Marquette head coach Steve Wojciechowski met with the media after Indiana’s 96-63 win over the Golden Eagles on Wednesday night. His comments on Indiana are below:
OPENING STATEMENT
“Indiana and Archie, they were fantastic tonight. We knew it was going to be a very difficult place to play. I’ve been in Assembly one other time during my basketball life and it’s one of the hardest places to play in the United States, and it’s essential when you play in this building to get off to a great start and we got off to the opposite of a great start and it kind of snowballed from there.
They (Indiana) are a team that’s at their best in transition. The primary ways that they get in transition are from turnovers and bad shots, and to start the game I thought that the majority of our possessions were either turnovers or bad shots, and so we gave them great life and great confidence to start the game and we could never recover. We got to a three possession game twice in the first half, and when we did that we didn’t continue to do the things that got us back to getting it back to three possessions. We started taking bad shots or we had careless turnovers, and against a team as good and as well coached as Indiana that can’t happen.”
THE REASON FOR THE EARLY TURNOVERS
“Trying to do too much. Not letting the game come to you. They’re a really good defensive team, and you’re not going to score on them after one pass or after one ball screen. There needs to be multiple ball reversals. There needs to be multiple penetrations, whether that’s on the dribble or the post feed, and then after that something may open itself up. I thought we were trying to score after no or one pass and that’s just a recipe for disaster against Indiana.
Through the first eight minutes of the game, they were 7 for 8 in transition, and that was a result of just live ball turnovers where there was nobody in between the guy who stole the ball and the basket.”
ON THE DEFENSE ON MARKUS HOWARD
“That’s what people are going to do. They’re going to come right after Markus. He’s a guy that averages 26 points a game, and if he comes off a ball screen, they’re going to make life really hard for him. Sometimes when they put two guys on the ball, that means you have 4 on 3 off the ball, and you have to be able to recognize those situations. In addition to that, we need other guys to step up.
They did a great job on Markus. Markus is obviously a really good player and was a huge point of emphasis for them obviously, so I think that they impacted him a lot.
You don’t guard a guy like Markus with one guy. I thought their big guys did a great job with ball screen coverage.”
ON EVAN FITZNER
“Yeah, he was terrific, 6 for 7, 16 points. He can really shoot the ball, he spaces the floor, he gives them a little different dimension and makes it really hard to double team Juwan Morgan, and Morgan is really hard guy to play one on one in the post. He allows them to space the floor very well, and if you don’t have great attention to detail and urgency he’s going to make you pay. He’s a really good player and a really good pickup for them.”
ON INDIANA’S SCORING BALANCE
“If you look at their totals, they had five guys in double figures. That’s what good teams do.”
ON ROB PHINISEE
“He’s a really good pure point guard.”
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