Seniors Collin Hartman, Robert Johnson provide Archie Miller with foundation to build on

Zach Osterman | IndyStar

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BLOOMINGTON – Five seniors will grace Archie Miller’s roster in his first season in charge of men's basketball at Indiana.

Among them, the two most important might be the two that came closest to leaving, albeit for different reasons.

Collin Hartman and Robert Johnson, the two most experienced players on Miller’s roster — at least in terms of time spent in an IU jersey — have both elected to see out one final season in Bloomington, Hartman taking a fifth year and Johnson withdrawing from the NBA draft. They represent perhaps Miller’s two biggest immediate boosts in his first months on the job.

Hartman is returning from the knee injury that cost him what would have been his senior season, an injury that left the Hoosiers sorely lacking his leadership through a rocky 2016-17 campaign.

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Now, he’s building slowly back to full health, electing to spend the entire summer in Bloomington to recover and work out.

“Right now, we’re easing him through things,” Miller said Wednesday. “He’s doing well.”

Archie Miller speaks at Huber Farms event IU coach Archie Miller talks about his first summer in charge during public appearance at Huber Winery.

Miller and his staff, including Clif Marshall, IU’s new director of athletic performance, are being cautious with Hartman, who has suffered two major knee injuries during his college career. When healthy, he has appeared in 83 games for Indiana, including 36 starts. Hartman has averaged 40 percent from behind the 3-point line for his career.

Miller has already seen the old Hartman — the one so dangerous behind the arc and so valuable in the locker room — start to shine through.

“I think the great thing about him, and it’s what everybody told me about him, the confidence he can give a locker room,” Miller said. “In the weight room, in the locker room, he’s got a great vibe about him as a competitor. We’re excited for him right now.

“Again, we’ll take him slow though. I don’t think he’s gonna be running up and down playing pick-up or anything like that. But he’s on a great path to being where we need him to be, when we need him to be ready.”

It wasn’t injury, but rather the draft, that kept Johnson in limbo through much of the spring.

One of four Hoosiers to declare early without signing an agent (thereby leaving the door open for a return to college), Johnson officially announced his intention to return on May 22, just two days before the deadline.

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Johnson wanted the same thing out of the pre-draft process so many underclassmen who declare under the new, non-binding rule do.

“He wanted the feedback, wanted information from people to see what he needed to do to improve,” Miller said. “I think that was his whole plan. That’s what’s great about the rule. Certain guys really take advantage of it. He did.”

Indiana’s leading returning scorer, Johnson is on pace to break 100 career starts and 1,000 career points in his final college season.

Now a senior on a team that lost three underclassmen to the draft, Johnson has never faced a bigger role than the one he’ll have to fill this season.

In addition to the 12.8 points per game he averaged as a junior, Johnson was also Indiana’s second-leading assist man in 2016-17. Miller is challenging his all-action senior guard to be more vocal in his final college season.

As with Hartman, Johnson has elected to stay in Bloomington for the bulk of the summer. And as with Hartman, that decision is already paying off, according to his coach.

• PODCAST: Archie Miller's ongoing IU education

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“To watch him through about a four-week summer period, he’s setting himself up to do what he wants to do, which is have a great senior campaign for us,” Miller said. “We’re excited for Rob.

“He’s been great to work with, and I think he’s gonna be an important deal as we move into the rest of the summer, as the guys look to somebody to see how we’re doing things, or how it’s been going since they’ve been gone. He’s giving us a great blueprint.”

Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.