Okay, that headline might be a little misleading. But that was all IU men's basketball coach Tom Crean wanted to talk about when he addressed the media this afternoon. Crean admitted that the offense has taken a backseat to the defensive side of the ball.
"There's a laundry list of things that aren't where they need to be so you're spending that kind of time and something's got to give and for right now, that might be offensive sets.
"There's no question that this is the least amount of offensive development that I've been a part of as a head coach," Crean said. "The biggest hurdle for us so far has been integrating guys that were injured back into a flow and that's been hard. We don't have that flow on the offense but we certainly need to have that flow on the defensive end, so I'm as concerned with that as anything else."
IU fans will get their first chance to see the defensive-minded Hoosiers in a game situation this season when they take on the University of Indianapolis in an exhibition game at 7 pm on Saturday night at Assembly Hall.
While IU did improve from 71.4 ppg allowed to 68.4 ppg last season, sophomore guard Victor Oladipo said there's still much room for improvement.
"We've focused a lot on defense," Oladipo said. "We're capable of taking our defense to the next level."
All the talk from players this preseason has been about how defense takes up the greater majority of their practice time. They watched film over the summer which Verdell Jones admitted was tough to relive how much IU struggled defensively.
So for people expecting the Hurrying Hoosiers right out of the gate on Saturday night, Crean said to pump the brakes on that notion.
"Our offensive execution is not even close to being ready to play a game," Crean said. "I'm not giving you coach speak, it's just not."
Having said that, Crean said that hasn't made his players any less anxious to kick off the season.
"You never feel like you're ready to play a game," Crean said. "But the players have probably felt like they've been ready to play since the third practice"
