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INDIANA UNIVERSITY BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

February 19, 2019

Archie Miller

Bloomington, Indiana

Purdue - 48, Indiana - 46

ARCHIE MILLER: Really hard-fought game. It's probably as physical of a basketball game that I've ever been a part of. Both teams I thought really competed hard, and at the end of the day, they make the winning play.

For us, just proud of our effort level. I was proud of our togetherness, and that's the one thing that we have to hold on to right now as we continue to push through, and that starts tomorrow. You've got to have short-term memory.

But the team that took the floor tonight had a great disposition, and that's the thing that needs to stay.

Q. There was certainly a different ferocity and impressiveness in your team tonight. You said you were going to have some drastic changes. What were those changes you implemented?
ARCHIE MILLER: I just thought in general we had to drastically change our attitude, the way we think about things right now, how we approach our team concept, how we approach our practices, and I thought talking it out and having our team speak was a big thing, and those guys obviously looked at one another and said, this isn't how it's supposed to be. And I think that is the change that has to stay, because clearly we played a very good team tonight in front of obviously an amazing environment.

I know there's more to this game than most, but our team competed tonight at a great level and a lot of guys made a lot of hard plays. At the end of the day, give them credit. They're an excellent team. But I thought our team played well enough to win the game. It was an ugly game probably for both teams, but for us, again, we just have to stay with what we kind of talked about here the last 48 hours and especially the guys in that locker room have to understand that the sting is there, but the disposition and the mentality has to stay with what we were at tonight.

Q. Just in the last couple days but kind of through this whole stretch, what's Juwan been like through your eyes as a senior, as a leader, and how tough do you think this has been on him as a senior?
ARCHIE MILLER: Well, I think it's really hard on a guy like Juwan because number one, he's an everyday guy, he's an unbelievable kid. He's as coachable a guy as I've ever been around. He's a great teammate, and I think everybody wants to see him do well and go out.

And for him, he's chugging along. He's playing hard. He's trying to do everything that we ask him to could, and sometimes it just doesn't work. But he's an unbelievable teammate, and he'll be back in the next game doing exactly what he's done. He's a great leader. He's never quit. He's never questioned coaching. He's never questioned anything. He's that one guy that you look at and you say, he's always going to be there for us.

I thought tonight he played in a very, very physical game. He ends up not having his best floor game, which cost him probably a double-double, but at the end of the day, he also made a lot of other plays for us that don't go on the stat sheet.

Q. You mentioned disposition a couple of times. How far back do you think that's been a problem? Do you think that goes back to sort of the beginning of things taking a downturn, or how long do you think that's an issue that you guys --
ARCHIE MILLER: Nebraska. Yeah, I would say that losing at home in Nebraska in the way that we did shook us, shook our confidence. We've been trying to fight our way out of that a few times. You saw tonight, obviously at Michigan State we had a nice performance there, but in most of our other games, it's usually been about the confidence level of our team and forgetting at times what really, really matters, and that's the unquestioned max effort that you give regardless of the circumstances.

That's been hard. It's one of the things I think that our team has gone through. A lot of different guys just feel that letdown, and it doesn't -- it just kind of weighs on you, and I thought tonight, though, we took that out. We took sort of the air out of that one and played to win, competed, and that's the biggest thing we have to focus on moving forward is continuing to keep sort of what we had going here tonight, but more so what we had going on in practice and whatnot. If we can keep that going, we'll continue to play in games like this.

Q. Tough shooting night for both teams obviously, but from an offensive perspective, were you happy with the looks that you guys got?
ARCHIE MILLER: You know, without watching the film, obviously you don't have a great understanding of what, but I would say that we missed, especially in the first half, a lot of point-blank shots, had some open ones that didn't go in. But we fought through it, and that was a good thing to see.

Second half, you know, they do a really good job of obviously clogging the paint. There's not a whole lot of room down there, plus trapping the post was something we didn't handle as well as we probably needed to in the game. We weren't able to get it inside as much as we wanted to. But all in all, if you just look at the shooting numbers, I'm sure there's going to be some shots that we like and say they didn't go in.

Q. I know that Romeo at halftime appeared to be ill but obviously came back in the second half, and he doesn't take a shot at all in the second half. How does that happen? Does he need to be more assertive?
ARCHIE MILLER: No, he drew seven fouls, so he drew seven fouls in the game and he had 10 free throws in the game, so it wasn't as if he wasn't being aggressive.

