Indiana University Athletics
Previewing The 2019 Big Ten Tournament
3/12/2019 1:22:00 PM | Men's Basketball
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Indiana head coach Archie Miller along with Justin Smith, De'Ron Davis, Devonte Green and Aljami Durham preview the 2019 Big Ten Tournament in Chicago.
Archie Miller
On being the No. 9 seed in the Big Ten Tournament:
ARCHIE MILLER: "It's really hard to go win five games in a row and being the No. 9 seed gets you off the Wednesday game. We play Thursday at 11:30 CT which is an early tip but you have to be excited to be in the United Center and you have to be excited to be in Chicago as this is a great time of year for college basketball in general. If you're in that mix, if you're in that talking pot right now that's where you want to be and that's where we are as we play Ohio State who gets Kaleb Wesson back so we will get a different team than they have head the last three games. As hard as they made game one on us, I'm sure they are going to make it just as hard in game two. You have two teams who are playing for a lot and I think both teams are different from the last time we played.
On preparing for Ohio State:
ARCHIE MILLER:"We had a fight when we played them last at our place as they were able to come out on top and made some real key plays late. I thought it was a tough game and that's what I'm expecting the same thing on Thursday. At the end of the day, for us we just have to prepare, continue to get better, and find a way to keep playing the best we can."
When asked about the differences from Feb. 10 Ohio State game to now:
ARCHIE MILLER:"You have to dive in and be immersed in your current feel as everybody finished the regular season yesterday. I'm sure we're all regrouping and trying to figure out what has happened in the last month, looking back at our first game against them see what each other has done since. Each team prepares to play against the other in a certain way and I think they chose in our first game to pack the paint, defend certain guys around the post and I think they did a good job of it. We just had a really hard time scoring the ball in that game. We ended up making couple shots late which gave us a little room but give them credit they finished the game better than we did. For us, we have to be a lot better defensively because we haven't been in our last couple games. We are going to have be better in a couple areas as we go to Chicago and focus on ourselves but the big thing for us is when we play a team like Ohio State is you're going to have to be tough minded group, not give up second chance shots and you can't get rattled through the course of the game. We're going to have to dig in and look at game one and really dig in. We're a different team and I'm sure they're different in ways but the current state of our group is that we're excited play."
On what has been the key to late season success:
ARCHIE MILLER:"I think the big thing is focusing on our attitude. There's time where you go on these ups and downs where your attitude is masked by wins and when you lose you see everything so to make the best out of our situation was to collect our attitude as a team. Our staff has been willing to embrace guys and make them better by challenging them but at the end of the day you can't have any slippage when you don't have any room for error. I think we have some guys right now with great attitudes and our practice habits have been good as any these last few weeks. I think one or two wins in this business removes the cloud from over you and the players having experiences some wins down the stretch a good thing. Confidence is such an amazing thing to watch come and go and I think right now our team has as much confidence as we have had all season."
When asked about his vision for the team:
ARCHIE MILLER: "Every coach sits down at the beginning of the season and says to themselves do we have the ability to do A-B-C. For us, it was going to be a mesh of a lot of new guys, five freshmen, a grad transfer, second year returners, and two seniors and how are we going to mesh these guys. I think at the front end we saw a good team that we could play a lot different combinations with but that got derailed with injuries and we haven't been able to find that chemistry. Now, we have become a deeper team here as of late and we've had some more guys gets in the game which helps with morale. Without question if you've watched us play in the last couple of weeks you would see a good team who is playing hard. At the end of the year that's all you hope for, making the best out of everything, turning a positive into a negative.
When asked about the tournament being back in Chicago:
ARCHIE MILLER: "You have the drivable distances for most of the Big Ten Schools. Being in Chicago is great for the players as their families have a lot easier access to Chicago to be able to see the tournament and enjoy it. I'm happy it's in Chicago, the United Center is a great venue and it should be exciting."
When asked about his approach to the tournament:
ARCHIE MILLER: "It's starts with one game and however you want to look at this one game is a championship type game for us. We have to be ready to play and Ohio State clearly wants to do it as well. There's nothing like winning in the postseason whether you're in the conference tournament or the NCAA tournament. When you are able to win a game in a tournament and advance to the next round and you're watching the night games as you prepare for the next game, it's an unbelievable feeling for the players. If you are able to advance multiple times it becomes something special and when you do that your players that are in that moment they grow and start to get more confident."
On the importance of the results at the Big Ten Tournament:
ARCHIE MILLER: "Our resume is still unfinished but has greatly improved from three weeks ago, but mostly because of how we scheduled the nonconference and who we beat. I think there are only 18 teams in the country that can claim six quad one wins and I believe 22 of our games are in the quad one or quad two and that's a huge schedule to be playing against. When you start to get to the nitty gritty at the end and teams are trying to decide based on 12 teams or eight teams to make up four spots, at the end of the day they are going to say did you beat anybody in the tournament, can this team legitimately go to the tournament and win a game. I think that our resume speaks loud about what we are capable of doing at one point and now what we are capable of doing again. You win one or two at Big Ten Tournament where you are obviously beating good teams so to me it's all in front of us, everything everybody wanted from our program is still there and we have to feel good about that right now."
What have you learned from playing one of the toughest schedules in the country this year?
ARCHIE MILLER: "It's really hard. I will be honest with you, it wasn't easy from day one. You just start going down the line of the schedule whether it's Marquette right off the bat and then go on the road to Arkansas and lose a heartbreaker. You have Duke on the road and you get a chance to see where you are and it didn't go well. Then you come back for two games in Big Ten play and you win both of those by one possession. Then it's like 'Great, take a deep breath' and then you have Louisville. Ok, then you can take a breath but you have Butler next. It really never stopped.
"And then once we got into conference play, you got a true feeling that 20 games after you started to look at the seasons that the teams were having at that point, you knew it was going to be really hard. And then you knew the road games were going to be really hard. The way things stacked up for us, we didn't have a great start but it also wasn't a very easy ride. We were playing against the best of the best there.
"The wear and tear on the players was better this year with the schedule spaced out. That was one thing that helped. We weren't playing 2 games in three days or whatever it may have been last year. That was really, really brutal.
"But the quality of the teams and coaches, you just knew every single game you had to find a way to be on top of it. We obviously experience our share of bad moments, but we also had our good ones. Very few teams can find a way to figure that out and we did. Like I said, confidence is a scary thing. It goes away really fast but it can also come back really fast. For us, we are as confident as we have been as a group in a while."
Is there an advantage to playing in the early session of a postseason tournament as opposed to the night session?
ARCHIE MILLER: "I think the one thing is, and we just played back to back weekend games that have been very early, when you win that game it's the greatest feeling in the world because you get to watch the highlights of yourself all day long. If you lose that game, you aren't watching very much at all.
"I don't think there's an advantage at all in postseason play to be in a late game or early game. There is so much adrenaline going on and so much at stake, you would hope you don't have to motivate anyone to be ready to go. These games for us and the slot we are in, it's going to be 11:30am CT, 11:30am CT, 12:00pm CT. So our guys are going to have to go to bed and get up and eat. They will be ready to go when the game starts. If you do win, you get all day in the hotel to relax and the staff can work and bring them back down a time or two for film and walk-through. This time of the year, you are who you are and you just hope you are feeling good, you are confident and playing really hard. Good things can happen if that happens."
What makes Kaleb Wesson such an important player for Ohio State?
ARCHIE MILLER: "He's such an unbelievable presence, in terms of being able to play around him. He's a big body that creates angles and flips his hips. He's a true low post player with really good technique and feet. And he has great touch around the basket. The key for him is obviously staying in the games. When he has been in foul trouble, that has changed their team. In our game, he didn't pick up very many fouls and he was out there. The way they tended to try to use him in our game was to try to have him not guard on the perimeter and keep him in the paint. He was always around the rim and made things difficult on us.
