NEW YORK – It seemed inevitable John Miller would be needed on the scene to console his son Thursday. Like the good father he is, that’s exactly where he was. Only it wasn’t the son everyone else expected, and the setback wasn’t as devastating as feared.
Certainly Indiana coach Archie Miller wanted his Hoosiers to win Thursday night and advance to the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Tournament. Their failure to do that was one more disappointment in a season with more than fans would prefer, and one or two of them voiced their possibly drunken hostility toward Miller — and then injured center DeRon Davis — as the team walked toward the locker room following IU’s 76-69 loss to Rutgers.
This defeat, though, will not deter Miller from restoring Indiana to championship contention in the conference. Even ending on a three-game losing streak did not disguise that the Hoosiers had made the progress he wanted in playing and committing to the necessary defensive intensity. He just needs better Hoosiers.
Hille: Is the Mountain West wooing basketball heavyweight Gonzaga?
But how much better for the family was this day given the events in Tucson, where his big brother, Sean, announced he would return to coaching the Arizona Wildcats and proclaimed the ESPN report that claimed he’d discussed a $100,000 payment to secure star Deandre Ayton’s commitment was “inaccurate, false and defamatory?”
Following that news, Sean did not coach the Wildcats in their road game against Oregon, and then he reportedly did not lead them through practices during this week. With the Arizona board of regents meeting Wednesday to discuss his situation, it seemed possible he might be placed on leave or dismissed. Instead, the board and university president Robert C. Robbins listened when he insisted, “I have never paid a recruit or prospect or their family or representative to come to Arizona, and I never will.”
And Sean kept his job as Wildcats coach.
“The big thing with us has been, since some things have broken – but it’s always been this way all year – we’ve really communicated as a family and tried to stay in the moment with his kids and my mom and dad, our family,” Archie told Sporting News. “Just being there for him with conversation.
“I think the big thing that’s really been brought to fruition, you’ve got to be there for each other. It’s really not about basketball.”
Sean has not talked regularly to many outside his family circle since the pubic became aware of problems in the Arizona basketball program with the announcement that assistant coach Book Richardson had been arrested as part of the Justice Department probe into corruption in basketball.
It no doubtedly has helped him to have a couple of coaches in the family to lean on. John was a legendary high school coach in Western Pennsylvania prior to his retirement in 2005. Archie is in his first full year as IU’s head coach after leading Dayton to four consecutive NCAA Tournaments.
Bender: 16 most hated college basketball players of all time
It was a difficult week for all of them after the ESPN report was released, and more so when some in the media reacted by declaring that Sean’s career, or at least his time at Arizona, was finished.
“I think anybody would be shocked and impacted. You’re not expecting something like that,” Archie told SN. “And then moving forward, watching the reaction – you have to rally a little bit. And that’s what the focus was.”
Archie’s Indiana team finished 16-15. Following a sizzling start that threatened to make this the first runaway of the 2018 Big Ten Tournament, the Hoosiers struggled to possess the ball against Rutgers’ solid defense and let slip a lead that once stood at 24-8. They committed five turnovers in the final seven minutes and were outscored 21-4 going into the break.
They never were able to recover the rhythm they used to control the first dozen minutes. And Rutgers did an excellent job forbidding Indiana from getting the ball to star forward Juwan Morgan, who wound up with only nine field goal attempts and 15 points.
“I thought just the tougher team won tonight. And at this time of year you don't expect to have that happen,” Miller said. “But we just didn't get the job done in enough areas and we didn't respond like we have been responding when we needed to.”
When it was over, as Archie was on the other side of Madison Square Garden talking through that final press conference, John was in the Indiana locker room checking his phone for updates on Arizona’s game against Stanford.
“We’ve got to win this one,” John said.
Arizona did. Sean did. It was no shocker, though.
