Indiana University Athletics
Previewing the Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament
2/27/2018 3:46:00 PM | Men's Basketball
BLOOMINGTON, Indiana - On Tuesday, Indiana head coach along with senior Robert Johnson and junior Juwan Morgan met with the media to preview the 2018 Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament presented by SoFi that will take place in Madison Square Garden this week. Below are videos and a transcript of what Miller and the student-athletes had to say...
THE MODERATOR: If you would just talk a little bit about the team's trip to the Big Ten Tournament and then we'll open it up for some questions.
ARCHIE MILLER: Well, it's sort of a little bit odd to be going to the conference tournament. I think tonight and our league being tipped off on Wednesday and Thursday this week, sort of all those games that were crunched into one jam-packed conference schedule is going to put us on a national stage, being Madison Square Garden, and I think that will be a good thing for the league once the games start to get tipped. It should be a very competitive conference tournament, just looking at the league throughout the course of the season.
You know, our guys are excited to go. We had a great work out yesterday and anticipate having hopefully a good one again today, and you know, we really want to go there and be prepared to play as well as we can. You know, we want to advance. So we're excited to get to New York.
Q. So one of our wise colleagues last week wanted to know if you'd rather be sixth or seventh, but now that you are sixth and you really don't know who you play rebound does that make it hard?
ARCHIE MILLER: You know, it doesn't. I think it really focuses you in on you. As a player or as a coach, when you get ready to have some time to prepare, sometimes the best preparation is just you going and playing, competing, working towards being a better player, being a better team and focusing on the things that over the course of the season that you hope you have to be able to do well at this time of year.
Part of that's energy. Part of that's health and freshness, and part of it is just feeling really confident about who you are and what you do. We've played Rutgers and Minnesota recently.
So it isn't as if, you know, we caught them in December way back early when. So we have a pretty good feel of playing their personnel and their team. Both teams will give us problems. The good thing is, I think with a late game, though, regardless of the circumstances, you have some time to prepare your guys. It's not as if they play and you weak up the next morning and you go 12:00; so we have some time to do it.
It's not really about the opponent any more at this time of year. So much of this time of the year is about you and how confident you are and how good you feel about what you're doing, and that's what we're trying to reach once we get to Thursday.
Q. I guess for as awkward as it might be having a Big Ten Tournament in New York City, playing at the Garden would make make up for being in a non-Big Ten environment. What's the Garden like, playing basketball there as a coach, a player and people call it the mecca. How do you describe playing games at the Garden?
ARCHIE MILLER: Well, you really have to experience it for you No. 1, New York City at this time of year, when March is coming around, there's not a better place to be in terms of the buzz with the media.
The games at Madison Square Garden, it's a fantastic place to play. I can see why our commissioner and our league work so hard to be able to get in there. It's monumental to be able to play in Madison Square Garden and being able to play a week early where you don't have to flip the channel to see what's going on in any other league. It should put all eyes on us this weekend.
So I know there's some regular season finales coming up for some teams and whatnot, but we're going to have an opportunity for our league to showcase what is a tremendous league with great coaches and players, but it should be a lot of fun to be in Madison Square Garden.
Q. All the projections have this being a four-bid league into the NCAA Tournament this year. You talk about where you think the league is; does that surprise you when you hear that? Does it surprise you when you hear that Nebraska is a 13-win team, isn't locked into making the NCAA Tournament?
ARCHIE MILLER: Without question. You know, without question. But I think, you know, if you're in this long enough, you find out the full body of work and resumés coming into conference play. I don't think our league probably did as well as some other leagues in the non-conference, and that hurts you.
But once you start to get into conference play, as a coach, as you evaluate it, if Nebraska is not an NCAA Tournament team, winning 13 conference games out of 18 in this league, winning as many as they did down the back four, five weeks of the schedule, it's kind of hard to say they are not one of the best teams in the country that doesn't deserve to be in. I think they should be in.
I think that, you know, Penn State probably had a shot there for a while and they have maybe some little bit more work to do but there's clearly some teams that can make a run in the tournament and help our conference. But Michigan State and Purdue, they are on the one line, two line. Ohio State is right up there probably in the top four lines without question.
If you have those three teams in your league; you look at how Michigan is playing right now, Michigan may be playing as well as anybody in the league and I feel like they are going to be a tough out.
I mean, there's some teams in our league, to be quite honest with you, if you said, you know, in the Sweet 16, you would get the Big 10 put three or four in there, would you be surprised? No.