"And then defensively, we have our work cut out for us. But everybody does. He's big, has great hands and can really seal you in the post. The hopeful thing with him is that he can be foul-prone so hopefully he's not in the game if the game is going well for us."
INDIANA PLAYERS
JUSTIN SMITH: I would say just getting the opportunity for me to be able to play in my hometown, and then being able to compete, and really all -- everything that's happened in the past is kind of off the table, and so it's kind of like a new season. It gives everybody a new shot, a new opportunity to really do whatever they want to do when it comes to the postseason. So we're looking forward to starting it off with a bang and doing what we know we can do.
ALJAMI DURHAM: Just exciting to play in the postseason. We've worked our whole time for this moment, to play out here. This is single-game elimination, so I feel like it's just a blessing to be here. Not everybody gets to go to the NCAA Tournament, so I feel like we've all got to seize the opportunity and enjoy it.
DEVONTE GREEN: It just means more to you when it's in the postseason because you know you're going home at any moment. I mean, you just want to leave it all out there.
Q. What was it like for you to play at home last year?
DE'RON DAVIS: In New York? I mean, if we would have won, it would have been great. But it was still to see family. I had a few family because I don't have much family come to games often. So for them to see me in the Big Ten Tournament last year was nice.
ALJAMI DURHAM: Playing in the postseason, I think it just means more. You get a clean slate. So I feel like you get to get a shot at reaching all your goals, and I feel like it just means a lot to us, and we're just going to work hard and try to win it, actually.
Q. You guys have the first game against Ohio State. What have been some points of emphasis?
DE'RON DAVIS: I feel like Coach has been emphasizing making the bigs play, people that they didn't in the first game, you know, put in a couple different things. So I feel like just a point of emphasis of just making everybody guard everybody on the court, and making -- putting a little bit more movement into our offense?
Q. De'Ron, do you keep up with any of the bracketology? Are you looking at what people are saying it would take to qualify for the NCAA Tournament?
DE'RON DAVIS: Yeah, we hear people talking and it's all over social media. But we don't really pay attention to it. We just focus on what we've got to focus on and the next game and each war.
Q. What have the coaches told you this week? Have they told you not to think about the NCAA?
DE'RON DAVIS: No, Coach is just focused on the game plan and what we've got to do to beat Ohio State. That's all really.
Q. Justin, you played you've played at the United Center before. What do you remember about that? And also speak to the last couple weeks, your improved play, what are two or three keys in your mind that made that happen?
JUSTIN SMITH: Well, playing at the United Center there's a lot of energy. There's a lot of Indiana fans in the Chicago area, so I would expect that we'll have a good crowd whenever we play. But for me the last couple weeks has been really about just getting back to playing my game and doing what got me here. I think I kind of lost sight of what I was able to do well last year and leading up to last year, and now I've really started to go back to doing what I know how to do and what I'm good at.
Q. Devonte, sort of a similar question to you, three straight games in double figures scoring, 10 assists to two turnovers the last three games, shooting well from behind the arc. What do you think is kind of working for you here as you do get ready for March or the postseason?
DEVONTE GREEN: I think just being consistent and staying focused and locked in and knocking down shots is big, of course.
Q. I guess for both you and Al, between you, Al, Rob, just the whole team, something like 13 turnovers or 15 turnovers last week total, I think the turnovers numbers have been depressed the last few games in general. What does the enhanced ball security come from, especially when playing opponents like Illinois where there's obviously a lot of pressure defense and difficulty holding on to the ball?
ALJAMI DURHAM: Honestly, just emphasis on taking care of the ball, and just knowing that we've got a good backcourt, and we just are taking care of the ball, really, and not allowing the pressure to speed us up and just taking our time.
Q. De'Ron, what have you seen in Devonte these last three or four games that's allowed him to hit a consistent level he's been working toward?
