Iowa State 78, Creighton 60
GREG McDERMOTT: The reality of it is right now we're just not very good. That responsibility falls on me to try to figure it out. After yesterday's debacle on the glass versus Baylor, I would have thought we would have been a little better than we were today.
I think they had 13 points off turnovers at halftime, 10 points on second-chance points. Or those are flipped; I can't remember.
But those 23 points are huge in a game like this. For the game, it's 19 second-chance points and 19 points off turnovers. That's half their points. So we have got to figure out a way to control the controllables, and we're just not doing a great job of that.
Q. You mentioned after the Gonzaga loss that that game exposed you guys. What would you say the last two days did for you guys moving forward?
GREG McDERMOTT: It hasn't done much in a positive light. I thought we showed some fight yesterday in the second half to get back in that game and give ourselves a chance. We weren't able to finish it.
Offensively the first eight, nine minutes of the second half today, I thought we played better than we played in the first half, but we couldn't stop them. So we just ended up trading baskets. And you can't trade baskets when you're down 14.
Obviously my substitution pattern is a little erratic, which is a sign of me searching for the right combination. Then you go back and you evaluate the film and you try to figure out which combinations seem to be working better together and which ones aren't, and then try to avoid those and try to -- when you go to your bench, how can the guys off the bench be most effective with the skill set that they're surrounded by? Obviously I'm still in the fact-finding period of that.
Q. Jasen, what's it like to play against their defensive pressure? It's one thing to watch it, but to be out there going against it, what does that feel like?
JASEN GREEN: They're a team with a very strong defensive presence. They like to trap the ball a lot. They pressure the ball a lot. You know, No. 27 was pressuring the ball full court for the entire game.
It's just pretty hard to be comfortable playing against them. You know when a trap is going to come, you know you have to either get rid of the ball or make a quick decision with it. But you have to think on the fly and you have to be quick because you know they're coming to take the ball all the time.
Q. Coach, when T.J. was in here, he had nothing but good things to say about you, as always. I was curious, what does he usually get you on your birthday, and where does this rank among the worst gifts he's given you?
GREG McDERMOTT: This is as poorly as he's treated me on my birthday since I first met him 20-something years ago.
No, he's a great friend. He's a great guy. He's a hell of a coach. I'm really proud of the job he does and more importantly the way he does it. How he carries himself, the consistency with how he approaches things is very impressive. And except for today, I cheer for him every single game.
Q. Happy 45th, of course. You have had some seasons before in recent years where your team has taken on two or three losses in a row, and you've definitely recovered for that. I know different teams, different setups. But from a coaching standpoint -- you don't know who you're going to play yet tomorrow, so we'll wait and see on that. But what is the approach that the head coach and a coaching staff needs to have to make sure the messaging to the players is the right stuff to make sure as you curl into November, December, to avoid anything becoming too much at once?
GREG McDERMOTT: Yeah, obviously you deal with the Jackson injury the day before we got on the plane. So that changes everybody's role. Jasen, we used him primarily at the three and the five in exhibition games and in games up until Jackson's injury, and now he becomes a starter at the four.
Everybody else's role changes a little bit because of that. So I think there's a period of growth there that has to take place.
The difference with some of the other teams is we had multiple guys that had been in the program and that led and that understood the peaks and valleys that will happen at any point during the season, let alone November or December.
And really Jasen is one of the only ones we have now. So it puts a tremendous weight and burden on his shoulders to try to help these guys that are still trying to figure out what to do and when to do it and how to do it. He's got to provide a lot of guidance there. That's how you get through it.
As far as the next couple of days, obviously we don't know who we play and we don't know when we play, so it gives us an opportunity, as I mentioned earlier, to really look at the last two games and to try to figure out is there something that's working that maybe we're not paying enough attention to that we need to go to more and are there some combinations that have been disastrous that we haven't maybe picked up.
We have plenty of work to do, we knew that, and we'll continue to work.
Q. Jasen, can you talk about that from your standpoint? Mac just mentioned a lot of that's on your shoulders. What's that like for you?
JASEN GREEN: It's been pretty tough. Obviously, I've had a lot of figures to look up to and see how they went about it, and I have tried to take notes from them. And I feel like I'm slowly learning and slowly getting better at it, but I'm nowhere near where I want to be at in terms of being a leader and being a guy that everyone can look to in games like these where we might be down a lot and we need someone to rally us together.
So I'm still working on that, and I need to get a lot better at that. And I feel like with the help of my coaches, trust of my team, I will be able to get there soon.
Q. Even without Lipsey, how much did their pressure affect your offensive flow?
GREG McDERMOTT: They're great at what they do. And Toure, what he does for as long as he does is really impressive. He's an elite athlete, and he's tough as nails. He doesn't get tired. You can't wear into him. You rack him once with a screen, and he's coming right back to fight you the next time. He sets a tone with it up top.
Then I think Jefferson and Milan, they've been around the program. They get it. Heise's back. They understand the rotations.
They understand what they're willing to give up, and we didn't make them pay for that enough.
Q. I think the 14-2 run in the first half is obviously what they used to blow it open. When they go on a run like that mixed with their defense, does it feel like more than what it says on the scoreboard?
GREG McDERMOTT: Yeah, obviously they're a harder team to come back on because paint touches are so difficult against Iowa State. They send you to the baseline, they trap you, and we got stuck down there several times.
But they set the tone the first two or three possessions of the game. Our movement wasn't where it needed to be. Our timing wasn't where it needed to be. And we look like we had never played offense before, but that's also a credit to them.
Q. When T.J. was here, he mentioned that you took a shot on him, probably didn't deserve it, but what did you see from him that made you want to hire him and add him to your staff at Iowa State?
GREG McDERMOTT: He's a connecter. I always wanted people on my staff who are good with people. I think if you're good with people and you're genuine and you have a work ethic, which he does, then you have a chance to be a great recruiter.
And then he just loved to study the game and pick people's brains, and he asked a lot of the right questions. He's as loyal as the day is long. So the attributes of I think what the country is seeing in him now, now that they've got a pretty good sample size of what he's able to do at Iowa State, are the things that I saw when he was 26, 27 years old. Thank you.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports