Indiana Basketball: Hoosiers ‘in my book, in the tournament’ says Archie Miller

Archie Miller addressed the sudden end of the season and what it means for the Indiana basketball program and the senior duo.

Everyone said before the season that 20 wins would be enough to get Indiana basketball into the NCAA Tournament. It would be the first tournament appearance for Archie Miller in Bloomington and would be the first for the Hoosiers’ senior duo.

Now, here we are with a 20-win Indiana squad that will never know the potential of this year’s team.

After taking down Nebraska in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament on Wednesday, players didn’t even know that would be the last game of the season.

Devonte Green and De’Ron Davis, two seniors that endured a lot throughout their career, became the first senior class since 1972 to have never made a trip to the NCAA Tournament. But, they did enough to get there.

Archie Miller talked to Jeff Goodman on his Good ‘N Plenty podcast following the shakeup in the college basketball world.

"“It’s heartbreaking for your kids, because they’ll do anything that they can to be successful,” Miller said. “As a player you want the opportunity to realize everything that you’ve sacrificed was for the good….I told those two guys [Devonte Green and De’Ron Davis], look, in my book, we’re in the tournament, and you made it…. I think the ‘what-ifs’ will be talked about for the next 30 to 40 years.”"

The Hoosiers have continued to take the necessary steps forward under Archie Miller and in his third year, they were destined for the NCAA Tournament. While finishing just 11th in the Big Ten, they were a streaky team that nobody would want to face in a win-or-go-home game.

Indiana now just has the ‘what-ifs’ to hold on to moving forward. It was a season with a lot of ups-and-downs, but the program proved to be taking the next step and could have been just two or three games away from a program altering run in the NCAA Tournament.

As Archie Miller said, ‘One win, one run in the tournament. It changes things,’ and that one run will have to wait another year for the Hoosiers.