DE'RON DAVIS: Personally I feel like he's just playing more confident, just playing more poised, not letting the game come fast to him, just slowing the game down in his head. I feel like he's eliminated distractions as far as he's moving on to the next play. If he gets one turnover he's going to make sure he's not doing that mistake over and over, so I feel like he's playing more poised, more calm and more confident.
Q. Devonte, what is your confidence level now as opposed to maybe two weeks ago? Seems like you're a guy that doesn't really lack confidence. What's maybe the confidence level you'd describe right now?
DEVONTE GREEN: I think it's higher than it's been in the past, and I'm glad you think that. (Laughter). I'm always confident, so that's good news.
Q. Justin and De'Ron, in his postgame speech the other day, Juwan mentioned how he's a guy who a lot of the team turns to when they need advice on and off the court. Being at that same kind of position and being a bit younger than him, how has he kind of helped you guys along, both on and off the court during your time here at Indiana?
JUSTIN SMITH: He's definitely, especially when I came in, he's definitely taken me under his wing, kind of shown me the ropes, how to do things. He's always talking to us. If something goes wrong, something goes good, he's always in our ear telling us keep going or keep your head up, stuff like that. He's definitely been a good presence to have.
DE'RON DAVIS: Yeah, he's Uncle J-Mo. On the court I can constantly tell you what he does and how even if he's out he's still talking to us. But off the court, if you've got a flat tire in Chicago, he'll drive to Chicago and get you.
Q. Is he one of your emergency contacts?
DE'RON DAVIS: Yeah, definitely. He's not listed as emergency, but he is the guy. He is the go-to guy for anything that happens on campus, off campus. He's called J-Mo.
Q. You guys have kind of played with your backs against the wall for three, four weeks and now you know you can't lose. Now you're going to face some teams that haven't been in that situation. Is that a little bit of an edge that you might have in kind of a neutral tournament type setting this week?
DE'RON DAVIS: Yeah, I feel like, like you said, we've been playing with our backs against the wall. I feel like we're not really focused on if any other teams have wins or losses or what their schedule is or what they need to do to get to the tournament. I feel like this whole week and the last two weeks, we've just been focused on us and how hard we go in practice and how hard we play.
Q. It's a simple question, but just how much of a difference has being healthy made for you guys? This is probably the healthiest you've been maybe since November, not having to worry about fatigue or anything like that, that maybe you were dealing with in January and parts of February.
DEVONTE GREEN: I think it's a blessing that everybody is healthy right now because we've had bad luck with injuries all season, and as you see, we have a lot of different pieces that are important to this team and to winning games.
Q. How big of a difference is it in practice, because I know that's something Coach has talked about, just there was a stretch there where there were guys that were injured and maybe guys that were playing but were still hurt enough that they needed to be limited in practice and there was a lot you couldn't do. How different are practices now that maybe you do have some of that health back?
JUSTIN SMITH: I'd say they're a lot more competitive. We're able to compete more. We're able to go at each other, which I think is why it's translating so well to the games. I mean, we're really getting after each other and we're putting ourselves in game-like situations, and we see that's translating, so it's been a big help.
Q. The idea of having to win a couple games to be able to make it to the tournament or something like that, the fact that you need to win, is that a pressure that you guys enjoy, that you think the team will handle well, especially given how it's composed of some younger guys?
ALJAMI DURHAM: Yeah, I feel like it fuels us, gives us something to work for, like a goal. But I mean, like any team, we all want to make the tournament, especially for our seniors that haven't been there since freshman or sophomore year. Yeah, like I said, we just are working every day to get to that point, and we're just going to take one game at a time and take it each war at a time.
Q. These last three, four games, is this the team you guys thought you'd be, could be, would be earlier in the season?
ALJAMI DURHAM: Yeah, I feel like we started off hot, then came to a little slump, and Coach just kept pressing, like you never know how things can switch for teams. He's always saying teams start out hot, then cool off and never pick it back up. Teams stay hot or teams waver. He said we've been going up and down and we're playing our best ball right now, so we've just got to keep the P in practice.
Archie Miller
On being the No. 9 seed in the Big Ten Tournament:
ARCHIE MILLER: "It's really hard to go win five games in a row and being the No. 9 seed gets you off the Wednesday game. We play Thursday at 11:30 CT which is an early tip but you have to be excited to be in the United Center and you have to be excited to be in Chicago as this is a great time of year for college basketball in general. If you're in that mix, if you're in that talking pot right now that's where you want to be and that's where we are as we play Ohio State who gets Kaleb Wesson back so we will get a different team than they have head the last three games. As hard as they made game one on us, I'm sure they are going to make it just as hard in game two. You have two teams who are playing for a lot and I think both teams are different from the last time we played.
On preparing for Ohio State:
ARCHIE MILLER:"We had a fight when we played them last at our place as they were able to come out on top and made some real key plays late. I thought it was a tough game and that's what I'm expecting the same thing on Thursday. At the end of the day, for us we just have to prepare, continue to get better, and find a way to keep playing the best we can."
When asked about the differences from Feb. 10 Ohio State game to now:
ARCHIE MILLER:"You have to dive in and be immersed in your current feel as everybody finished the regular season yesterday. I'm sure we're all regrouping and trying to figure out what has happened in the last month, looking back at our first game against them see what each other has done since. Each team prepares to play against the other in a certain way and I think they chose in our first game to pack the paint, defend certain guys around the post and I think they did a good job of it. We just had a really hard time scoring the ball in that game. We ended up making couple shots late which gave us a little room but give them credit they finished the game better than we did. For us, we have to be a lot better defensively because we haven't been in our last couple games. We are going to have be better in a couple areas as we go to Chicago and focus on ourselves but the big thing for us is when we play a team like Ohio State is you're going to have to be tough minded group, not give up second chance shots and you can't get rattled through the course of the game. We're going to have to dig in and look at game one and really dig in. We're a different team and I'm sure they're different in ways but the current state of our group is that we're excited play."
On what has been the key to late season success:
ARCHIE MILLER:"I think the big thing is focusing on our attitude. There's time where you go on these ups and downs where your attitude is masked by wins and when you lose you see everything so to make the best out of our situation was to collect our attitude as a team. Our staff has been willing to embrace guys and make them better by challenging them but at the end of the day you can't have any slippage when you don't have any room for error. I think we have some guys right now with great attitudes and our practice habits have been good as any these last few weeks. I think one or two wins in this business removes the cloud from over you and the players having experiences some wins down the stretch a good thing. Confidence is such an amazing thing to watch come and go and I think right now our team has as much confidence as we have had all season."
When asked about his vision for the team:
ARCHIE MILLER: "Every coach sits down at the beginning of the season and says to themselves do we have the ability to do A-B-C. For us, it was going to be a mesh of a lot of new guys, five freshmen, a grad transfer, second year returners, and two seniors and how are we going to mesh these guys. I think at the front end we saw a good team that we could play a lot different combinations with but that got derailed with injuries and we haven't been able to find that chemistry. Now, we have become a deeper team here as of late and we've had some more guys gets in the game which helps with morale. Without question if you've watched us play in the last couple of weeks you would see a good team who is playing hard. At the end of the year that's all you hope for, making the best out of everything, turning a positive into a negative.
When asked about the tournament being back in Chicago:
ARCHIE MILLER: "You have the drivable distances for most of the Big Ten Schools. Being in Chicago is great for the players as their families have a lot easier access to Chicago to be able to see the tournament and enjoy it. I'm happy it's in Chicago, the United Center is a great venue and it should be exciting."
When asked about his approach to the tournament:
ARCHIE MILLER: "It's starts with one game and however you want to look at this one game is a championship type game for us. We have to be ready to play and Ohio State clearly wants to do it as well. There's nothing like winning in the postseason whether you're in the conference tournament or the NCAA tournament. When you are able to win a game in a tournament and advance to the next round and you're watching the night games as you prepare for the next game, it's an unbelievable feeling for the players. If you are able to advance multiple times it becomes something special and when you do that your players that are in that moment they grow and start to get more confident."
On the importance of the results at the Big Ten Tournament:
ARCHIE MILLER: "Our resume is still unfinished but has greatly improved from three weeks ago, but mostly because of how we scheduled the nonconference and who we beat. I think there are only 18 teams in the country that can claim six quad one wins and I believe 22 of our games are in the quad one or quad two and that's a huge schedule to be playing against. When you start to get to the nitty gritty at the end and teams are trying to decide based on 12 teams or eight teams to make up four spots, at the end of the day they are going to say did you beat anybody in the tournament, can this team legitimately go to the tournament and win a game. I think that our resume speaks loud about what we are capable of doing at one point and now what we are capable of doing again. You win one or two at Big Ten Tournament where you are obviously beating good teams so to me it's all in front of us, everything everybody wanted from our program is still there and we have to feel good about that right now."
What have you learned from playing one of the toughest schedules in the country this year?
ARCHIE MILLER: "It's really hard. I will be honest with you, it wasn't easy from day one. You just start going down the line of the schedule whether it's Marquette right off the bat and then go on the road to Arkansas and lose a heartbreaker. You have Duke on the road and you get a chance to see where you are and it didn't go well. Then you come back for two games in Big Ten play and you win both of those by one possession. Then it's like 'Great, take a deep breath' and then you have Louisville. Ok, then you can take a breath but you have Butler next. It really never stopped.
"And then once we got into conference play, you got a true feeling that 20 games after you started to look at the seasons that the teams were having at that point, you knew it was going to be really hard. And then you knew the road games were going to be really hard. The way things stacked up for us, we didn't have a great start but it also wasn't a very easy ride. We were playing against the best of the best there.
"The wear and tear on the players was better this year with the schedule spaced out. That was one thing that helped. We weren't playing 2 games in three days or whatever it may have been last year. That was really, really brutal.
"But the quality of the teams and coaches, you just knew every single game you had to find a way to be on top of it. We obviously experience our share of bad moments, but we also had our good ones. Very few teams can find a way to figure that out and we did. Like I said, confidence is a scary thing. It goes away really fast but it can also come back really fast. For us, we are as confident as we have been as a group in a while."
Is there an advantage to playing in the early session of a postseason tournament as opposed to the night session?
ARCHIE MILLER: "I think the one thing is, and we just played back to back weekend games that have been very early, when you win that game it's the greatest feeling in the world because you get to watch the highlights of yourself all day long. If you lose that game, you aren't watching very much at all.
"I don't think there's an advantage at all in postseason play to be in a late game or early game. There is so much adrenaline going on and so much at stake, you would hope you don't have to motivate anyone to be ready to go. These games for us and the slot we are in, it's going to be 11:30am CT, 11:30am CT, 12:00pm CT. So our guys are going to have to go to bed and get up and eat. They will be ready to go when the game starts. If you do win, you get all day in the hotel to relax and the staff can work and bring them back down a time or two for film and walk-through. This time of the year, you are who you are and you just hope you are feeling good, you are confident and playing really hard. Good things can happen if that happens."
What makes Kaleb Wesson such an important player for Ohio State?
ARCHIE MILLER: "He's such an unbelievable presence, in terms of being able to play around him. He's a big body that creates angles and flips his hips. He's a true low post player with really good technique and feet. And he has great touch around the basket. The key for him is obviously staying in the games. When he has been in foul trouble, that has changed their team. In our game, he didn't pick up very many fouls and he was out there. The way they tended to try to use him in our game was to try to have him not guard on the perimeter and keep him in the paint. He was always around the rim and made things difficult on us.
"And then defensively, we have our work cut out for us. But everybody does. He's big, has great hands and can really seal you in the post. The hopeful thing with him is that he can be foul-prone so hopefully he's not in the game if the game is going well for us."
INDIANA PLAYERS
JUSTIN SMITH: I would say just getting the opportunity for me to be able to play in my hometown, and then being able to compete, and really all -- everything that's happened in the past is kind of off the table, and so it's kind of like a new season. It gives everybody a new shot, a new opportunity to really do whatever they want to do when it comes to the postseason. So we're looking forward to starting it off with a bang and doing what we know we can do.
ALJAMI DURHAM: Just exciting to play in the postseason. We've worked our whole time for this moment, to play out here. This is single-game elimination, so I feel like it's just a blessing to be here. Not everybody gets to go to the NCAA Tournament, so I feel like we've all got to seize the opportunity and enjoy it.
DEVONTE GREEN: It just means more to you when it's in the postseason because you know you're going home at any moment. I mean, you just want to leave it all out there.
Q. What was it like for you to play at home last year?
DE'RON DAVIS: In New York? I mean, if we would have won, it would have been great. But it was still to see family. I had a few family because I don't have much family come to games often. So for them to see me in the Big Ten Tournament last year was nice.
ALJAMI DURHAM: Playing in the postseason, I think it just means more. You get a clean slate. So I feel like you get to get a shot at reaching all your goals, and I feel like it just means a lot to us, and we're just going to work hard and try to win it, actually.
Q. You guys have the first game against Ohio State. What have been some points of emphasis?
DE'RON DAVIS: I feel like Coach has been emphasizing making the bigs play, people that they didn't in the first game, you know, put in a couple different things. So I feel like just a point of emphasis of just making everybody guard everybody on the court, and making -- putting a little bit more movement into our offense?
Q. De'Ron, do you keep up with any of the bracketology? Are you looking at what people are saying it would take to qualify for the NCAA Tournament?
DE'RON DAVIS: Yeah, we hear people talking and it's all over social media. But we don't really pay attention to it. We just focus on what we've got to focus on and the next game and each war.
Q. What have the coaches told you this week? Have they told you not to think about the NCAA?
DE'RON DAVIS: No, Coach is just focused on the game plan and what we've got to do to beat Ohio State. That's all really.
Q. Justin, you played you've played at the United Center before. What do you remember about that? And also speak to the last couple weeks, your improved play, what are two or three keys in your mind that made that happen?
JUSTIN SMITH: Well, playing at the United Center there's a lot of energy. There's a lot of Indiana fans in the Chicago area, so I would expect that we'll have a good crowd whenever we play. But for me the last couple weeks has been really about just getting back to playing my game and doing what got me here. I think I kind of lost sight of what I was able to do well last year and leading up to last year, and now I've really started to go back to doing what I know how to do and what I'm good at.
Q. Devonte, sort of a similar question to you, three straight games in double figures scoring, 10 assists to two turnovers the last three games, shooting well from behind the arc. What do you think is kind of working for you here as you do get ready for March or the postseason?
DEVONTE GREEN: I think just being consistent and staying focused and locked in and knocking down shots is big, of course.
Q. I guess for both you and Al, between you, Al, Rob, just the whole team, something like 13 turnovers or 15 turnovers last week total, I think the turnovers numbers have been depressed the last few games in general. What does the enhanced ball security come from, especially when playing opponents like Illinois where there's obviously a lot of pressure defense and difficulty holding on to the ball?
ALJAMI DURHAM: Honestly, just emphasis on taking care of the ball, and just knowing that we've got a good backcourt, and we just are taking care of the ball, really, and not allowing the pressure to speed us up and just taking our time.
Q. De'Ron, what have you seen in Devonte these last three or four games that's allowed him to hit a consistent level he's been working toward?
DE'RON DAVIS: Personally I feel like he's just playing more confident, just playing more poised, not letting the game come fast to him, just slowing the game down in his head. I feel like he's eliminated distractions as far as he's moving on to the next play. If he gets one turnover he's going to make sure he's not doing that mistake over and over, so I feel like he's playing more poised, more calm and more confident.
Q. Devonte, what is your confidence level now as opposed to maybe two weeks ago? Seems like you're a guy that doesn't really lack confidence. What's maybe the confidence level you'd describe right now?
DEVONTE GREEN: I think it's higher than it's been in the past, and I'm glad you think that. (Laughter). I'm always confident, so that's good news.
Q. Justin and De'Ron, in his postgame speech the other day, Juwan mentioned how he's a guy who a lot of the team turns to when they need advice on and off the court. Being at that same kind of position and being a bit younger than him, how has he kind of helped you guys along, both on and off the court during your time here at Indiana?
JUSTIN SMITH: He's definitely, especially when I came in, he's definitely taken me under his wing, kind of shown me the ropes, how to do things. He's always talking to us. If something goes wrong, something goes good, he's always in our ear telling us keep going or keep your head up, stuff like that. He's definitely been a good presence to have.
DE'RON DAVIS: Yeah, he's Uncle J-Mo. On the court I can constantly tell you what he does and how even if he's out he's still talking to us. But off the court, if you've got a flat tire in Chicago, he'll drive to Chicago and get you.
Q. Is he one of your emergency contacts?
DE'RON DAVIS: Yeah, definitely. He's not listed as emergency, but he is the guy. He is the go-to guy for anything that happens on campus, off campus. He's called J-Mo.
Q. You guys have kind of played with your backs against the wall for three, four weeks and now you know you can't lose. Now you're going to face some teams that haven't been in that situation. Is that a little bit of an edge that you might have in kind of a neutral tournament type setting this week?
DE'RON DAVIS: Yeah, I feel like, like you said, we've been playing with our backs against the wall. I feel like we're not really focused on if any other teams have wins or losses or what their schedule is or what they need to do to get to the tournament. I feel like this whole week and the last two weeks, we've just been focused on us and how hard we go in practice and how hard we play.
Q. It's a simple question, but just how much of a difference has being healthy made for you guys? This is probably the healthiest you've been maybe since November, not having to worry about fatigue or anything like that, that maybe you were dealing with in January and parts of February.
DEVONTE GREEN: I think it's a blessing that everybody is healthy right now because we've had bad luck with injuries all season, and as you see, we have a lot of different pieces that are important to this team and to winning games.
Q. How big of a difference is it in practice, because I know that's something Coach has talked about, just there was a stretch there where there were guys that were injured and maybe guys that were playing but were still hurt enough that they needed to be limited in practice and there was a lot you couldn't do. How different are practices now that maybe you do have some of that health back?
JUSTIN SMITH: I'd say they're a lot more competitive. We're able to compete more. We're able to go at each other, which I think is why it's translating so well to the games. I mean, we're really getting after each other and we're putting ourselves in game-like situations, and we see that's translating, so it's been a big help.
Q. The idea of having to win a couple games to be able to make it to the tournament or something like that, the fact that you need to win, is that a pressure that you guys enjoy, that you think the team will handle well, especially given how it's composed of some younger guys?
ALJAMI DURHAM: Yeah, I feel like it fuels us, gives us something to work for, like a goal. But I mean, like any team, we all want to make the tournament, especially for our seniors that haven't been there since freshman or sophomore year. Yeah, like I said, we just are working every day to get to that point, and we're just going to take one game at a time and take it each war at a time.
Q. These last three, four games, is this the team you guys thought you'd be, could be, would be earlier in the season?
ALJAMI DURHAM: Yeah, I feel like we started off hot, then came to a little slump, and Coach just kept pressing, like you never know how things can switch for teams. He's always saying teams start out hot, then cool off and never pick it back up. Teams stay hot or teams waver. He said we've been going up and down and we're playing our best ball right now, so we've just got to keep the P in practice.
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