Postgame Quotes: Indiana vs. Fort Wayne
12/18/2017 10:37:00 PM | Men's Basketball
Indiana vs. Fort Wayne
Postgame Quotes
Dec. 18, 2017
Indiana Head Coach Archie Miller
Opening Statement
ARCHIE MILLER: Really disappointing game for our team. Give Fort Wayne a lot of credit. Executed their game plan on both ends of the floor really well. Wasn't close in terms of the approach coming out of halftime. It wasn't close.
Really disappointed again. Have to be better, you know. Coach has to do a better job. Clearly coming off some of the performances that we've had this season, I think we're clearly a much better team than we played tonight.
But we played selfishly offensively. It got contagious with the turnovers. The turnovers sort of lead a dam that broke in the second half when they got run-out baskets. Our lack of offense allowed them to really take advantage of us.
17 made threes. Again, I told the guys on the staff, I'm not sure you can make 17 threes in a game once in a decade let alone twice in a season at home. It's incomprehensible.
But you have to control what you can control. For us, that's the next 48 hours, how we prepare, how we get ready to play our next game.
Q. The pace Fort Wayne played in the first half, did that set the tone?
ARCHIE MILLER: We personally didn't have a whole lot of pace the whole game on offense. I thought those guys, that's how they play. They play fast. They play downhill. They got a spread floor most of the time where they have some guys that can really shoot the ball.
I thought in the first half, our defense wasn't really the problem. Our offense was the problem in the first half. I think we had 12 turnovers, if I'm not mistaken. If you look at points off turnovers, 29.
Part of your defense is you can't run a guy down and defend them when they're going down on two-on-ones, one-on-zero off some of the picks-sixes with a lot of turnovers. You can't defend those. Part of your defense at times is decent, but at times they're undefendable baskets.
They did a nice job. I give them a lot of credit. I think their guards played exceptionally well. Obviously the stat lines speak for themselves.
Q. Obviously they were hot three-point wise, but how much of that was your defense, too?
ARCHIE MILLER: We had lost assignments in the second half. Number one in transition, we got caught not being ready a few times. Then in the half court we lost our man two or three times on some of their actions.
More importantly, I thought we were paralyzed by our offense. I thought our ineptness, guys not normally getting some of the stuff they've been getting in recent weeks, put us in a situation where we were going to have to claw and find a way defensively. We weren't able to do that tonight.
Q. You spoke Saturday about getting off the cloud, back to work. Were you concerned at all?
ARCHIE MILLER: You're always concerned. I think handling success is a lot harder than getting kicked in the face. Everybody knows when you get kicked in the face how you respond.
Sometimes winning a game, playing well in a game, yeah, it can be that. I didn't sense that with our team in the last 24 hours.
I did sense that we weren't playing in sync out there. I think as we watch the film, we're going to see some of the decision making, some of the opportunities we had offensively were selfish.
I thought we took bad shots at times. We didn't deliver the ball when we could. We knew they would post strap. We stopped throwing the ball inside. It just became a jump shooting team, a guy trying to break his guy down and score. That's in and out not how we've been playing.
Like I said, it's one of those things where you always are concerned. Win or loss, you're always concerned. But I didn't sense that from our team in terms of our approach. It was a quick turnaround. Had to get ready to play, just like they did. We weren't good.
Q. Can you speak about the turnovers…
ARCHIE MILLER: They weren't even turnovers that were, like, forced. That's the thing that frustrates you. It's out-letting the ball to the other team on a rebound, dribbling the ball way too much, dribbling into defense, they can steal it off you. 13 steals is a lot of steals, especially for a team that doesn't even press, when you think about it.
Clearly you can tell we weren't in sync, we weren't very organized. Put that on me. Clearly I didn't have their attention in terms of how we're supposed to be playing today. You can't ever, I guess, anticipate it. But you're right, the turnovers that you saw were turnovers that were just unforced errors, lackadaisical, in some cases just really mind-boggling.
Indiana Players – Collin Hartman, Juwan Morgan and Robert Johnson
Q. What happened out there?
COLLIN HARTMAN: We didn't come out ready to play mentally. We didn't do what we needed to do offensively or defensively. Give them credit, they shot tremendously and played great defense. We just didn't come out ready to play.
Q. The 18 turnovers tonight, did you feel that was a product of playing a second game in three days, fatigue, anything like that, or was it something else?
COLLIN HARTMAN: No, I just don't think that we were collectively as a team playing the way that we should, playing the way that we practice. We weren't playing smart with the ball. Kind of sometimes just running around, not getting on offense. Just kind of being careless.
