Indiana lost its 9th straight to Purdue on Saturday and its 5th straight game to close out the 2020-21 regular season in a 67-58 loss to the Boilermakers.
The Hoosiers fell to 12-14 (7-12) on the season and are sitting at 10th in the Big Ten going into the final day of the regular season.
Indiana will look to get a win in the Big Ten tournament when it takes the court on Thursday in its opening round mathchup.
Here are all of the postgame notes as well as the full quotes from IU head coach Archie Miller.
Postgame Notes:
• Senior Aljami Durham led the Hoosiers in scoring with 14 points, marking the third time in four games he has scored in double figures. He knocked down a pair of 3-pointers and had a pair of assists and rebounds.
• Sophomore Trayce Jackson-Davis added 12 points to go along with five boards, two assists and two steals.
• Redshirt sophomore Jerome Hunter also had 12 points in his third straight start. Hunter was 5-of-10 from the field and had two steals.
• Junior Rob Phinisee dropped in 10 points to go along with team highs in rebounds (6) and assists (4).
• Redshirt junior Race Thompson had four points, three boards and two assists in 22 minutes of action.
• The Hoosiers saw action from all four freshman, led by Trey Galloway’s 18 minutes. He had a triple, two assists and a rebound.
• Jordan Geronimo knocked down three free throws to go along with a rebound and a steal in nine minutes.
• Khristian Lander played eight minutes while Anthony Leal grabbed a board in three minutes.
• Both Indiana and Purdue shot 48 percent in the second half with each team going 12-for-25.
• Each of Indiana's losses this season have come to a team that was ranked at some point during the 2020-21 season
Postgame Quotes:
Opening Statement...
ARCHIE MILLER: Give Purdue credit. A hard-fought game. I thought those guys made timely plays. Freshmen Zack Edey is really hard to deal with, with his size. But they did a really good job. Timely plays, played well, played hard, they're a good team.
Our guys played extremely hard and proud of them. I think they competed all the way through the end. We're just struggling shooting the ball. At the end of the day, if you look at the first half and you go 1-for-13 from three. Probably about 11 of them were good looks, and you make two or three of them it’s a different game in the first half.
But all in all, in our last two games, two-and-a-half games, we're not shooting the ball well from perimeter. And you're not going to be able to win in this league without shooting the ball a little bit.
Q: On if the outcome was just basically shooting...
ARCHIE MILLER: Yeah, without question it was shooting. We’re 1-for-13 from three in the first half. We go 4-for-10, but I didn't think the ones at the end mattered as much. Free throws, again, free throws, especially first half and early second half, they hurt us. They stopped us from scoring when we're getting stops. If we’re getting stop after stop after stop after stop and you can't score, at some point you cave in. We haven't caved in, even in our last two games, really love the staying with it, love our attitude.
I think we've played two of our hardest-fought games in our last two road games defensively, and guys are battling hard. So we keep that going here we're going to find a way to break back through. But at some point we're gonna have to make some open shots.
Q: On how difficult it is to defend Zach Edey...
ARCHIE MILLER: He's a very good player regardless of his size. He's got great touch, he's got great hands, and clearly with his size and the way that they play, he's put on islands down there. He's very difficult to deal with without question. He's one of the harder players that you'll guard. You have to try to take advantage of him on the other end. If you're not making some shots and opening the floor up it's difficult. But he's a load. He’s definitely a load.
Q: On Race Thompson and his injury...
ARCHIE MILLER: Yeah, Race hasn't been a part of what we're doing since the Michigan State game. He had surgery on Wednesday when we got back. He hasn't practiced at all. Gave it a go today, which you got to be proud of him. He's given us everything he has all year. I believe he rolled an ankle late in the second half, midway through the second half, and then when he went back in, he asked for a sub. So we’ll have to see it. I don't know if it's any more than an ankle, but he definitely couldn't continue.
Q: On the technical foul...
ARCHIE MILLER: I'm not sure who got the technical foul. They explained it to me that was on the bench. I have no idea what was said. I know there was no warning to me. To be honest with you, you really have to look at it and ask ‘at the time of that game, is that really what was needed’. I guess that would be my question. Could somebody just tell me, or tell the scorers table. Could you just stop whatever was going on because I know it didn't play a big role in the game up until that point. So with five minutes to go in the game guys are battling hard, both teams.
Very, very tough call and we're going to need some clarification on what was said specifically to him specifically because it looked to me like he came all the way across the floor as if somebody was talking directly at him. So we have to figure it out. It was a big play late in the game. It took away, they took away a little bit of the.. some of the vibe of the game.
I can't really explain the call. Didn't see it coming. Never talked to the guy all game long. Disappointing to be honest with you to get a technical foul with five minutes to go. I gotta do a better job, clearly, with our bench.
Q: On team's basketball IQ...
ARCHIE MILLER: We were smarter today. I think part of our problem here recently has been just not playing smart defensively, unnecessary fouling. We’ve dealt with a ton of foul trouble in our last three games, and I think we played smarter defensively. I really feel like our defense has kind of come back around here in the last three or four games. We're playing much harder, we're playing much more disciplined, but today I thought just in looking at it without the free throws at the end of the game, we did a pretty good job of playing smart and playing hard and trying to not give them just unnecessary free throws, or we got to dig into our bench all game long. Michigan State game was a much different game than this one just in terms of how the game was played and called, but I thought we were smarter defensively.
Offensively we need to get smarter. We need a higher IQ offensively in different times of the game to figure out how we can do certain things. Gotta keep teaching, but our guys I thought played a smarter game today. If you look at it we only had 12 turnovers, which isn't great, but it's not terrible.
The rebound margin was 37 to 24, but a big reason why that was is because we didn’t offensive rebound. Today we protected the paint. I just think that we were a lot better, just in terms of our personal fouls in the game, not the ones at the end.
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