Archie Miller walked back toward his stool on the sideline with his palms to the sky, shaking his head. Freshman forward Jordan Geronimo slipped while rushing up court as University of Texas guard Brock Cunningham swiped the ball from behind. Cunningham didn’t even have to take a dribble as he looked up to find Matt Coleman III near the right corner who drained the open 3-pointer.
“Texas a little bit stunned our guys in the first four to five minutes of the game,” Miller said. “They imposed early on how physical and tough they were going to play and I thought it played a roll and knocked us on our heels. Defensively they are very good with great length, and honestly they did a great job making things difficult.”
Coming into the Maui Invitational, IU head coach Archie Miller said his biggest concerns were the team’s shooting, limiting turnovers and rebounding. In the Hoosiers’ 66-44 loss to the No. 17 Longhorns, all of those were areas of weakness.
From the opening tip, IU’s offense was disjointed while the team made mistake after mistake, never falling into the same type of rhythm seen the day before against Providence College.
The Hoosiers rely on their forwards to provide a large portion of the offense, but sophomore Trayce Jackson-Davis and junior Race Thompson struggled to have any success near the rim against Texas’ size and strength. Both forwards combined for just eight points on two of eight shooting, six rebounds and committed six turnovers in the first half.
Jackson-Davis after the game said he was rushing some of his shots and was disappointed he missed some easy ones he’s expected to make.
“I think he’s trying to get fouled rather than just playing and scoring,” Miller said. “The easy ones, the ones you gotta be able to count on when you’re struggling are the ones you need to get.”
The rest of the offense wasn’t much help while IU made just one bucket in the final 8:40 of the first half and mustered just 19 points, the second-lowest amount since Miller arrived in 2017.
The Hoosiers had nearly double the number of turnovers compared to made shots with nine and five, respectively. IU finished the game with 14 turnovers and only 11 made field goals.
“We didn’t execute our offense,” Jackson-Davis said. “That wasn’t our offense that you saw today. We were really soft with the ball, so we need to be stronger with the ball and set screens hard. We let their pressure get to us.”
After a strong start to the second half, IU was able to shrink the deficit to 11 points with just under 17 minutes remaining on a 3-pointer from the top of the arc by sophomore Armaan Franklin, the team's first of the game. However, Texas put the game out of reach after going on a 14-4 run in which IU made just one field goal in almost 10 minutes.
The Hoosiers finished with the lowest total points and field goal percentage (23.9%) for the team in the past 10 seasons.
“Our offense in general got taken off its rails today,” Miller said. “Yesterday we had a good push, we had good execution, and I think Texas amped up their level today and took things away from us. For the first time all year, we’re having to learn on the fly. We have to get this thing under control offensively, we have to execute better, we have to have better pace, better control and better movement […] just the overall pop we didn’t have it today.”
