North Florida transfer guard Jasai Miles announced his commitment to Indiana on Wednesday evening.
Miles, who averaged 15.4 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.9 assists last season for the Ospreys, has two seasons of eligibility remaining.
Inside the Hall spoke with Miles about his decision to transfer to Indiana, what to expect from his game, the style of play next season in Bloomington and much more.
Our full Q & A with Miles is available below:
On why Indiana was the right choice for him:
“It just felt right. As soon as I got there and heard what coach (Darian DeVries) was saying and coach’s plan. And just seeing the campus and the facilities, along with a few other factors, I just knew this was the spot that I wanted to be and that it would be the best situation for me going forward. And I’m excited to get back to campus and start working.”
On coach DeVries and his plan to utilize him:
“Coach just sees a lot of areas in his offense that he thinks I’ll be successful in. With my shooting abilities and also just rebounding. He wants me to keep working and developing just to become better at those things. He thinks I can be a really key piece in the offense for this team. Just overall, coach just had a really calm demeanor about him and I just really liked the energy I got from him. It felt all genuine. I’m excited.”
On his strengths and weaknesses of his game:
“I’m a great rebounder and a good shooter. I’m still going to improve my shooting percentage even more. Just work on mechanics and work on getting my percentage and efficiency higher. I’m great getting downhill to my right to the basket and I’m just going to keep growing that strength and confidence with my left hand. Just overall, I’m going to play hard every play and bring intensity and energy and make winning plays.”
On the process of choosing a school after entering the transfer portal:
“I really worked with a great group of coaches and group of guys that just helped me throughout the process. Schools would reach out and I kind of would direct them towards my coaches and my coaches knew the type of situation I was looking for. So they basically would talk to the schools and say, ‘this works or this doesn’t’ or ‘this might be an option or this isn’t’ and based off of that, we narrowed it down to situations that all were good situations and then I did one visit to GW and Indiana was my second visit. And then I had a couple of others after if I didn’t commit on the spot. But since we had narrowed it down so well, that made it easier in terms of I didn’t have to take a bunch of visits before I knew where I wanted to be because I was presented with a whole bunch of great opportunities.”
On the style of play to expect at Indiana:
“One of the main things coach talked about was sharing the ball. Getting a bunch of guys that could play together. That’s what he’s trying to do in this portal is get a team that can play together. We’ll share the ball but also let us play because we also have talents and he wants us to play our games and not be robots. He wants us to play in the flow on offense, shoot 3s and be playmakers and bring that energy and intensity on defense and shut people down. Have the balance on both ends of the court is what he said.”
On if he felt overlooked out of high school and whether that’s driven him to get to this point:
“No, I think everything happens for a reason. You’re going to be where you’re supposed to be. And I’m just running my own race. I don’t really care too much about what people say, what they think. I’m just going to keep getting better and doing me and see where that takes me. I’m just running my own race and I’m excited to show the world what I can do on the next level.”
Category: Recruiting
Filed to: Jasai Miles