Q. For any of you guys, Collin said you weren't ready to play mentally. How does something like that happen?
JUWAN MORGAN: We just didn't come out ready. That's all there is to it. 18 turnovers are inexcusable. They had 29 points off our turnovers. That's something you can't let happen if you want to win games.
Q. How do you stop that from happening? How do you stop that? How do you make sure it doesn't happen again?
ROBERT JOHNSON: I think it starts with the older guys, making sure guys are ready to play. We've been through it the most, so at the end of the day I think, if anybody, it will be up to us.
Q. How did they shoot so effectively from three?
COLLIN HARTMAN: A lot of them came just off turnovers, transition, over-helping, not running our defensive schemes, stuff like that. When they see the first couple go in, as a shooter, it's hard to not miss after that.
Give them credit. They shot the ball well. We turned it over. Didn't feel like we played what we practiced.
Q. Do you feel like sometimes it's not taking the confidence out of a team shooting the ball, maybe not just losing good shooters, but allowing them to get too comfortable behind the arc?
COLLIN HARTMAN: Definitely. Like I said, if you let guys who are decent shooters get open looks all the time, things of that nature, I mean, the basket gets bigger.
Q. What did you talk about at halftime?
JUWAN MORGAN: Closing out, trying to run them off the line. They ran a few plays three or four times in a row. People were getting lost on defense. Nobody was talking.
Like Collin said, as they could see a couple go in, the basket gets huge. It's hard to miss.
Q. Anything to losing to a pair of in-state, mid-major teams?
COLLIN HARTMAN: I don't think there's much to it. I mean, we just have to understand as a team when you have 'Indiana' across your chest, it doesn't matter where we're playing or who we're playing, they're coming to win. They want to win. When we don't show up, don't play like we practice, it can be one of those nights.
Fort Wayne Head Coach Jon Coffman
Coach, you hold them to 34 percent shooting in the second half. What was the key defensively in that second half?
COFFMAN: It was the same thing we were doing in the first—it was about finishing plays. We talk more about finishing a play and rebounding than anything with defense. Being "us" was a big theme of the game. Our number one priority was to play with an attack mentality. That was the aggressive play that put us in position for success last year, and then it had to be toughness. We talked a lot about rebounding to where it was going to be some situations where five guys tipped it and we have a garbage collector like Matt Weir or Bryson Scott coming in and grabbing the loose ball rebound. We were going to have to have that all night long for the opportunity to have success at the end, because we've really improved our defense in terms of putting guys into crowds. We knew we could defend, it was just a matter of getting the stop and finishing the play.
What we were concerned with going into the game was how well [Juwan] Morgan was playing. What a game he had against Notre Dame. We play a smaller lineup which puts a huge challenge on us. Yesterday in practice and this morning in our walkthrough, we kind of adjusted some of our trapping with going onto four men. That kept him out of rhythm, which was good, but we also got him in foul trouble. At the end of the day, the attacking mentality got them out of rhythm along with how we were stretching all over the place. Dylan Carl hit a couple threes which made their fours and fives have to guard guys that are running around and through screens.
What happened at the end of the day was that they felt the pressure of our poise on offense, because we played our process for 40 minutes. We got great shot, after great shot, after great shot. 17 threes is a good night for us, but that's not surprising because we've done that before. But what was really good was that we stuck with being us. There's usually a time where you face adversity and someone wants to make a hero play where someone decides to go one-on-one and make a big play. Maybe one or two of those were at the end of the shot clock, so by being able to do that we put a lot of pressure on them. And they started pressing, taking tough shots in crowds, and our defense almost did it to their offense.
Coach, you beat the No. 3 team in the country last year in Fort Wayne. How does today's victory compare to a year ago?
COFFMAN: It's different when you're at home. Two of our starters in that game, both playing professionally today, fouled out in that game. And they were ranked, which was pretty dang special. But to come here in Assembly Hall—I have so much pride in our state's basketball, and there's so much tradition that's happened here. For our guys to do that with a ton of newcomers—we have six freshmen on our squad—I'm so proud of those four upperclassmen who played in that game last year. We saw it at [Rupp Arena] where they were poised, and Kentucky beat us, the arena and 22,000 people didn't beat us. We had talked about following those guys leads and they did it again tonight. That was really, really impressive.
