Justin Smith is thinking for everyone ahead of Indiana's first road trip
Indiana head coach Archie Miller said junior forward Justin Smith played his best collegiate game in the upset of No. 17 Florida State on Tuesday, and it didn't have anything to do with his 14 points and five rebounds.
Smith is "thinking for other people," and that ability is going to be key for Indiana to find its footing during its first road trip of the season in the next five days.
If Indiana’s toughest test was No. 17 Florida State on Tuesday, it faces another test in a more abstract sense throughout the next handful of days, as the Hoosiers, who are ranked No. 287 out of 353 teams in experience, hit the road for the first time this season to play Wisconsin at the Kohl Center, where Indiana hasn't won since 1998, and Connecticut at Madison Square Garden.
Indiana has plenty of momentum after knocking off a team that defeated Purdue, Tennessee and Florida already this season, but playing on the road can be tricky, as Indiana head coach Archie Miller noted during his press conference Friday afternoon, without the home crowd backing the team.
When young teams go on the road, it’s typically the players who have experience who are looked to in times of need, and players like junior guard Al Durham, senior guard Devonte Green and even transfer forward Joey Brunk have all been on the road many times. However, Miller pointed to junior forward Justin Smith after the Florida State win, praising his ability to calm the team after mistakes and momentum swings to ensure that nothing snowballed on a young Indiana team.
That presence throughout the next two games will be more than needed if Indiana hopes to return to Bloomington with victories.
“You really start thinking about how important your first Big Ten game really is, what it means to go on the road in this league and how hard it is, especially at a place like Wisconsin,” Miller said Friday. “It puts a lot of weight on a game that means a lot down the road.”
The pressure will be high, particularly on Saturday, and Miller said he fully anticipates a game with limited possessions, where communication in half-court sets will be key. That’s where Smith comes in.
Miller said he spoke with Smith often during practice Thursday, and he used a football analogy to describe to Smith what he expects out of his junior forward.
“You have guys on the field that are play-callers, not just offensive play-callers, not just the quarterback, but the defense, the linebackers,” Miller said. “He’s evolving into a guy that our staff is going to look at to communicate what we have going on from huddles and timeouts, substitutions, because he has to think for other people right now. He did that the other night really well.”
When Miller praised Smith after the Florida State game Tuesday, he said he didn’t need to look at the box score to assess that praise. Smith worked through communication, Miller said, as Florida State shifted around its lineups and forced Indiana to react with unusual lineups of its own, moving freshman forward Trayce Jackson-Davis to the five more often than the previous seven games. Smith helped Jackson-Davis a lot, Miller said, and it showed, as he spent 35 minutes on the floor and only scored 14 points – a small number for Smith this year.
While Smith wasn’t the quarterback in terms of communication, like Durham and Green were, and Rob Phinisee will be when he returns from injury, he served as the communicator in the background, helping in ways most spectators won’t see and ways that certainly don’t show next to his name on a box score.
“His demeanor, he doesn't get a whole lot of animation in what he’s doing, but he’s a thinker,” Miller said. “You’ve got to take that strength – he’s thinking a lot when he is in the game right now, and he’s thinking for other people. If we can get that to take another couple jumps, I think without question, he’s going to grow into one of the leaders of this team.”
And when it comes to what Miller wants to be done on the floor, Smith can contribute in almost every way.
The head coach touched on three aspects of his team’s game that need to be present while on the road – 1.) hang onto the ball better than it has in the last three halves, 2.) maintain an advantage on the glass and 3.) bring the defensive energy seen on Tuesday, maybe more.
While Smith is the third-leading scorer on the team with 14.3 points per game, he has 1.) the lowest turnover percentage (13.2) of any regular contributor not named Trayce Jackson-Davis, 2.) is second on the team in rebounds per game (5.1) and just behind Jackson-Davis with 2.8 offensive rebounds per game, and 3.) has the highest steal percentage (3.4) on the team.
But above all else, Smith’s communication abilities will be paramount in any Indiana success during its first road trip.
“He’s taken some steps in being more vocal and bringing our young guys along,” Durham said about Smith. “He’s taken another step each and every day.”
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