John Beilein met with the media following Michigan’s 63-60 victory over Minnesota in at the Barn on Thursday night. The Wolverines got their first win of the Big Ten season on the road in a nail-biter. You can watch using the embedded media player below or read notes and quotes after the jump.
Opening statement: “It looks like Big Ten basketball is back, if you watched the games yesterday, and then you watched this game. Minnesota has a really good team. Their 11-2 record is not a joke. They really have a good team. I like what Richard (Pitino) is doing with them. Tough to guard, and they play very good defense. So we’re thrilled that we were able to make enough shots and get guys off the bench and just make enough shots to be able to come away with the win.”
- On the status of Glenn Robinson III: “He did something with his ankle. It’s some injury to his ankle, I’m not sure what it is. He tried to run down in the hallway, he tried running during the media timeout, he couldn’t do it. So why make it worse?”
- On leaning on other players in the face of Robinson’s injury: “It says a lot for what our coaching staff preaches all the time. Everybody’s got to be ready every time. I had the same speech with Andrew Dakich and Sean Lonergan the other day, saying you’re the 10th, 11th guy — you know that you could be in any of these games. Zak Irvin has practiced for that opportunity. We rarely took him out after that. We lose some rebounds, we lose some experience, but Zak came in and made shots.”
- On what goes through his mind looking at the injured players on his bench: “I don’t even think about it, really. It’s just like, who’s there? You’re just trying to find a way to win the game with — you don’t think about what you don’t have, you think about what you have. Obviously, we play through Nik (Stauskas) a lot but they did a great job of not allowing us to do it at times. They had really good defensive strategies. Both of us had been scoring 80, 90, 100 points — that wasn’t happening today. Good defense, both ends.”
- On allowing offensive rebounds: “(Jon Horford) made a big difference. The first half, I think the tale of it is, they had 10 offensive rebounds, and we had five I think really uncharacteristic turnovers. We threw it to Spike (Albrecht) one time in the post. I mean, we threw it to him in the post. It was like, what are we doing? That gave them run-outs, that gave them opportunities. but the big fella can really hit the offensive boards and that really hurt us. In the second half they only got five. Big difference in the game.”
- On Jon Horford: “He’s worked so hard, he’s just — Bacari (Alexander) says this perfectly: he’s looking for smooth air. There’s always a bump here and there — there’s been foul trouble, or there’s been injuries. He’s just looking for playing time and to get through some of those things. Find a different elevation where he can play. He made some really nice plays today. That little jumpshot, which he can bury all day long, for some reason he’s been hesitating in games, I hope you’ll see it quite often the rest of the year.”
Video by J.B. Bauer (Late Night Hoops), transcript by Joe Stapleton.
