McRoberts On The Rise Entering Crossroads Classic
12/15/2017 10:16:00 AM | Men's Basketball
By: Pete DiPrimio, IUHoosiers.com
BLOOMINGTON, Indiana – For Zach McRoberts, it's all about effort.
Forget points, rebounds and shooting percentages. Well, don't forget them, but don't dwell on them. Not when it comes to McRoberts, a 6-6 Indiana junior guard out of Carmel who does the little things that make a difference.
And as the Hoosiers (5-5) prepare to face No. 18 Notre Dame (8-2) in Saturday's Crossroads Classic at Indianapolis' Bankers Life Fieldhouse, that difference could be crucial.
"I think he's established himself as a guy we can count on for great effort," Miller said.
For IU to thrive against elite competition, and Notre Dame meets that standard after a recent run that includes a pair of Elite Eight appearances, it needs competitive, physical play.
McRoberts, Miller said, can provide it, and it goes way beyond his season averages of 1.1 points and 1.7 rebounds in 7.9 minutes.
"Zach is a guy that brings all those attributes to the table," Miller said. "It's something that as a coach you say that I can count on him doing this, and part of what it is has nothing to do with scoring points. It has everything to do with accountability, playing extremely hard, playing to win, being where you're supposed to be.
"Zach is one of those guys that if you watched our team lately, he's giving us a lot of winning plays. As you study your team every day in practice, you have to reward those guys who give it to you every single day the opportunity to get in the game. And I think he's earned that right.
"If you watched our game against Louisville, Zach did a tremendous job. He competed. He gave us offensive rebounds, defensive rebounds, some loose ball plays. He helped us in that game compete to win."
McRoberts was an afterthought for the first few weeks of the season, not playing in three games and getting just 16 total minutes in four others.
But he's become an off-the-bench factor in the last three games, playing 12, 12 and 15 minutes against Michigan, Iowa and Louisville. He's totaled four points, five steals and five rebounds in that stretch, and if it reminds no one of, say, Steph Curry, that misses the point, which is McRoberts does his job.
That could be crucial against a Notre Dame team that averages 81.0 points and allows 64.3. It is led by senior forward Bonzie Colson, the preseason Atlantic Coast Player of the Year. At 6-6 and 224 pounds, he averages 19.5 points, 9.6 rebounds, 2.1 steals and 2.3 blocks per game.
"He's a very unique player in that he's got tremendous basketball IQ," Miller said. "He's a very, very intelligent player. He knows how to get to the foul line. He knows where to pick his spots. He's become really skilled over the course of his career, not only being able to be a mismatch guy down low on smaller guys, but also a mismatch guy on the perimeter, being able to shoot it and drive it.
"He really fits how Coach Brey wants to play. He's positionless, and he's in a free-flowing motion offense where you really have to be concerned that he can beat you from a lot of different areas. He's a tremendous rebounder, as well.
"Clearly he's off to a great start. He's going to be one of a few guys that will be mentioned for Player of the Year, so he's definitely a difficult matchup."
Notre Dame's losses have come at Michigan State and at home against Ball State. The Irish get major contributions from guards Matt Farrell (16.5 points, 52 assists) and T.J. Gibbs (14.3 points, 28 assists).
IU has split its first 10 games, and while a .500 record doesn't thrill the Hoosiers, it doesn't mean improvement hasn't happened.
"We're playing harder," Miller said. "I think we believe in what we're doing a lot more than we did a month ago. There's not as much, I hope this is going to go well for us tonight or as much, I'm hoping that we play well. There's a lot more confidence in how we do things and what we do, and we're being able to establish our style for longer stretches and we're able to play harder for longer stretches. We're better at some of the things that we really struggled with.
"But at the same time, we still have a lot of room to grow. We can really continue to develop our half-court defense. That's going to be something that we week by week have to challenge ourselves to continue to get better. The better we are on the defensive side of the ball, the easier it becomes for us.
"I think offensively we're still trying to find that chemistry where we have a lot of different guys playing at their best. It just seems like we haven't had a lot of chemistry and continuity offensively where we've had four and five guys clicking on all cylinders.
"So we're trying to find that balance of chemistry, continuity, consistent offense, and then defensively just week by week just trying to sort of hammer that rock every day and become a team that's better at half-court defense and becomes a team that is hard to play against."