Postgame Quotes
Dec. 18, 2017
Indiana Head Coach Archie Miller
Opening Statement
ARCHIE MILLER: Really disappointing game for our team. Give Fort Wayne a lot of credit. Executed their game plan on both ends of the floor really well. Wasn't close in terms of the approach coming out of halftime. It wasn't close.
Really disappointed again. Have to be better, you know. Coach has to do a better job. Clearly coming off some of the performances that we've had this season, I think we're clearly a much better team than we played tonight.
But we played selfishly offensively. It got contagious with the turnovers. The turnovers sort of lead a dam that broke in the second half when they got run-out baskets. Our lack of offense allowed them to really take advantage of us.
17 made threes. Again, I told the guys on the staff, I'm not sure you can make 17 threes in a game once in a decade let alone twice in a season at home. It's incomprehensible.
But you have to control what you can control. For us, that's the next 48 hours, how we prepare, how we get ready to play our next game.
Q. The pace Fort Wayne played in the first half, did that set the tone?
ARCHIE MILLER: We personally didn't have a whole lot of pace the whole game on offense. I thought those guys, that's how they play. They play fast. They play downhill. They got a spread floor most of the time where they have some guys that can really shoot the ball.
I thought in the first half, our defense wasn't really the problem. Our offense was the problem in the first half. I think we had 12 turnovers, if I'm not mistaken. If you look at points off turnovers, 29.
Part of your defense is you can't run a guy down and defend them when they're going down on two-on-ones, one-on-zero off some of the picks-sixes with a lot of turnovers. You can't defend those. Part of your defense at times is decent, but at times they're undefendable baskets.
They did a nice job. I give them a lot of credit. I think their guards played exceptionally well. Obviously the stat lines speak for themselves.
Q. Obviously they were hot three-point wise, but how much of that was your defense, too?
ARCHIE MILLER: We had lost assignments in the second half. Number one in transition, we got caught not being ready a few times. Then in the half court we lost our man two or three times on some of their actions.
More importantly, I thought we were paralyzed by our offense. I thought our ineptness, guys not normally getting some of the stuff they've been getting in recent weeks, put us in a situation where we were going to have to claw and find a way defensively. We weren't able to do that tonight.
Q. You spoke Saturday about getting off the cloud, back to work. Were you concerned at all?
ARCHIE MILLER: You're always concerned. I think handling success is a lot harder than getting kicked in the face. Everybody knows when you get kicked in the face how you respond.
Sometimes winning a game, playing well in a game, yeah, it can be that. I didn't sense that with our team in the last 24 hours.
I did sense that we weren't playing in sync out there. I think as we watch the film, we're going to see some of the decision making, some of the opportunities we had offensively were selfish.
I thought we took bad shots at times. We didn't deliver the ball when we could. We knew they would post strap. We stopped throwing the ball inside. It just became a jump shooting team, a guy trying to break his guy down and score. That's in and out not how we've been playing.
Like I said, it's one of those things where you always are concerned. Win or loss, you're always concerned. But I didn't sense that from our team in terms of our approach. It was a quick turnaround. Had to get ready to play, just like they did. We weren't good.
Q. Can you speak about the turnovers…
ARCHIE MILLER: They weren't even turnovers that were, like, forced. That's the thing that frustrates you. It's out-letting the ball to the other team on a rebound, dribbling the ball way too much, dribbling into defense, they can steal it off you. 13 steals is a lot of steals, especially for a team that doesn't even press, when you think about it.
Clearly you can tell we weren't in sync, we weren't very organized. Put that on me. Clearly I didn't have their attention in terms of how we're supposed to be playing today. You can't ever, I guess, anticipate it. But you're right, the turnovers that you saw were turnovers that were just unforced errors, lackadaisical, in some cases just really mind-boggling.
Indiana Players – Collin Hartman, Juwan Morgan and Robert Johnson
Q. What happened out there?
COLLIN HARTMAN: We didn't come out ready to play mentally. We didn't do what we needed to do offensively or defensively. Give them credit, they shot tremendously and played great defense. We just didn't come out ready to play.
Q. The 18 turnovers tonight, did you feel that was a product of playing a second game in three days, fatigue, anything like that, or was it something else?
COLLIN HARTMAN: No, I just don't think that we were collectively as a team playing the way that we should, playing the way that we practice. We weren't playing smart with the ball. Kind of sometimes just running around, not getting on offense. Just kind of being careless.
Q. For any of you guys, Collin said you weren't ready to play mentally. How does something like that happen?
JUWAN MORGAN: We just didn't come out ready. That's all there is to it. 18 turnovers are inexcusable. They had 29 points off our turnovers. That's something you can't let happen if you want to win games.
