Michigan head coach John Beilein spoke to the media after his team’s 53-50 win over Texas on Tuesday night.
Opening comments:
“So you haven’t seen us win many games like that … our defense was gritty, it was tough in the last two minutes, it was everything it wasn’t against Virginia Tech in the last two or three minutes. It was tonight, where our kids just sat down and guarded. Nobody could make a shot, it wasn’t a pretty offensive game. But we got done what we had to get done. Mo’s block at the end was big. Mo’s blocking shots really for the first time in his life … he’s learning when he should leave his feet, when he shouldn’t, and be a bigger presence at the rim. Really pleased with his development, as is DJ.”
On end of half defense:
“Again, it was the exact same type of action that Virginia Tech ran against us. It’s a dribble-weave with a guy setting a screen to get the guy open and we stopped on it again. It was the exact same thing … we only had one guy marked as a shooter today, No. 0 (Tevin Mack), and he got three 3’s and got fouled another time.”
On Irvin and Walton Jr.:
“Roach was doing a great job on Zak Irvin. He and Derrick did not have a good game. They’re so much better than them. Derrick’s trying to shoot over length when he can drive and find people. Zak, there was nothing about his game except that 3-pointer. I was as frustrated as anybody was — we got Mo wide open for one and he didn’t make it. And we turned the ball over, we didn’t get shots a couple of times. As we get used to playing with Mo more, the timing is off, we just weren’t good offensively.”
On state of team nine games into season:
“I was thinking about that today of where we are. Rebuilding, retooling, remodeling, re-everything, with Mo’s emergence right now — he’s a long ways away — but it gives us another way to play. We haven’t gotten too many times good backcourt play, and we’re better than that. We’ve got to get those guys so that they can perform better in these games. We’ve got to improve that. But I just think we’re okay. We’re just okay. If the ball had gone off the rim or something against Virginia Tech, we’d be sitting at 8-1. We’re not that good yet. We’re going to have to play much better than this in the Big Ten.”
On defensive strategy with two fouls to give at end of game:
“We knew we had fouls to give, and that’s gotten us in trouble before where we whiffed and gave somebody an open shot. Basically at the end, I called a timeout, I knew he could set a play but I didn’t want to let someone go by us without a foul. We had two to give at that time … we told Derrick, do not let Roach get the ball. They’re going to play through him. And then the ball ended up going to (Mack) and he ended up getting the ball out of bounds. We tried to cut off the head of the snake. But anything that came out, we were probably going to foul after four or five seconds. But they’d probably go north-south and use both of those in the last 14 (seconds).”
On Moe’s defense:
“I thought he’s making major steps defensively right now. I was shocked. When I wanted to make a defensive substitution at the end and put Mark in for Moe, Billy said ‘No, Moe is really hedging the ball screen well.’ So we stayed with him down the stretch. He asks me questions, and we joke about the language barrier. There’s a lot going on in that huddle that is English—he’s very good in German—and we take it for granted, I think he misses things here and there. I’m picking up more. We’ve got to sit and explain it more. His defense is rising.”
On Abdur-Rahkman:
“He’s got to be a better player than he’s playing. He’s got to continue to work. He’s lost a little confidence right now. With all our guys, if you’re having a bad offensive game, it doesn’t mean you’re going to have a bad defensive game. Muhammad’s not alone. It affects his defense. The first play of second half, they took him right to basket and scored over him. You’ve got to be able to play defense better than that. That bigger lineup, without him, is something you’ll see more as we try to figure out what’s best for this team.”
On unforced turnovers:
“I think we were really tired. We had our head down dribbling the ball. I think their length all over the place…we’ll see more length Saturday, so we’ve got to grow from it.”
On Moe’s energy:
“This is a team whose personality does not exude that type of excitement. We’re a little laidback. We don’t people just yelling to yell. Zak Irvin gives us a lot of [excitement]. But after that, there’s a big drop-off of guys [for which] it’s not natural. It’s very natural to Moe and it’s very helpful to the team.”
On Duncan’s transition from starter to coming off bench:
“When we first made that change in the Garden, it was hard for him. When he comes in the lineup, we’re looking for him. We’ve got a series of stuff we can run for him or he plays off residual stuff. Big thing with that is we’ve got to run better so we can get him open and don’t have to dial up plays. We’re playing half-court basketball. This is not the way we want to play. When we’re in flow, he’s going to get more open than he is.”
