Penn State Basketball
Illinois Head Coach Brad Underwood
vs Illinois - March 11, 2019
Opening Statement
Congratulations to Penn State. They were very good, especially in the second half. Hopefully if we play them again its in the championship or we don't see them. They are very difficult, tough match up for us. Lamar Stevens, I think is one of the elite, if not outstanding, defenders. We've faced two elite defenders this year. Brandon Clark from Gonzaga and him (Lamar Stevens). Then he put the game together on both ends of the court, offensively as well. First time in my career we ever opened a game in zone. But we felt like with the matchups being the way they were that gave us the best opportunity to win. They (Penn State) made shots. We felt great about the first half. Controlling the tempo, keeping them out of rhythm, keeping the ball out of Stevens' hands and yet felt like me made three or four or five mistakes and had some silly turnovers. You can't turn it over 18 times on the road in the way we were trying to play with low possessions and win.
Q: Was it mostly the zone that let Reaves be so open in the first half?
A: No, I mean you look at his numbers and it's something that he's not great at. You play percentages. Do you want to get him (Reeves) in isolation where he is excellent or do you want to stand around and make some others beat you. He made a couple good looks, got his rhythm and again you've got a really, really good player and you gotta pick your poison.
Q: 34% shooting basically, Andres (Feliz) down under again. Mostly Watkins defensive pressure or..?
A: Reaves, Watkins take your pick. Wheeler. You know the one thing that this team is, is extremely physical. They are very good defensively. You know they have a guy at every position. A guy at the point, a guy on the wing, and the interior. If I'm not mistaken Watkins was All-Defensive team last year and Reaves is off the chart. Wheeler plays so, so hard. So they've got all three bases covered defensively. They make it hard and then we've got to be tough enough to finish. Big play, we came out of a timeout with six seconds to go on an out of bounds and Giorgi [Bezhansihvili] missed a point-blank layup but yeah, you've got to finish those.
Q: Basically a DNP for Alan (Griffin) and Tevian (Jones)...
A: Tempo. Tempo. Just felt like it was, it didn't have anything to do with anything other than a slower paced game and that was my decision.
Q: Between strategy and execution, which would you say is more to blame for the outcome today?
A: Strategy?
Q: Your plan for the game and the way you guys executed.
A: My plan for the game kept us in it the first half because of matchups. But you can't turn the ball over 18 times.
Q: Can you explain you decision-making process with the zone and what about Penn State specifically made that seem like was a good matchup for your guys?
A: Its not just them (Penn State). Its us versus them. We don't have a traditional power forward. Aaron Jordan was an off-guard last year for us. So we are playing him against Lamar whose 6-8, 230. That's a really, really tough matchup. We are a little undersized at the small forward spot as well. That's a tough matchup with Reaves. We played a little bit bigger tonight. We played Giorgi and Adonis together. Giorgi's a tremendous, tremendous interior defender and he can guard Stevens so if we were in man we would be comfortable with that. Yet, it has to do with us versus them more than anything. Then you look at what they do great. They are excellent in transition and their excellent in isolation: two things that they can really exploit us with and that's why the zone.
Q: You had mentioned that Reaves did something you usually don't see from him. Is there something to be said for the emotion for a player to be going through one of these senior day things. I know it doesn't happen all the time, but did you get a sense that he was a little more fueled up because of that? Because he seemed to have a little more bounce in his step.
A: Yeah. I haven't seen him other than the games I've watched on film and he was tremendous. You know, I think when you've got a young man that has a lot of pride, that shows his character and his toughness and his grit and he was going to make sure his last one was memorable. In his case, shots went in so maybe there is a little extra focus and you'd have to ask him but he was sensational.