It was clear in the summer Indiana’s lack of frontcourt size would present challenges.
From rim protection to rebounding, IU basketball coach Darian DeVries was candid from the beginning about that.
Like any coach, DeVries looked to scheme his way out of trouble. If he could avoid dribble penetration in the paint, perhaps the lack of rim protection could be masked. And if he could teach his players to be more physical and send all five to the glass, perhaps he could limit opposing offensive rebounds.
But the results have been inconsistent at best.
IU ranks No. 10 among Big Ten teams in conference games, allowing offensive rebounds on 31.1% of opponent misses. And the Hoosiers have a block rate of just 7.4%, which ranks No. 14 among league teams.
Those are two clear signals a lack of size is hurting this Indiana team. And that’s something DeVries says he knows has to change when the roster is rebuilt this spring.
“The biggest thing we took from this year and even when looking back to last year is the bigs at the four and five spots,” DeVries told Don Fischer on their Inside Indiana Basketball radio show. “The size and the girth here (in the Big Ten), and the physicality is a lot different. As you go into year two, you’ve learned from going through the league in one year, and how everybody plays and their different styles, that’s been the number one thing where we’ve got to build depth is on that interior at the four and five spots.”
At 6-foot-10, 6-foot-9 and 6-foot-7, Reed Bailey, Sam Alexis and Tucker DeVries don’t sound like an unusually small frontcourt, but until Saturday evening in Columbus, the trio had rarely played together. When asked in the past about the concept of playing all three at the same time, DeVries expressed reluctance about potential foul trouble due to his lack of depth.
Instead, DeVries has rotated Bailey and Alexis at the five, and played his son at the four. He acknowledges that at least for Bailey and Tucker, that has meant to key pieces playing out of their natural position all season.
“Over the course of a season when you don’t have as much depth as you’d like, Sam and Reed and Tucker for the most part have played the bulk of those 80 minutes (at the four and five spots),” DeVries said.
“As the season’s gone on, the wear and tear, and Reed having to play out of position having to go from the four to the five, Tucker having to go from the three to the four and wrestling those guys down there. They’ve battled, but we just didn’t have enough depth in there throughout the course of the season. But they’ve certainly given all they have for us as they’ve done that.”
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