Indiana men’s basketball’s summer trip to Peru went as expected in some ways, but didn’t in others.
The Hoosiers participated in the FISU America Games in Lima, Peru and captured the gold medal on Monday. They were rarely, if at all, seriously challenged by opposition in the tournament. Monday’s 43-point victory for the championship was IU’s closest game of the tournament. Even without SMU transfer center Samet Yigitoglu available, that level of dominance was expected against countries with far less infrastructure for college basketball.
Highlights and additional stats from IU basketball’s FISU America title game win
But Indiana expected to have six games in Peru — three in the group stage of the tournament, with three knockout games. But a team withdrew from the field late, leaving IU with only four games. That allowed the program to do more non-basketball activities and sightseeing. Head coach Darian DeVries enjoyed that, but the trip wasn’t as basketball-centric as he’d envisioned going in.
“It did allow us to do a lot more things, you know, outside, outside of the basketball. got to do a little bit more exploring. So that was fun,” DeVries said. “One of the things I know we learned was the traffic laws here are optional, so that was… We spent a lot of time on the bus in traffic jams, I think.”
Still, the Hoosiers have plenty of positives to take away from Peru.
Even with two fewer games than anticipated, this was still a lot more game action than most other teams across the NCAA will get this summer. It’s difficult to know just how much that will help the team this fall, but it certainly can’t hurt. Indiana had some defensive miscues throughout these games, but this was a good opportunity to continue working out kinks against other teams as this group learns to play together.
Additionally, the freshman class of Vaughn Karvala, Prince-Alexander Moody, and Trevor Manhertz all showed good things — a big positive going forward, for both short-term and long-term outlooks.
Thoughts on IU basketball’s underclassmen after watching five games and three practices
“I loved how hard our guys played all week. I thought that we got a lot out of that. I thought our transition game was really good. I liked how we got out of the blocks, so to speak. And then I loved our offensive rebounding,” DeVries said. “I thought we had a very clear mindset. I thought there was great carryover from practices, and (focus on) what we’ve emphasized, and taking that to the game floor.”
Both the players and coaches will go into an extended break upon return to the U.S., until the fall semester starts in August. Official practices can resume in late September, with several exhibition games on deck in October.
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