You know, it's a great league. It's got great coaches in. This day and age, I guess resumés from November on mean a lot. But it is a little surprising that when you're in our conference, not to have seven, eight teams being talked about as being in.
So hopefully some teams will step up this week, do a good job. And you know, hopefully we'll get as many teams as we can get in.
Q. Having the layoff since Friday and almost a week, I think it's the longest layoff you'll have had in a while. Are there guys in particular you've seen respond to have a little bit more time as you said to focus on yourselves?
ARCHIE MILLER: A couple days off, I think that was really big. We were beat up. I know every team in the league as we finished was going down some type of stretch. We were an exhausted group, not so much physically but mentally, as well. It was a hard grind to get through January and February.
So taking the weekend off and then watching us practice yesterday was kind of funny. We had a great balance. We had guys that were excited to be in the gym working again, just amazing sometimes when you have a couple days off just to reboot physically and mentally.
Today should be another opportunity to work and then we travel. So once we get to New York, you know, I think once we get to New York, we'll start to really focus on what we have to do to be ready on Thursday. Definitely some time needed.
Q. You talked about focusing on yourself. Where do you think this team is right now going into the next thing?
ARCHIE MILLER: We're in a good place. This team's been unique all year. There's been a lot of ups and downs. There's been some disappointments along the way. But there's always been constant improvement. There's never been a time where our team has taken a step back, you know, throughout the course of taking some punches along the way.
You know, to me, our team has improved as much as any in the conference over the last six weeks. You know, I think we're moving into this postseason hungry to play. I think these guys like playing with one another. I think they have enjoyed sort of the grind, and it doesn't feel like a team that's on a negative.
You know, so many times this year, you really have a dead team. You have a team that doesn't want to be around or you have a team that's excited to play. I feel our team is excited to play.
Robert Johnson & Juwan Morgan
Q. Not asking for controversial quotes for anything, but New York City, after D.C. last year, obviously Rob, you're an East Coast guy, but is it weird to think about the Big Ten Tournament being played at Madison Square Garden, much less a week early?
ROBERT JOHNSON: Not really. Really looking forward to it more than anything, to be able to play at Madison Square Garden for our tournament. I think that will be exciting.
THE MODERATOR: We've had three guys that have played at MSG: Rob, Collin and Priller from the team who have played there twice four years ago, and we went last year, as well.
Q. Coach was in here saying that coming back from a couple days off yesterday, you guys maybe had an extra pep in your step yesterday in practice. Did you feel that? Did you feel maybe the benefits of having a couple days off after the grind of the last six weeks or so?
JUWAN MORGAN: Definitely. Everybody just had a lot of energy. Everybody is really getting after it on both sides of the ball and everything we did, and I think it really showed and it was infectious throughout the whole team.
Q. What's the mood right now amongst everybody, knowing that you probably have to win this thing to get to the NCAA Tournament, but still having a shot at postseason play somehow.
ROBERT JOHNSON: I think we just want to take everything one day, one step at a time. At the end of the day, we want to continue to play for as long as we can at the highest level that we possibly can. So I think it all comes down to making the most out of everything we do day by day.
JUWAN MORGAN: Just going off that, of just taking it one day at a time, it starts with Thursday. We just have to focus in on that day and go forward from there and just like Rob said, obviously we want to keep playing as long as possible and we just have to get it done.
Q. We've asked you in different ways all season, but as you kind of come to the business end of the season here, how different or how much more do you feel like you guys can absorb what Coach Miller is teaching, what he's preaching and just execute what he wants on a day-to-day basis, not just in game but practice?
JUWAN MORGAN: I think it's really come about as far as what he wants for us on defense and offense. And I think just absorbing all that stuff, it's easy for us to echo that out to the rest of the team. Because at first it was just Coach telling us what we needed to do and us trying to figure out how to do it in different ways, but now just all of us absorbing what he's been teaching. It's easy for us to be more of a player-led team as far as just getting into plays and things like that without him having to say anything.
Q. Just the fact that you guys have just had within the last month, you've played both Rutgers and Minnesota. Does that help you in your preparation, having played them so recently?
ROBERT JOHNSON: Yeah, I think so. Just for a simple fact that we're still familiar with them. You know, we don't have to dig back that far into our memory to remember some of the things that we did against them that work well and some of the things that didn't go as well as. So I think it's definitely I good thing.
