Previewing Monday's Game Against Maryland

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Indiana head coach Archie Miller and sophomore forward Trayce Jackson-Davis met with the media on Sunday to preview tomorrow's game against Maryland. Videos and a transcript are below.

Head Coach Archie Miller
Opening Statement
MILLER: We have not even thought about three games this week. It has been an intense start to the conference season for I think every team in the league, not including what we are dealing with. To be honest with you, we have only been thinking about Maryland and we have enough on our plate with them. They are playing terrific on offense right now. Their offense has really developed here recently in the last three to five games and especially since the conference season has started. They are a prolific three-point shooting team and have a couple unique lineups with Donta Scott and Jairus Hamilton in the game in particular. Those guys have caused a lot of problems for opposing teams in terms of how they attack, shoot, and are able to spread the floor out on your front court players. It has been impressive to watch how they develop their team. They have some guys playing really well, especially Eric Ayala and Aaron Wiggins who are the known guys, but I think Donta Scott might one of the most improved payers in the country. Some of their new guys have added some value as well. Darryl Morsell is obviously the heart and soul of their team, hopefully he is okay and gets back. I am not sure if he is playing or not. Our attention has been on Maryland as they are very good. We have our work cut out for us and that is really what we have been focused in on.

On what the team needs to improve on defensively and concerns with Maryland's ability to space the floor out…
MILLER: We are very concerned with Maryland's ability to space out in the half court. They did it a year ago here. They changed their offense before they came in a played us and played five out the whole first and second half. They made us guard the dribble and they confused us with exchanges, dribble weaves, handoffs, and ball screens. It turned into a very difficult cover for us. I think that is on our mind. Maryland is presenting a lot of problems right now for other teams in terms of being able to handle their ball screens, handoffs, and their weaves. Their front court players are doing such a great job so it is obviously a huge concern. We have a lot of concerns going into the game, such as being able to defend them with the way they are playing. It will not be just us who have problems with them. Our defense has to get its feet back on the ground. We are not tough enough on the ball right now. I think since conference play has started fatigue has set in throughout the course of the game. You are playing very good teams, very well coached teams in the middle of January. Our rotation has put us in a situation where we are not playing a ton of guys and I think you can see we are playing too many tired guys at times. It is costing us. Our defense was fine against Illinois. We played a really good team in Illinois and I think we were able to hang pretty tough there. Northwestern we did not play well at all. The other night against Penn State I thought our first half was pretty good on defense. We made some tough shots and in the second half I thought we had four or five shots where there was not much you were able to say to the guy in terms of being able to stop that from going in because there is a hand in the face and you are where you are supposed be. I think in general our defense has to get more sound. We have to get back to some of the basics sometimes over the course of the season when you play a lot of game you lose some things. The physicality of our front court and our communication has to be better. I think our guarding of the basketball, keeping things sound off the ball and spread out has to be better. This is the longest break we will have for the rest of the season in between games so we have had an extra day to really work on ourselves. No question that we are concerned right now about Maryland but I do think our defense right now has not played up to snuff in at least two of the three games.

On how playing Illinois, Northwestern and Penn State helped in preparing for Maryland…
MILLER: I think if you look at our team as we have played the conference start, Northwestern's offense is as difficult as any team in the league to guard. They have five shooters on the floor at one time. Illinois' offense is I think top five in the country right now in efficiency. They are playing four three-point shooters around Kofi. Then the other night against Penn State, they have a top-20 offense in efficiency. When we look at the 3-point shooting that their guys have throughout the season, we have played three very difficult games in terms of our defense being able to get the job done. I am not saying that is okay, I am just saying there is some difficult coverage out there. Some really prolific three-point shooting teams. If you watch Penn State play leading into our game and watch them play against Virginia Tech, Seton Hall, Illinois in the first half, some of those shots they made against them they made against us. I think we have played three really good offensive teams to start conference play. It is preparing us for what we are going to have to do better. There are couple things you can control. One being if you do not turn it over you will not have to transition as much. Number two, I think on the ball defense has got to better and off the ball defense in terms of our positioning, where we are supposed to be early in the position. I think that is why you are seeing so many rotations and so many drives from three. You have to be able to guard the ball better. We have played three really good offensive teams, all three of those teams have been a tremendous in terms of what they have done this season offensively.

