Author: Evan Orris

Trayce Jackson-Davis had just seven touches and scored just 11 points on Tuesday against Jackson State. That was not going to fly for head coach Mike Woodson and the Hoosiers against Marshall. “Yeah, when I look at the stat sheet and see that he only got seven shots tonight, he’s got to get more than that. So that’s on me,” Woodson said after the win on Tuesday. Just five minutes into Friday night’s game the preseason First-Team All-American surpassed those totals and then took it further.  Much further. By the time the Hoosiers escaped with a 90-79 win– after trailing…

Mike Woodson saw many defensive schemes in his 22 years of coaching in the NBA, but rarely a zone. “I don’t see a lot of the zones in the NBA, so this is new for me and I’m just kind of navigating my way through,” said the first-year college coach on Tuesday night after Jackson State threw a zone his way. The Hoosiers started the game facing man-to-man defense in the 70-35 win over Jackson St.  However, as Indiana started to find their rhythm offensively, the Tigers switched to a zone variant Woodson referred to as a 1-2-2 matchup. The…

The game was never in question as the Hoosiers cruised to a 70-35 win over Jackson St., but it wasn’t all peaches and cream for the Hoosiers either. On Sunday, they held a Louisiana team, with high expectations in the Sun Belt conference, to 19.2 percent from the field, which marked the lowest opponent percentage since at least 1996-97.  For a while it looked like Jackson State would go even lower. With about five minutes to play, Jackson St. was on pace to end the game with a 16.7 field goal percentage. However, they went on a 9-0 run and…

Louisiana scored four early points against the Indiana’s aggressive defense, and then they went cold. Ice cold. A stingy defense — that has quickly become the identity of Mike Woodson’s team — held the Ragin’ Cajuns to just 14-of-73 shooting in the 76-44 win, good for 19.2 percent. This marked the lowest field goal percentage allowed by IU at least since the 1996-97 season.  The previous low during that span was nearly a full five percentage points higher when IU held Rutgers to 24.1 percent in 2018. “Well, again, I got to give the players all the credit,” Woodson said…

It hasn’t totally clicked yet for Miller Kopp three games into his Hoosier career, but there were signs on Wednesday night against St. John’s. The Northwestern transfer was set to offer IU a sharpshooter who can nail three-pointers at will, but with a 25 percent start from deep, that has not yet fully come to fruition. But Kopp has been around long enough to know better than to dwell on the highs or the lows.  And irrespective of whether he is 0-for-4 over his first two games, or 2-for-4 in the third, he plans to keep true to his “shooters…

Khristian Lander has spent the majority of this young season buried on the end of the bench. Jordan Geronimo, although he had played in 33 total minutes, could only watch helplessly as he was expelled to the bench in favor of the experience of Race Thompson, and the dominance of Trayce Jackson-Davis. Tamar Bates has played meaningful minutes this year but has struggled to find his rhythm offensively like any freshman. Through the first two games, the four-star recruit only had nine points on 2-for-8 shooting. However, when the Hoosiers hit a wall offensively, the three came in at various…

It gets real on Wednesday night. And real means stopping a player, and an offense, off to hot starts. Through two games, St. John’s wing Julian Champagnie has scored 42 combined points while leading the team to a 2-0 record. Last season Champagnie was selected to the first-team All-Big East and led the conference in scoring with 19.8 points per game. The 6’8,” lengthy guard/forward has quickly become one of the most lethal scorers in the country. Behind him is a supporting cast that has four other players averaging double digits this season. The Red Storm’s offense ranks first in…

Trayce Jackson-Davis played Batman in the 85-49 win over Northern Illinois on Friday. Race Thompson played Robin. Together the duo has quickly become one of the most feared frontcourts in the Big Ten and have provided an elite interior defense for the Hoosiers. The two combined for eight blocks but it was Jackson-Davis doing the brunt of the work. The Greenwood, Ind. native flew, soared, and leaped to deny defenders seven times. Including a violent meeting at the rim when a bold Keshawn Williams attempted to poster the IU big man. Jackson-Davis shook his head at Williams indicating that Williams…

Normally when freshmen step onto campus, they are timid and unsure of themselves. Don’t count Indiana guard Tamar Bates in that category. His teammates certainly don’t. “Tamar Bates’ confidence, I noticed it the first day he stepped on campus. He’s one of the most confident kids that I have been around,” senior forward Race Thompson said of Bates on a Zoom conference with the media on Thursday. That confidence was on display early in the first half of the season opener Tuesday against Eastern Michigan. Moments after checking into his first college game, Bates quickly fired a pull-up three-pointer from…

Indiana’s defense is ahead of its offense. It is something Mike Woodson has been saying for months to anyone who would listen. As he expected, that IU defense led Woodson’s team to a 68-62 season-opening win over Eastern Michigan in Bloomington on Tuesday night, his first win as the Hoosiers’ head coach. Probably not even Woodson thought the defense would be as strong as it was in the first half at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall. The Hoosiers held Eastern Michigan to just 22.6 percent shooting from the field before the break and just seven field goals to go with eight…