Q. After the game the other night, you said there was a time earlier in the season with Justin where you were calling a practice dunker. Do you remember the point, maybe was there a point, when you started to see that some of that finishing ability, some of that explosiveness was able to translate from the practice to the games? Was there any particular point when maybe you noticed that it started to click for him?
JUWAN MORGAN: I can't remember the exact game, but there was one play where he just went up, and although he didn't dunk it, he still finished through contact. And it was just then that he figured out that once he's up there, he's either dunking it or finishing through contact, it was pretty much easy for him.
I think that you saw that in the last couple games; that he was really getting on the offensive glass, just jumping over guys, putting the ball in the basket easily, and I think that was a testament of translating from practice to the games.
Q. Just to follow up with that, how difficult of an adjustment is that for a first-year player to make coming in maybe being one of the more physically imposing athletes in high school, final year of high school, and having to adjust to the physicality and athleticism that you face night-in and night-out in Big Ten play?
JUWAN MORGAN: It's a huge difference. I think everybody has to go through it, and I think he adjusted really well to it. And then that's just going at him every day in practice, not letting him take any plays off and or going soft in practice, and as that started to instill in his mind, it just became muscle memory for him in the games.
Q. Rob, you were named I think All Big Ten Honorable Mention and Juwan, Second Team All Big Ten. What do those awards mean for you guys?
ROBERT JOHNSON: For me, it's an honor to be mentioned and on one of those teams with being in the conference with so many great players. I take it as an honor.
JUWAN MORGAN: Same. I think it's a great honor to be recognized, and then just with all the great players on all the teams throughout the Big Ten, it's definitely a good feeling.
Q. Can you just talk about the two times you've played in MSG and your memories, what do you take away from the atmosphere and what do you take away from playing in that building and what you have to look forward to?
ROBERT JOHNSON: It was definitely a fun atmosphere. I felt like we had a lot of IU fans in the building. The Louisville game was definitely fun. The Georgetown one went down to the wire. I remember I was going back and forth.
So I just feel like, you know, playing there and in the mecca of basketball always fun as far as the atmosphere, just everything surrounding the excitement of playing in New York.
Q. As a three-point shooter, what do you remember about the shooting background, because sometimes in those big arenas, that becomes a thing.
ROBERT JOHNSON: Yeah, I don't remember it really being a problem. I think I like when we play in those NBA arenas, for some reason, a little bit better. So I don't think it should be a big factor.
THE MODERATOR: If you would just talk a little bit about the team's trip to the Big Ten Tournament and then we'll open it up for some questions.
ARCHIE MILLER: Well, it's sort of a little bit odd to be going to the conference tournament. I think tonight and our league being tipped off on Wednesday and Thursday this week, sort of all those games that were crunched into one jam-packed conference schedule is going to put us on a national stage, being Madison Square Garden, and I think that will be a good thing for the league once the games start to get tipped. It should be a very competitive conference tournament, just looking at the league throughout the course of the season.
You know, our guys are excited to go. We had a great work out yesterday and anticipate having hopefully a good one again today, and you know, we really want to go there and be prepared to play as well as we can. You know, we want to advance. So we're excited to get to New York.
Q. So one of our wise colleagues last week wanted to know if you'd rather be sixth or seventh, but now that you are sixth and you really don't know who you play rebound does that make it hard?
ARCHIE MILLER: You know, it doesn't. I think it really focuses you in on you. As a player or as a coach, when you get ready to have some time to prepare, sometimes the best preparation is just you going and playing, competing, working towards being a better player, being a better team and focusing on the things that over the course of the season that you hope you have to be able to do well at this time of year.
Part of that's energy. Part of that's health and freshness, and part of it is just feeling really confident about who you are and what you do. We've played Rutgers and Minnesota recently.
So it isn't as if, you know, we caught them in December way back early when. So we have a pretty good feel of playing their personnel and their team. Both teams will give us problems. The good thing is, I think with a late game, though, regardless of the circumstances, you have some time to prepare your guys. It's not as if they play and you weak up the next morning and you go 12:00; so we have some time to do it.
It's not really about the opponent any more at this time of year. So much of this time of the year is about you and how confident you are and how good you feel about what you're doing, and that's what we're trying to reach once we get to Thursday.
Q. I guess for as awkward as it might be having a Big Ten Tournament in New York City, playing at the Garden would make make up for being in a non-Big Ten environment. What's the Garden like, playing basketball there as a coach, a player and people call it the mecca. How do you describe playing games at the Garden?