On the status of Joey Brunk…
MILLER: Joey started to deal with his back realistically as we get ready to start practice. He had a full fall. A normal fall. As we started to approach practice he started to develop some symptoms, with some low back pain, or I should say some uncomfortable feeling. Upon our doctors and medical team taking some time with him, some rest and some opportunity to take some time in the preseason gave him a chance to recover. Realistically leading into our opener practiced about three weeks fine. Coming into our home opener of the season was doing about as well as he had done in the fall. I think one day in one of our practices he started to develop some of the same symptoms. Not as much of pain as it was maybe don't want to say nerve or whatever it was some tingling. Nothing to the point where he couldn't run, jump, or walk, but it was concerning. Our doctors and all the advice we got we sat him out at the beginning. As we headed down to Maui, the Maui Invitational he wasn't going to be probably able to play there. Upon returning he didn't get any better. We gave him the month of December to see if it could maybe kick back in, to give him a chance to maybe get some games in to see how he could do, just because it's not that uncomfortable. It became apparent that his symptoms weren't going away. The procedure was successful. Joey is doing well. He is right now focused in on getting his recovery and then the minute Joey can start to get back to rehab and moving forward. We will see where his time frame is. I don't know it's the end of the question that he is done for this year. In terms of will he be out all year, I don't know, but I think it will be a thing with the month of January he is going to give himself a chance to play if he can. He obviously has the year back regardless so we will see where it is at, at the end of the season. For the foreseeable future it is going to be what it is. I'm thankful that our medical team spent so much time with him and gave him so many opportunities to give himself a chance to play, but this was the best course of action and it was successful and it went well so that is the thing we are most thankful for now."

On the fatigue factor late in games…
MILLER: I think when you are talking about our bench it has got to be a focal point moving forward. We have some of our best performances when we play the most guys. Games are obviously very intense right now and possessions matter. Trust is everything, so you got to go out there and practice like we just did and you have to give yourself a chance when you get into the game give yourself to coach and the staff the opportunity to where you are in a good place and can help. We are going to move forward and try to do a better job of improving our depth. It is needed. It is a must and I think it will help us long term with that. I think the second part of it is, no offense but there are a lot of guys right now in college basketball that don't come out. They play well and they play hard all the way through. This is college basketball. This isn't an 82-game season. I think if you look around the country you are going to see a lot of teams playing six, seven, eight guys. A lot of guys playing 35 minutes and they are getting it done. With us we need to have a better mindset in terms of finishing. We have to have a better mindset with the guys that are in the game, in terms of the expectations of not saying you can play hard all the way through. We really taken a step down defensively of the second half in games. To be there are a couple things that can address it. Sub out number one. Number two we need a much more concentrated effort in terms of being able to play through it. There are a lot of guys averaging more minutes than some of the guys on our team and I don't see any of them having a problem. We have to be able to handle our business."

On what he needs to see from the freshmen for them to play more
MILLER: I don't necessarily know if it's one of those things now when you are in January sometimes you are who you are. I think sometimes when you get to January you know who you are. I don't think that is the case with us. I think we need to be able to play our guys more and give them more opportunities in games to develop that, because what we see in practice every day isn't enough. We have to give them more pressure opportunities. Jordan Geronimo needs to play more moving forward. He is too active. He is too physical. He gives us another body. Our front court players need an opportunity to have another forward in the game. I think Anthony and Khristian both have tinkered around that they are right there. I think the bottom line is when you are a coach you rely on your gut instinct, you rely at times on experience. In our case sometimes experience hasn't been playing well. I think what really makes you nervous is when experience isn't playing well or not as consistent with your guys who are upperclassmen, sometimes throwing the younger guys into the fire is good thing. Sometimes is can really be counterproductive in getting the guys that have the most experience with, the oldest guys on the team trying to get them back and get them the opportunity to get their confidence back and find a way to fight through it. There is a delicate balance when it comes to that. I think the other night was a great example. Al and Rob played probably two of the better games combined in the games, a big reason why we had a chance to win the game, because those two guys performed. That gives you a lot more confidence going into the games sometimes when you know what you are going to get, that you can play some other guys in the game. You can live with some of those mistakes the other guys are going to make because you know the guys that are going to be in the game that are older stem the tide so to speak if something happens wrong. My concern or my hesitance at times has been trying more so along the lines of our staff trying to get our core seven or eight guys that have played minutes in big games to play big game minutes for us right now so those other guys don't have the heat on them. There is no question about it. It is a commitment to the bench. It is a commitment to the rotation. You have to find a way to give guys more confidence. They have to earn it while they are in the game and do well. The coach has to stick to it a little bit and be able to play through it good or bad. These guys right now have prepared well. I would be disappointed if we didn't play hard or we weren't smart against Maryland. Doesn't mean we are going to win, but at the end of the day we prepared the right way coming off Penn State in terms of our body language and guys had the right approach and that's what you need. If we get that we have a chance to keep getting better. Like I said and I told them this, our team hasn't really clicked in terms of all able bodies at the same times really having it going together at one time getting a lot of contributions. To me that is exciting. We could get better. We can play a lot better with more guys contributing. I think part of it is the younger group. I think part of it is the older guys too, getting those guys back into some kind of groove a little bit like we had the other night. Jerome had big plays in that game. Al and Rob had big plays in that game. It made our team a lot different. I think just trying to establish a deeper team at times has been a balance.

Sophomore Forward Trayce Jackson-Davis

Players Mentioned

Joey Brunk

Jordan Geronimo

Trayce Jackson-Davis

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