Indiana University Athletics
Postgame Quotes - Indiana at Arkansas
11/18/2018 10:07:00 PM | Men's Basketball
Indiana head coach Archie Miller
Opening statement:
"Tough, hard fought game. I give Arkansas credit, I thought they played very good, played very hard. Daniel Gafford was a really, really tough handle for us today. He pretty much neutralized the game at any point in time. He was dominant but is something that will obviously help us moving forward in defending the caliber of big like that.
"For us, 18 turnovers--you can't win on the road with 18 turnovers. I would say half of them are ones we really tried to emphasize that with numbers or inbounding the ball or playing against pressure that you can't get sped up or over drive and charge or over drive and attack a shot blocker rather than make the simple kicked out or easy assist.
"We can learn from this. It's an early season game in a great environment. We're down bodies and played a lot of young guys, so hopefully this experience speeds us up for better competition as we keep going through non-conference.
"You know we had a shot to win the game, a tap in to win the game. Had an unfortunate don't run back or just unfortunate call in general to put them to the line with 2.5 seconds."
How much did this shine a light on some of the depth issues you guys are dealing with right now?
"It is what it is. We don't have the bodies so there's no reason to worry about it.
"If we get the bodies back, we become deeper and obviously play a lot harder. You have freshmen on the road playing 38 minutes. Al's playing 36 minutes against that type of pressure for 40 minutes, it's tough. And it hurts you at both ends. You need the push on offense but you also need the ability to defend in the last eight minutes of the game.
"I give our guys credit. They fought and Juwan did an excellent job of coming out of a really tough start and found a way to really impose his will on the game. Without his second half, especially the last 12 minutes, we probably would have been down by a little bit more. But we clawed back, we fought. We just weren't good enough here. Some of the experience level these guys are getting, will be more valuable down the line."
To follow up on that, what can some of these young guys do here when you don't have the bodies--what can they do to try to learn from an experience like this, playing short-handed?
"At the end of the day they have to be accountable. You're learning on the run. You're going against press offense. Going against a pressing team. You're playing defense against motion for the first time. You have a true big inside. The whole deal is you're going through things for the first time. The first true road game against that type of pressure. It is something that will make them better moving forward.
"You're on the road, you have to learn to play through it. The biggest thing for those guys is defensively, and then offensively taking care of the ball. Romeo for the most part really competed hard and gave us a chance.
"Rob was in foul trouble most of the game. I think that's a big thing for our guards right now: You have to play hard without foul. There's way too many ticky-tack reach fouls and there's also way too many fouls of understanding the game the situation that we're in with depth where on a breakaway layup, you can't run in and smack the guy on the arm. You just can't. You have to let him make the shot and at the end of the day live so that you have one foul instead of two and we have to take you out.
"We'll get better at it. This film is going to show us a lot about our toughness level on offense. I thought they blew us out of the way in the halfcourt until maybe the second half last eight minutes. And then there's some things defensively that we'll have to get better at, in terms of as a team. Whether it is defending the paint or obviously straight line guarding the ball, where eat times I thought they got us.
"It was a good game, disappointed we lost, but I know this is something that can make us better."