ARCHIE MILLER: Well, you really have to experience it for you No. 1, New York City at this time of year, when March is coming around, there's not a better place to be in terms of the buzz with the media.
The games at Madison Square Garden, it's a fantastic place to play. I can see why our commissioner and our league work so hard to be able to get in there. It's monumental to be able to play in Madison Square Garden and being able to play a week early where you don't have to flip the channel to see what's going on in any other league. It should put all eyes on us this weekend.
So I know there's some regular season finales coming up for some teams and whatnot, but we're going to have an opportunity for our league to showcase what is a tremendous league with great coaches and players, but it should be a lot of fun to be in Madison Square Garden.
Q. All the projections have this being a four-bid league into the NCAA Tournament this year. You talk about where you think the league is; does that surprise you when you hear that? Does it surprise you when you hear that Nebraska is a 13-win team, isn't locked into making the NCAA Tournament?
ARCHIE MILLER: Without question. You know, without question. But I think, you know, if you're in this long enough, you find out the full body of work and resumés coming into conference play. I don't think our league probably did as well as some other leagues in the non-conference, and that hurts you.
But once you start to get into conference play, as a coach, as you evaluate it, if Nebraska is not an NCAA Tournament team, winning 13 conference games out of 18 in this league, winning as many as they did down the back four, five weeks of the schedule, it's kind of hard to say they are not one of the best teams in the country that doesn't deserve to be in. I think they should be in.
I think that, you know, Penn State probably had a shot there for a while and they have maybe some little bit more work to do but there's clearly some teams that can make a run in the tournament and help our conference. But Michigan State and Purdue, they are on the one line, two line. Ohio State is right up there probably in the top four lines without question.
If you have those three teams in your league; you look at how Michigan is playing right now, Michigan may be playing as well as anybody in the league and I feel like they are going to be a tough out.
I mean, there's some teams in our league, to be quite honest with you, if you said, you know, in the Sweet 16, you would get the Big 10 put three or four in there, would you be surprised? No.
You know, it's a great league. It's got great coaches in. This day and age, I guess resumés from November on mean a lot. But it is a little surprising that when you're in our conference, not to have seven, eight teams being talked about as being in.
So hopefully some teams will step up this week, do a good job. And you know, hopefully we'll get as many teams as we can get in.
Q. Having the layoff since Friday and almost a week, I think it's the longest layoff you'll have had in a while. Are there guys in particular you've seen respond to have a little bit more time as you said to focus on yourselves?
ARCHIE MILLER: A couple days off, I think that was really big. We were beat up. I know every team in the league as we finished was going down some type of stretch. We were an exhausted group, not so much physically but mentally, as well. It was a hard grind to get through January and February.
So taking the weekend off and then watching us practice yesterday was kind of funny. We had a great balance. We had guys that were excited to be in the gym working again, just amazing sometimes when you have a couple days off just to reboot physically and mentally.
Today should be another opportunity to work and then we travel. So once we get to New York, you know, I think once we get to New York, we'll start to really focus on what we have to do to be ready on Thursday. Definitely some time needed.
Q. You talked about focusing on yourself. Where do you think this team is right now going into the next thing?
ARCHIE MILLER: We're in a good place. This team's been unique all year. There's been a lot of ups and downs. There's been some disappointments along the way. But there's always been constant improvement. There's never been a time where our team has taken a step back, you know, throughout the course of taking some punches along the way.
You know, to me, our team has improved as much as any in the conference over the last six weeks. You know, I think we're moving into this postseason hungry to play. I think these guys like playing with one another. I think they have enjoyed sort of the grind, and it doesn't feel like a team that's on a negative.
You know, so many times this year, you really have a dead team. You have a team that doesn't want to be around or you have a team that's excited to play. I feel our team is excited to play.
Robert Johnson & Juwan Morgan
Q. Not asking for controversial quotes for anything, but New York City, after D.C. last year, obviously Rob, you're an East Coast guy, but is it weird to think about the Big Ten Tournament being played at Madison Square Garden, much less a week early?
ROBERT JOHNSON: Not really. Really looking forward to it more than anything, to be able to play at Madison Square Garden for our tournament. I think that will be exciting.
THE MODERATOR: We've had three guys that have played at MSG: Rob, Collin and Priller from the team who have played there twice four years ago, and we went last year, as well.