Q. How do you stop that from happening? How do you stop that? How do you make sure it doesn't happen again?
ROBERT JOHNSON: I think it starts with the older guys, making sure guys are ready to play. We've been through it the most, so at the end of the day I think, if anybody, it will be up to us.
Q. How did they shoot so effectively from three?
COLLIN HARTMAN: A lot of them came just off turnovers, transition, over-helping, not running our defensive schemes, stuff like that. When they see the first couple go in, as a shooter, it's hard to not miss after that.
Give them credit. They shot the ball well. We turned it over. Didn't feel like we played what we practiced.
Q. Do you feel like sometimes it's not taking the confidence out of a team shooting the ball, maybe not just losing good shooters, but allowing them to get too comfortable behind the arc?
COLLIN HARTMAN: Definitely. Like I said, if you let guys who are decent shooters get open looks all the time, things of that nature, I mean, the basket gets bigger.
Q. What did you talk about at halftime?
JUWAN MORGAN: Closing out, trying to run them off the line. They ran a few plays three or four times in a row. People were getting lost on defense. Nobody was talking.
Like Collin said, as they could see a couple go in, the basket gets huge. It's hard to miss.
Q. Anything to losing to a pair of in-state, mid-major teams?
COLLIN HARTMAN: I don't think there's much to it. I mean, we just have to understand as a team when you have 'Indiana' across your chest, it doesn't matter where we're playing or who we're playing, they're coming to win. They want to win. When we don't show up, don't play like we practice, it can be one of those nights.
Fort Wayne Head Coach Jon Coffman
Coach, you hold them to 34 percent shooting in the second half. What was the key defensively in that second half?
COFFMAN: It was the same thing we were doing in the first—it was about finishing plays. We talk more about finishing a play and rebounding than anything with defense. Being "us" was a big theme of the game. Our number one priority was to play with an attack mentality. That was the aggressive play that put us in position for success last year, and then it had to be toughness. We talked a lot about rebounding to where it was going to be some situations where five guys tipped it and we have a garbage collector like Matt Weir or Bryson Scott coming in and grabbing the loose ball rebound. We were going to have to have that all night long for the opportunity to have success at the end, because we've really improved our defense in terms of putting guys into crowds. We knew we could defend, it was just a matter of getting the stop and finishing the play.
What we were concerned with going into the game was how well [Juwan] Morgan was playing. What a game he had against Notre Dame. We play a smaller lineup which puts a huge challenge on us. Yesterday in practice and this morning in our walkthrough, we kind of adjusted some of our trapping with going onto four men. That kept him out of rhythm, which was good, but we also got him in foul trouble. At the end of the day, the attacking mentality got them out of rhythm along with how we were stretching all over the place. Dylan Carl hit a couple threes which made their fours and fives have to guard guys that are running around and through screens.
What happened at the end of the day was that they felt the pressure of our poise on offense, because we played our process for 40 minutes. We got great shot, after great shot, after great shot. 17 threes is a good night for us, but that's not surprising because we've done that before. But what was really good was that we stuck with being us. There's usually a time where you face adversity and someone wants to make a hero play where someone decides to go one-on-one and make a big play. Maybe one or two of those were at the end of the shot clock, so by being able to do that we put a lot of pressure on them. And they started pressing, taking tough shots in crowds, and our defense almost did it to their offense.
Coach, you beat the No. 3 team in the country last year in Fort Wayne. How does today's victory compare to a year ago?
COFFMAN: It's different when you're at home. Two of our starters in that game, both playing professionally today, fouled out in that game. And they were ranked, which was pretty dang special. But to come here in Assembly Hall—I have so much pride in our state's basketball, and there's so much tradition that's happened here. For our guys to do that with a ton of newcomers—we have six freshmen on our squad—I'm so proud of those four upperclassmen who played in that game last year. We saw it at [Rupp Arena] where they were poised, and Kentucky beat us, the arena and 22,000 people didn't beat us. We had talked about following those guys leads and they did it again tonight. That was really, really impressive.
Players Mentioned
Forward
/ Men's Basketball
Guard
/ Men's Basketball
Forward
/ Men's BasketballFB: Curt Cignetti Media Availability (9/15/25)
Monday, September 15
FB: Under The Hood - Week 3 (Indiana State)
Thursday, September 11
FB: Elijah Sarratt Media Availability (9/9/25)
Tuesday, September 09
FB: Roman Hemby Media Availability (9/9/25)
Tuesday, September 09