Indiana beat Tennessee Tech 90-66 on Thursday night to move to 4-0. The Hoosiers eventually pulled away, but a team favored by 25.5 points had no business needing 20 minutes to find its footing against a 2-1 Southern Conference opponent.
For the first 20 minutes, the Hoosiers played down to a Golden Eagles team that arrived at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall at 2-1 and fired 3-pointers like it had nothing to lose. Indiana led 41-37 at halftime, a margin that felt more like a warning than a cushion. Ultimately, the Hoosiers won comfortably, but the night raised questions ahead of a brutal stretch against Arkansas and Kentucky.
A Fast Start, Then a Long Drift
Indiana opened the way the oddsmakers expected. Samet Yigitoglu scored the game’s first six points on a layup, a dunk and a hook shot, and the Hoosiers led 6-0 before Tennessee Tech knocked down a shot.
Then the energy leaked out. Yigitoglu was forced to leave the game after contact to his face resulted in an open gash. With Yigitoglu off the court, Caleb Sanders’ 3-pointer put Tennessee Tech up 13-12 with 12:10 left in the first half. Caleb Hollenbeck’s 3 tied the game at 20, and a Davante Hackett free throw gave the Golden Eagles their last lead of the night, 23-22, with 8:14 to play before the break. Indiana answered at the line, not with stops.
That was the theme of the half. The Hoosiers shot 11-of-27 from the field and 3-of-11 from deep, and they needed 16 free-throw makes to stay ahead. Aiden Sherrell hit all six of his attempts, and Bryce Lindsay went 4-for-4. Indiana got to the line, which was one of its keys to the game. It just couldn’t capitalize on every trip. The Golden Eagles also won the first-half rebounding battle, 21-18, with six offensive boards. That was a surprise for a Tennessee Tech team the scouting report labeled poor on the glass.
DeVries didn’t see the first half as a defensive failure, just a tough opponent making life harder on Indiana.
“I even thought we were pretty good in the first half,” he said. “I thought we forced a lot of really tough shots.” The glass was the problem in his eyes. “Offensive rebounding for them was the big setback.”
The Second-Half Separation
Indiana looked like the favorite after the break. Markus Burton’s driving layup opened the half, and Samet Yigitoglu followed with a layup and a dunk to push the lead to 48-40. Tennessee Tech hung on until Ty Owens’ second-chance bucket made it 57-46 with 14:27 left. That was the closest the Golden Eagles would get.
What happened next defined the rest of the game. Over the next five minutes, Tennessee Tech did not make a field goal, and Indiana ran off 10 straight points. Sam Alexis scored on a drive, Bryce Lindsay buried a 3 off a Burton pass, and Trevor Manhertz and Trent Sisley finished inside. The Golden Eagles’ best player came apart during the stretch. Caleb Sanders, who finished with 16 points, committed three turnovers in under a minute: a bad pass, a three-second violation and an offensive foul. By the time Mekhi Turner ended the drought at 9:18, it was 67-46.
The adjustment that opened things up was about structure. DeVries said the Hoosiers got too stagnant early trying to pound the ball inside, then overcorrected against a team that thrives on chaos.
“I think we almost went too far overboard and made it too structured, and we let them really load up on us,” he said. “Once it got free-flowing a little bit, the game opened up on our end.” Lindsay was a big part of that. “I thought he got some pretty good ones there in the second half and kind of broke it open,” DeVries said.
From there, Indiana did what a 25.5-point favorite is supposed to do. Burton scored from the line and the rim, and Yigitoglu closed his night with a layup and a dunk to make it 80-52. The lead peaked at 29 on a Burton layup with 1:56 left. The Hoosiers finished the half 18-of-27 from the field after going 11-of-27 before it, and they scored 49 points to Tennessee Tech’s 29.
Why it Still Wasn’t Sharp Enough
Indiana missed the point spread by a point and a half. Where the other points went are things the Hoosiers need to work on before next week.
Start at the free throw line. The Hoosiers made 26 of 36 free throws, and the 10 misses came in bunches. Jaeden Mustaf was 7-of-10, Yigitoglu was 0-for-3, and the team shot 72 percent, down from a 77 percent season average. Those were the easiest points on the floor, and ten of them stayed there.
“We’ve been winning the margins with free throws,” DeVries said. “We’re getting to the free throw line.”
Then there was the glass. Indiana out-rebounded Tennessee Tech 41-35, which is what DeVries built this roster to do, but the Golden Eagles missed 46 shots and grabbed 16. Those extra possessions turned into 14 second-chance points, and the same flaw that showed up in the first half returned after the break. DeVries said the Hoosiers have been good at rebounding all season, and he was disappointed in tonight’s effort. Sherrell agreed.
“It was lackluster before, and then we came together and picked it up in the second half,” he said.
Even Indiana’s best stretches had leaks. The Hoosiers forced 15 turnovers and scored only 12 points off them, while their own 14 giveaways handed Tennessee Tech 11. For a team with this much of an edge, that margin should have been wider. DeVries pointed to the Tennessee Tech press as a consistent thorn in the Hoosiers’ side throughout the night.
“This is one of those games where you don’t sleep as good at night because you’re preparing for 40 minutes of press,” he said. “You’re going to have to break the press every single time.”
Indiana’s defense held a team that came in averaging 100.7 points to 66. Tennessee Tech took only 31 threes, well below its usual 39, and made just nine. Sanders, the Golden Eagles’ leading scorer, gave away eight possessions.
Indiana got the win it was supposed to get. It just took a half to get there, and a point and a half short of the number it was supposed to hit.
What’s Next
Indiana is 4-0, and Thursday’s win goes in the books like any other. But the schedule doesn’t get kinder. The Hoosiers face Arkansas in New York City next week, then Kentucky in Indianapolis. Against either, a 20-minute warm-up won’t be survivable.
