on the win, improvements he would like to see on offense, and much more.

Watch the full postgame Q&A below

Q. Mike, Myles Rice had 23 points tonight. Great first half. Got you rolling. What did you think of his performance and what it meant for getting off to a good start?

MIKE WOODSON: Can’t worry about next week, last week is behind us. I thought Myles played great. Shot the ball well. It was kind of nice to see Kanaan make some shots as well we scored 87 points, and I don’t really know how we got there because I just didn’t think we played good offense tonight even though he with made shots from the three-point line.

So I got to help us get better in that regard.

Q. Mike, South Carolina’s big man Collin Murray-Boyles only had two points. What was the defensive attack on him and how well did your big guys execute it?

MIKE WOODSON: I thought we did a great job on him. We got him in foul trouble. I didn’t think they would let Malik play one-on-one a lot so they kind of came down from what we call the soft spot on Malik.

We refused to let him play. Doubled him from the back side a little bit and showed him different looks, some from the top. He struggled a little bit tonight.

We needed that because he’s been on fire coming into this ballgame.

Q. With Carlyle’s defensive intensity in the second half, is that contagious? What has impressed you the most about the attitude he’s brought to the defensive side? You talked about how important defense is.

MIKE WOODSON: I think with all of our perimeter players, I said this in the locker room after the game, we got to do better at defending off the bounce.

A lot of great college teams and great coaches that got players that can really make plays off the bounce. We just got to get better in that regard where we’re not allowing teams to play in the paint against us.

I thought tonight we weren’t really good in that area.

Q. Obviously you guys had the slow start to the game last week. How pleased are you with the response to that today and the effort to start out tonight?

MIKE WOODSON: It’s nice to see. I mean, I think when you have a game like this and you go and watch film, and I think film is the best teaching tool in basketball besides practicing and getting it right on the basketball floor.

They knew coming into tonight’s game that they had to be better. I thought they responded.

Q. You talked about this a little bit in earlier answers. You emphasize so much in the off-season getting good guards, improving your back court. If you combine Myles, Kanaan and Trey tonight it’s something like 46, 47 points. Only missed one free three between them; five or six threes. How much can you base, not necessarily just those three guys, but the idea of having depth of quality at your guard rotation?

MIKE WOODSON: No, it’s important. I’ve learned a valuable lesson from last season. You know, that was the whole emphasis on this summer and once we entered the portal was trying to get perimeter guys that can come in here and play and get enough guys in case someone got hurt.

We didn’t even play Gabe tonight. He is still a big piece to what we’re doing as well. Anthony and Jakai both sitting over there. So we have enough perimeter players this season, and I feel good about everybody in case someone goes down. I feel good that next guy can step in and make basketball plays for us.

Q. You mentioned you all had 87 and you weren’t really pleased. What more were you hoping for?

MIKE WOODSON: Just better movement offensively. You know, we did it in spurts, and when we did it in spurts it looked pretty good, the ball movement from side to side and getting easy looks.

Then we got stagnant. We went up 15 points; from that point on we didn’t play very well from an offensive standpoint.

Defense was still solid, but I just got to help us get better.

Q. Coach, you guys had a lot of action from a lot of different players, especially in the first half scoring-wise. Mackenzie Mgbako especially one of those. In the second half he only had a couple shots up, scored a couple points. That from having a lot of the options or from kind of losing him?

MIKE WOODSON: No, I don’t think we lost him. Other guys were scoring as well. This team is not predicated on one guy now. We have enough guys that can put the ball in the hole if they play the right way and play unselfish.

We only had 12, 13 assists tonight. That’s not good. We got to be better in that area. And we had been moving the ball and we got to have more assists. 12 assists is not going to get it.

Q. Coach, you kind of mentioned the shooting. Is 8 of 17 from three point range kind of where you would like it or is there room for improvement there?

MIKE WOODSON: Hey, I’ll take — if we can get much better than that I’ll take it. Tonight was a step forward in making threes. You know, what did we shoot, 47% from the threes. Anybody in college basketball would take that.

So we just got to keep working at it and keep improving.

Q. Coach, you guys allowed seven made threes in the first half. A lot of guys were going under ball screens. Was that talked about in the halftime break? Second half only one made three.

MIKE WOODSON: We cleaned it up a little bit but we just — when guys are making threes, you can sit and shake your head, and my thing is you’re not close enough if you’re able to just catch and shoot the basketball. We got to get better in this area where guys are just not comfortable catching the ball and lacing it up.

I thought the first half we were awful in guarding the three-point line and they made us pay for it.

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