Indiana head coach Archie Miller said it after the season-opening win agains tWestern Illinois, and he said it again after the win over Portland State on Saturday – he wants more out of his defense.
The Indiana defense is not up to head coach Archie Miller’s standard so far this season. He said after the season-opening win against Western Illinois that it was “nowhere near” where it needs to be. Saturday’s matchup against Portland State proved his intuition to be true.
Portland State finished its day shooting 41 percent from the floor, 8-of-16 from three and with just 10 turnovers, carving into Indiana’s lead to trail by as few as five points midway through the second half.
The Hoosiers were able to tighten up and beat Portland State, 85-74, but the shadow of inexperience loomed large on the defensive side of the ball in particular.
“To be honest with you, first week, if we don't get our defense going in another direction here, we're going to experience some really hard moments in games,” Miller said after the game.
In the moments when it seemed like Indiana would pull away – after an alley-oop from Rob Phinisee to Justin Smith, a three-point shot by Al Durham or putbacks by Race Thompson – Portland State found a way to respond, and quickly.
Particularly in the first half, there was a stretch where Indiana and Portland State traded seven baskets within 1:22. The Indiana defense couldn’t react to the speed of the Portland State offense, with its cutting guards and long, athletic front court.
With the nine-man rotation available Saturday – froward Damezi Anderson was held out for precautionary reasons regarding a minor injury that limited him in practice all week – there was a clear mismatch that Indiana struggled to counter, too much speed and length in the front court and too much scoring power and aggression in the back court.
Unlike a Western Illinois team that was susceptible to being guarded by positionless players liek Smith, Anderson and Jerome Hunter, Portland State was too athletic to keep from penetrating and to take the ball away from in order to create plays in transition.
“It's a fast-playing team, two really good guards,” Miller said. “Their forwards inside are not true big guys. They're not on the perimeter. You have to guard on the perimeter with your bigs.”
The two guards were Holland Woods and Matt Hauser, the former who knocked down four consecutive three-point shots to pull within seven of Indiana before the under-12 timeout in the second half. Miller reacted by putting Phinisee on Woods one-on-one aggressively, which limited Woods to one more field goal on the day and created a defensive spark for Indiana.
The sophomore guard went from a minutes restriction that didn’t allow him to play more than 20 minutes Tuesday to logging 26 minutes of high-intensity defense to limit the opponent’s best scorer.
Miller said while Portland State provided a much different approach to what the team has seen on the defensive side of the ball, it has to learn from these experiences and grow as a unit because its non-conference schedule will feature many different looks and tempos from teams like Florida State, Notre Dame and even Connecticut as the schedule becomes more difficult.
Miller mentioned the defense’s toughness level isn’t where he hopes it will be, and it’s ability to stick on the ball, as well as defend in the paint when the opposing offense stretches them out, isn’t up to par either. Both key to playing in the Big Ten.
“Some alarming things out there defensively,” Miller said. “This team has to grow up a little bit faster on the defensive end. We are going to have it a whole lot tougher.”
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