BLOOMINGTON, Indiana – For Zach McRoberts, it's all about effort.
Forget points, rebounds and shooting percentages. Well, don't forget them, but don't dwell on them. Not when it comes to McRoberts, a 6-6 Indiana junior guard out of Carmel who does the little things that make a difference.
And as the Hoosiers (5-5) prepare to face No. 18 Notre Dame (8-2) in Saturday's Crossroads Classic at Indianapolis' Bankers Life Fieldhouse, that difference could be crucial.
"I think he's established himself as a guy we can count on for great effort," Miller said.
For IU to thrive against elite competition, and Notre Dame meets that standard after a recent run that includes a pair of Elite Eight appearances, it needs competitive, physical play.
McRoberts, Miller said, can provide it, and it goes way beyond his season averages of 1.1 points and 1.7 rebounds in 7.9 minutes.
"Zach is a guy that brings all those attributes to the table," Miller said. "It's something that as a coach you say that I can count on him doing this, and part of what it is has nothing to do with scoring points. It has everything to do with accountability, playing extremely hard, playing to win, being where you're supposed to be.
"Zach is one of those guys that if you watched our team lately, he's giving us a lot of winning plays. As you study your team every day in practice, you have to reward those guys who give it to you every single day the opportunity to get in the game. And I think he's earned that right.
"If you watched our game against Louisville, Zach did a tremendous job. He competed. He gave us offensive rebounds, defensive rebounds, some loose ball plays. He helped us in that game compete to win."
McRoberts was an afterthought for the first few weeks of the season, not playing in three games and getting just 16 total minutes in four others.
But he's become an off-the-bench factor in the last three games, playing 12, 12 and 15 minutes against Michigan, Iowa and Louisville. He's totaled four points, five steals and five rebounds in that stretch, and if it reminds no one of, say, Steph Curry, that misses the point, which is McRoberts does his job.
That could be crucial against a Notre Dame team that averages 81.0 points and allows 64.3. It is led by senior forward Bonzie Colson, the preseason Atlantic Coast Player of the Year. At 6-6 and 224 pounds, he averages 19.5 points, 9.6 rebounds, 2.1 steals and 2.3 blocks per game.
"He's a very unique player in that he's got tremendous basketball IQ," Miller said. "He's a very, very intelligent player. He knows how to get to the foul line. He knows where to pick his spots. He's become really skilled over the course of his career, not only being able to be a mismatch guy down low on smaller guys, but also a mismatch guy on the perimeter, being able to shoot it and drive it.
"He really fits how Coach Brey wants to play. He's positionless, and he's in a free-flowing motion offense where you really have to be concerned that he can beat you from a lot of different areas. He's a tremendous rebounder, as well.
"Clearly he's off to a great start. He's going to be one of a few guys that will be mentioned for Player of the Year, so he's definitely a difficult matchup."
Notre Dame's losses have come at Michigan State and at home against Ball State. The Irish get major contributions from guards Matt Farrell (16.5 points, 52 assists) and T.J. Gibbs (14.3 points, 28 assists).
IU has split its first 10 games, and while a .500 record doesn't thrill the Hoosiers, it doesn't mean improvement hasn't happened.
"We're playing harder," Miller said. "I think we believe in what we're doing a lot more than we did a month ago. There's not as much, I hope this is going to go well for us tonight or as much, I'm hoping that we play well. There's a lot more confidence in how we do things and what we do, and we're being able to establish our style for longer stretches and we're able to play harder for longer stretches. We're better at some of the things that we really struggled with.
"But at the same time, we still have a lot of room to grow. We can really continue to develop our half-court defense. That's going to be something that we week by week have to challenge ourselves to continue to get better. The better we are on the defensive side of the ball, the easier it becomes for us.
"I think offensively we're still trying to find that chemistry where we have a lot of different guys playing at their best. It just seems like we haven't had a lot of chemistry and continuity offensively where we've had four and five guys clicking on all cylinders.
"So we're trying to find that balance of chemistry, continuity, consistent offense, and then defensively just week by week just trying to sort of hammer that rock every day and become a team that's better at half-court defense and becomes a team that is hard to play against."
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