After OSU win, Mike Woodson responds to criticism: ‘I don’t care about the outside noise.’

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COLUMBUS, Ohio — IU basketball coach Mike Woodson had little patience for a question about the “noise” surrounding the program after Friday night’s 77-76 win over Ohio State.

The speculation over Woodson’s future reached a fever pitch after the Hoosiers (14-5, 5-3 Big Ten) lost back-to-back conference games by 25 points and fans expressed their frustration at Assembly Hall with “Fire Woodson” chants in the first half as they trailed Illinois by 30 points.

He asked fans to “hang in there” with the team after the 94-69 loss to the Illini, but had a more defiant tone Friday night when he cut off a reporter attempting to ask a question about the topic of players dealing with that “outside noise.”

“I don’t care about the outside noise,” Woodson said. “I really don’t.”

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He reiterated the point once the full question was asked.

“Well again, it just shows you a little bit about the character our team,” Woodson said. “I ain’t going to comment on the outside noise, it’s ridiculous.”

Woodson said his players “fought their asses off” to pull out a comeback win over Ohio State despite being short-handed — Malik Reneau (knee) missed his fifth straight game and Bryson Tucker (finger) sat out — and multiple starters (Oumar Ballo and Luke Goode) playing the full second half and overtime.

“It was a total team effort,” Woodson said.

The coach also expressed frustration over the drastic nature of some of the criticism his team has received over the past week.

“We’re sitting here and we’ve won 14 games, man,” Woodson said. “It’s not like it’s 5-14. We’ve played some pretty good basketball and had some good stretches. We got our asses beat in those two games, ain’t nothing you can do about it now.”

Indiana’s players looked at the big picture as well following those disappointing recent losses.

“You look at other teams…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/osu-win-mike-woodson-responds-124807709.html

Author : IndyStar | The Indianapolis Star

Publish date : 2025-01-18 12:48:00

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