Video, Quotes: De’Ron Davis, Juwan Morgan discuss offseason workouts

  • 07/11/2017 3:05 pm in

Indiana sophomore forward De’Ron Davis and junior forward Juwan Morgan met with the media on Tuesday afternoon at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.

The duo discussed offseason workouts and much more:

A full transcript is available below, via ASAP Sports:

Q. Your off-season regimen, how’s that going for you? Do you feel a little different when you’re on the court now?
DE’RON DAVIS: Yeah, it’s been going pretty good. It’s been up and down. Been a lot of struggles, but in the long run it’s helped my body. I feel good. I don’t have any injuries right now on the court it was my first time with team practice was yesterday. I feel really good on the court, I feel light and explosive, and I’m just ready for the regular season to start.

Q. What is the biggest change you’ve had to make, lifestyle or basketball-wise?
DE’RON DAVIS: Probably just eating habits. I’ve always been good on watching what I eat as far as healthy food, but just probably portions and really focused on getting my carbs from healthier foods.

Q. What do you weigh now?
DE’RON DAVIS: I’m at 251.

Q. Is that about where you want to be?
DE’RON DAVIS: My senior year in high school, I was 245, so I’m not trying to get that low. I think if I play around 247, 250, that would be a good weight.

Q. Are you still maintaining your strength?
DE’RON DAVIS: Yeah, and Coach Clif was telling me how hard it was for someone to lose a bunch of weight like I have and maintain strength or even build strength, so I’m doing good on losing the weight but still getting stronger at the same time.

Q. What have you seen from the change in De’Ron, do you think?
JUWAN MORGAN: I see a new found determination in De’Ron. Before he would always talk about it, and when he first got here last year it was always a confidence thing. Now he’s more confident. He sees the changes going on. We all see it, and we’re just going along with him and encouraging him as he’s going along.

A lot of us have made changes with him. I know myself, I probably eat bad three out of the seven days a week. Then I saw what De’Ron was doing with his body and said, why not? And just joined along with him.

Q. Can both you guys talk about maybe the impact Coach Marshall has had with you guys and the strength?
JUWAN MORGAN: I just think he’s done a great job with all of us, just finding all of our different, I guess, strengths and weaknesses and adjusting each lift and work out to what we need. I guess, because say a guy like Freddie who is already built as he is, I’m going to need to do probably a lot more actual work on my own than Freddie will. And he just finds the time to explain exactly what I need. Explain what it’s going to do for my body and things like that.

Q. Having had the team practice yesterday, how different is it than what you guys have been used to before Coach Miller got here?
JUWAN MORGAN: I just think having De’Ron and Freddie here this summer was the real big difference. We’re all healthy, we’re all ready to go, and I just think having the team as a whole, everybody holding accountability for each other, I just think that’s the big difference.

Q. What have you seen of the freshmen so far, and what impact have they made coming into this summer?
DE’RON DAVIS: I see a lot of athleticism within all our freshmen, and I feel like they’re all pretty versatile as well. I don’t feel like they have missed a step. Especially like me missing the summer and coming here late, they’ve been here the whole time, so they’ve been grinding with us all summer.

I feel like the biggest thing I see is the explosiveness out of all of them and the versatility.

Q. Losing 20-plus pounds, how are you moving on the court right now?
DE’RON DAVIS: It’s a lot. I’m able to get up and down the court faster. I’ve been working on my conditioning, trying to help me stay in games longer, play more minutes. It just makes me feel better. It takes away a lot of the injuries that I had last year. So me being 20 pounds lighter, those injuries — those little knickknack injuries, you don’t see too much.

Q. Do you think it helped fouling-wise?
DE’RON DAVIS: Yeah, I used to foul a lot when I got tired, I would try to get a breather. So me getting in better shape, me losing the weight, taking away some of those foul-prone injuries, you know.

Q. So the guys you came in with are gone. How different is that for you not having those guys here now?
JUWAN MORGAN: It’s a lot different, honestly, because even though both of them were clearly bigger than I was, I just always called them a little brother because I was always older and the more mature one out of the three of us.

I don’t know. It’s going to be a different feel, I guess, but at the same time we’re still in constant contact with each other. So just got to keep going, I guess.

Q. You guys both talked about the impact Coach Marshall’s had on you physically. But what’s it like working with him? What is different about his approach and what really makes him kind of have the effect he does on you guys?
DE’RON DAVIS: He’s a real laid-back dude in my opinion. He attacks everything. He goes by the Bible. I think he’s just a good hearted dude at heart. Everything with him is more, you know, how did he say it? He says, time under tension with him. So everything with him is really smooth and really collective.

Q. You mentioned physically the strides that you’ve made. But what have you guys done from a preparation in terms of being in a different leadership role and how has the mentality changed from last summer until now?
JUWAN MORGAN: I think me personally I just have to take more responsibility and not just sit back and try to help on the side. I think I have to take initiative and actually put myself out there more and show the guys how it’s supposed to be done, and make sure everybody knows exactly what it is and not just taking one at a time.

Q. For Juwan mostly, you addressed this earlier saying having all the guys healthy in these offseason workouts is bringing you all together. Given the fact that there is new leadership, how key will that be going forward into this off-season and into next season? The fact that everyone is here and healthy at this time?
JUWAN MORGAN: I think it just gives everybody a better feel for each other. Building that chemistry on the court, just playing in the open gym as well as being in practice, going at each other, it’s just being healthy gives you, I guess, another advantage over some teams that probably started a little later or teams that aren’t playing as much as you guys or as we are over the course of the week.

Q. Juwan, I know it’s early, but what is the biggest difference you’ve seen from this team from a year ago that the fans are going to notice right when they see you guys practicing?
JUWAN MORGAN: I feel like there won’t be any questions of leadership at all.

Q. Follow-up on the leadership, did somebody, upperclassmen, picking their brains on that specifically?
JUWAN MORGAN: Personally, I think I will most likely do that. But Collin is still right there. Rob, Josh has started speaking up more. I think everybody will take part in it.

Q. Did that come from the coaching staff asking that?
JUWAN MORGAN: That was something we decided upon ourselves because we realized missing Collin last year, like me and OG used to joke about it calling him the annoying guy you always hated hearing, but you knew he was right. I think that’s what we really missed last year.

Q. De’Ron, it is so early, but what is Coach Miller like on the court so far? What is his style like?
DE’RON DAVIS: Yeah, like you said, it’s early. But I feel like his style, he’s an energetic coach. He likes energy. He’s real keen on the details of the game.

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