The 2023-24 college basketball season is officially underway, and Indiana will tip-off against Florida Gulf Coast in less than 24 hours.
Hoosiers coach Mike Woodson previews the season-opener, plus the season as a whole, on his weekly radio show ‘Inside IU Basketball’ hosted by Don Fischer.
All notes and quotes are per Woodson, unless otherwise noted. I will update this thread post regularly throughout the show.
ON BOB KNIGHT’S PASSING:
– “I lost a friend, a mentor, a father figure, a guy who basically shaped my career. Forty-six years of my life I’ve known Bob Knight. That’s a long time, man. It’s hard to explain it to our fans and just people in general unless you’ve been around him”
– “You could never take his bad things and outweigh the good things that he’s done for people. And that means more to me than anything”
– Woodson shares an anecdote on Knight — Bob Hammel went to practice and asked Knight if he wanted to drive up to Indianapolis to watch Michael Jordan play. Knight cut practice short so they could make it to the game. Hammel said “it’s going to be nice to see Michael Jordan play.” Knight turned to Hammel and said “in this program, there’s only one Michael, and that’s Mike Woodson.” … Knight thought he was driving to see Mike Woodson play, not Michael Jordan
– “I love Bob Knight. I’m going to miss him tremendously”
– Woodson asked about Knight’s arrest at the Pan-Am games in Puerto Rico … “It was blown out of proportion because I saw everything that happened. And coach was nt in the wrong, I mean he was truly in the right. The police officer baited him, basically, when coach didn’t do anything wrong” … “They took him to jail and let him out, and we were able to come how with a gold medal. We’ll leave it at that”
– Fischer says Bob Knight is the best basketball coach he’s ever seen to this day
– “Hoosier Nation, we lost a special guy”
ON INDIANA’S EXHIBITION WIN OVER MARIAN:
– “I thought we were solid from the beginning to the end” … “I thought the second half we cleaned up a lot of the (defensive miscues) up”
– Indiana allowed 9 three-pointers in the first half; Woodson says IU was late on closeouts far too much … In 2nd half, IU was “up to touch” and made the necessary touch
– Re: IU’s improved free-throw shooting … Woodson says in the first exhibition, he thought a lot of the missed FTs came down to being nervous. Focused hard on FT shooting in practice in the following days, and was pleased with how IU shot the ball from the line against Marian
– Fischer notes IU had 28 fast-break points against UIndy, 27 against Marian … “That’s something that we’ve stressed” … Woodson says he feels IU has a ton of players who can initiate the fastbreak with Malik Reneau and Kel’el Ware … The old style of PGs only bringing up the ball up court is no more for Woodson
– Fischer asks about IU’s rebounding issues in the exhibitions … “We needed our guards to stick their nose in there (and crash the boards” … With teams keying in on three-point volume, it creates a lot of long rebounds, and Woodson doesn’t want the guards ball-watching or immediately leaking out
– Fischer notes IU had five players score in double figures … “When you got so many new faces, you’ve got to sell them on sharing the basketball, because everybody on this team is capable of making shots” … Woodson emphasizes players sacrificing a good shot for an ever better shot, wants it to become contagious
– Any concerns coming out of the preseason? “I don’t know if it’s concern, it’s just me being curious on how we will play and respond to really big-time talent. As a coach, I’m always curious about that, and I don’t take any team lightly”
ON INDIANA’S LINEUP COMBINATIONS, DEEPER ROTATION:
– “I want to try to get to 9-10 players playing each and every night” … “If we do that and guys do what they’re supposed to do, coming down the home stretch we should have more left in the tank”
– “Last year, I shortened the rotation to no more than 7-8” … Woodson says he thought TJD, Jalen Hood-Schifino, Miller Kopp, Race Thompson were a bit worn down at the end of the season because of their heightened minutes and short rotation
– Woodson says during the two exhibitions, there wasn’t enough time to “float minutes” to take a look at completely new rotations
– “I really wanted to take a closer with X and Gabe together with Gallo or CJ, but I didn’t get a chance to see that very much. But we’ll experiment with that more because I think that can be something that’s good for us when you have two smaller guys who can make plays”
– Woodson says during practice he purposely used two distinct lineup combinations (starters vs. bench) to see how IU might be able to operate
ON INDIANA’S ROSTER CONSTRUCTION:
– Woodson says he likes the amount of lengthy players that IU has this season … Similar to how Woodson built his early Atlanta Hawks teams when he was the head coach there
– “Our defense is predicated on being on a string” … Every player has a job to do, and if one player is out of sync, it throws off all other defensive assignements
– Fischers asks about Xavier Johnson’s importance on defense … “He was a big part of the puzzle that we didn’t expect to lose” … Woodson says both X and Cupps have been good at on-ball defensive pressure, which should help to kickstart IU’s defense
– Fischer asks if there’s any player on IU with more skill than Kel’el Ware … “He’s very skillfull, but he has a long way to go” … “I look at Malik, and he has a lot of skill at his position”
– “My coaching staff has done a tremendous job of getting me out in front of players that we have in uniform this season”
ON SEASON-OPENER VS. FLORIDA GULF COAST:
– Woodson says FGCU has six returning veterans and two newcomers, praises FGCU for their experience
– FGCU is coached by former Penn State HC Pat Chambers, in his second season leading FGCU
– “They’ve got a very competitive ball club” … FGCU has two athletic bigs who can stretch the floor, good perimeter play
– “We’ve got to rebound against this team, because their two exhibition games, they’ve had a ton of offensive rebounds”
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES:
– “Basketball is a thinking man’s game. You might have all the talent in the world, but the other guy might out-think you just enough to beat you. That goes a long way in basketball”
– Fischer asks who was the best “thinker” on the floor that Woodson played with/against … Woodson says Randy Wittman and Isiah Thomas were really smart on the floor, took it serious understanding how to play basketball … Jason Kidd and Rasheed Wallace were “two of the smartest players” Woodson has coached, always thought two steps ahead
– Woodson asked about LeBron James … “He sits at the top” … “I think Michael Jordan is the greatest player to grace the floor” … “A lot of guys today, they never watched Michael Jordan up close” … “What LeBron has done in the league is unbelievable” … “There’s a lot of GOATs. You could say Kareem is the GOAT. He perfected the sky-hook, never took a 3-point shot”
– Woodson jokes that young players today would “probably cuss me out” for saying MJ is the GOAT over LeBron James … Also thinks Kobe Bryant is one of the greatest players ever
– Fischer ends the show with a beautiful epitaph on Bob Knight, outlining his prolific coaching career