Q. Coach was in here saying that coming back from a couple days off yesterday, you guys maybe had an extra pep in your step yesterday in practice. Did you feel that? Did you feel maybe the benefits of having a couple days off after the grind of the last six weeks or so?
JUWAN MORGAN: Definitely. Everybody just had a lot of energy. Everybody is really getting after it on both sides of the ball and everything we did, and I think it really showed and it was infectious throughout the whole team.
Q. What's the mood right now amongst everybody, knowing that you probably have to win this thing to get to the NCAA Tournament, but still having a shot at postseason play somehow.
ROBERT JOHNSON: I think we just want to take everything one day, one step at a time. At the end of the day, we want to continue to play for as long as we can at the highest level that we possibly can. So I think it all comes down to making the most out of everything we do day by day.
JUWAN MORGAN: Just going off that, of just taking it one day at a time, it starts with Thursday. We just have to focus in on that day and go forward from there and just like Rob said, obviously we want to keep playing as long as possible and we just have to get it done.
Q. We've asked you in different ways all season, but as you kind of come to the business end of the season here, how different or how much more do you feel like you guys can absorb what Coach Miller is teaching, what he's preaching and just execute what he wants on a day-to-day basis, not just in game but practice?
JUWAN MORGAN: I think it's really come about as far as what he wants for us on defense and offense. And I think just absorbing all that stuff, it's easy for us to echo that out to the rest of the team. Because at first it was just Coach telling us what we needed to do and us trying to figure out how to do it in different ways, but now just all of us absorbing what he's been teaching. It's easy for us to be more of a player-led team as far as just getting into plays and things like that without him having to say anything.
Q. Just the fact that you guys have just had within the last month, you've played both Rutgers and Minnesota. Does that help you in your preparation, having played them so recently?
ROBERT JOHNSON: Yeah, I think so. Just for a simple fact that we're still familiar with them. You know, we don't have to dig back that far into our memory to remember some of the things that we did against them that work well and some of the things that didn't go as well as. So I think it's definitely I good thing.
Q. After the game the other night, you said there was a time earlier in the season with Justin where you were calling a practice dunker. Do you remember the point, maybe was there a point, when you started to see that some of that finishing ability, some of that explosiveness was able to translate from the practice to the games? Was there any particular point when maybe you noticed that it started to click for him?
JUWAN MORGAN: I can't remember the exact game, but there was one play where he just went up, and although he didn't dunk it, he still finished through contact. And it was just then that he figured out that once he's up there, he's either dunking it or finishing through contact, it was pretty much easy for him.
I think that you saw that in the last couple games; that he was really getting on the offensive glass, just jumping over guys, putting the ball in the basket easily, and I think that was a testament of translating from practice to the games.
Q. Just to follow up with that, how difficult of an adjustment is that for a first-year player to make coming in maybe being one of the more physically imposing athletes in high school, final year of high school, and having to adjust to the physicality and athleticism that you face night-in and night-out in Big Ten play?
JUWAN MORGAN: It's a huge difference. I think everybody has to go through it, and I think he adjusted really well to it. And then that's just going at him every day in practice, not letting him take any plays off and or going soft in practice, and as that started to instill in his mind, it just became muscle memory for him in the games.
Q. Rob, you were named I think All Big Ten Honorable Mention and Juwan, Second Team All Big Ten. What do those awards mean for you guys?
ROBERT JOHNSON: For me, it's an honor to be mentioned and on one of those teams with being in the conference with so many great players. I take it as an honor.
JUWAN MORGAN: Same. I think it's a great honor to be recognized, and then just with all the great players on all the teams throughout the Big Ten, it's definitely a good feeling.
Q. Can you just talk about the two times you've played in MSG and your memories, what do you take away from the atmosphere and what do you take away from playing in that building and what you have to look forward to?
ROBERT JOHNSON: It was definitely a fun atmosphere. I felt like we had a lot of IU fans in the building. The Louisville game was definitely fun. The Georgetown one went down to the wire. I remember I was going back and forth.
So I just feel like, you know, playing there and in the mecca of basketball always fun as far as the atmosphere, just everything surrounding the excitement of playing in New York.
Q. As a three-point shooter, what do you remember about the shooting background, because sometimes in those big arenas, that becomes a thing.
ROBERT JOHNSON: Yeah, I don't remember it really being a problem. I think I like when we play in those NBA arenas, for some reason, a little bit better. So I don't think it should be a big factor.
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