We got some help from them because they missed the free throws but we still had to make some shots ourselves.

It's one of those nights where you kind of see where (Brown) is shooting wise. If he's knocking those down from real deep there isn't a whole heck of lot you're going to be able to do. What you do then is you try to limit everybody else and make them try to beat you with one guy.

We're all at a point where we know that we have to improve that effort if we expect to win on the road in the Big Ten. I don't think our team is fragile. I think they're kids who are searching for a way to pull themselves out of this and I think they will.

It was difficult for our guys, learning at the late point that we did about Coach being unable to join us. To their credit, I thought that they came out in the second half and fought harder.

Road or home, it becomes this simple: Our defense isn't even close to where it needs to be. We've tried to address that in ways, tried to change it, but it eventually comes down to you being able to take care of your man, and we've struggled with that too long. We've got to shore up our defense.

We're certainly disappointed in not being able to close it out. It's hard to say we're still learning how to play 40 minutes, but that's the crux of it.