I think at times people underestimate how hard the other team tries to not allow him to do what he wants to do, as well. But he moved around tonight. We had him coming off a lot more running around, we had him coming off of a lot more movement. They do a really good job of containing and keeping him in front of them, and he had to be a willing passer, which I thought he was.

But he was aggressive. He played hard. He played really hard tonight. He rebounded the ball for us, nine defensive rebounds. He gets to the line 10 times, like I said. He's plus four in his 31 minutes. So he played well.

Q. Carson Edwards was 4 of 24 tonight from the field. What did you like about what you guys did from a team and individual level defensively on him?
ARCHIE MILLER: Well, the team approach is you obviously have to understand how good he is, and I think our team really understands, has a great deal of respect for him. He's a tremendous player.

Number two, I thought our perimeter guys were really sticky in terms of off the ball. It's one thing to be on the ball when you guard him. It's another thing when he's running off so many actions and screens to be detailed. He got free a few times, and I thought Cline got free few times, as well, but for the most part our guys had in check in terms of how hard you were going to have to play to keep him off of his normal rhythm, and he took some challenged ones. A guy like himself, you marvel at a guy like him; he was 4 for 24, 0 for 10. Certain guys would have stopped shooting. He's not one of those guys. He was right there at the end taking the game winner. He's a tough, tough dude to play against.

But I thought our team approach and also thought some individual guys did a really good job.

Q. When a guy like Zach McRoberts has a hustle game like this, how much does that maybe rub off on other guys?
ARCHIE MILLER: It was good. Zach is playing injured, and he could be sitting there saying my foot is not 100 percent, but he basically told everyone, I'm playing. I'm going to practice, I don't care how it hurts, I've got to be out here, and you know what, I thought his minutes obviously were good minutes for us, and hopefully we can continue to kind of see how he operates here afterwards, but his toughness plays and some of the scrap plays that he makes, they go a long way.

Q. Talk about De'Ron Davis giving you a lot tonight against some really big opponents.
ARCHIE MILLER: He was ready to play. He's been ready to play, I think, since he's come back off of his two- or three-week deal where he rested his ankle. He's been a very positive force. He's playing more minutes. I thought tonight he did a really good job actually, offense and defensive rebound for us, gave us a low-post presence we could throw it to. He handled the trap, I thought, pretty well for most of the night. But even on defense he was holding his own, so he did a pretty good job for us all night long, and hopefully he continues to do that. He's been a bright spot here in these last three, four games that he's been able to play, the amount that he's playing.

Q. You talked about how well Romeo played tonight, but what does it say about him to play through whatever he was dealing with tonight?
ARCHIE MILLER: Yeah, I'm not sure. He got sick coming out of halftime. He got sick on the bench. I'm not sure if that's something obviously bigger or just the game or sometimes you don't -- sometimes you can just be exhausted.

I wasn't sure whether he was coming back, but he ended up coming back, and I think he felt pretty good after that.

He's a gamer, man. He had a great couple days leading into it. I think no one understands more than him how important he is to the team and also how important he has to play. Certain things that he did tonight, whether it was his defense, whether it was his nine defensive rebounds, gets to the line 10 times during the game, it was obviously if you look at it, it's a hard game to score in. Didn't matter who was on the floor tonight.

Q. I wanted to go back to what you said about practice the last couple days. What are some things you've seen the last two days that you haven't seen all year?
ARCHIE MILLER: A couple smiles, energy level, guys playing in practice rather than just practicing. You're actually working on your game. You're actually competing with the other guys in the deal. You're trying to be a difference maker, you know, and your effort level was -- how we practiced last couple days is exactly how we played tonight in terms of our energy and our effort. And I think that's the thing that you've got to hold dear to your heart as a group all the time. It can't ever leave you. When it does, bad things happen. I think we know that. But if we're like we were tomorrow, if we're tomorrow like we were the other day, we'll continue to get better.

Q. Going back to Edwards, specifically on those kind of ball screen actions with the big guys, was there anything schematically you guys did differently, or was it just a matter of effort?
ARCHIE MILLER: No, I think it just has a lot to do with effort. It's a hard scheme. It's a hard coverage for everybody. Doesn't matter who you play or watch them play. He's going to be able to get his shots off with what they do. You just got to be there. You got to be there. I think in our first game when we played them, we did a decent job, too. Just in that game I think he made a couple in the second half that kind of broke the game open or whatnot, but you've just got to make things hard on him the best you can. You're not going to be perfect, and he won't shoot 0 for 10 from three very often. Part of that is every once in a while you have one of those games, but I promise you, he'll be back the next game doing the same thing.

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