Indiana men’s basketball showed a lot on Sunday.
The Hoosiers went up to Chicago and put on an impressive display in their first real test of the season. They racked up strong shooting numbers and fought through some challenges in a 100-77 win over Marquette at United Center.
Indiana (2-0) shot 14 for 28 from 3-point range as a team, the program’s most threes in a game since 2018. IU built up a big lead in the second quarter of the game going into halftime; and though Marquette (2-1) made a run in the second half to close the gap, Indiana answered back seamlessly.
“They’re just a really unselfish group. And that’s what leads to some of the scoring opportunities we get,” head coach Darian DeVries said after the game. “The guys really understand the game, they’re very willing passers and understand moments, like when Tucker (DeVries) has it going, they understand to keep finding him. Lamar (Wilkerson) has it going, we have guys that understand to keep finding him. And then the (other) guys contributed in different ways.”
Tucker DeVries and Wilkerson accounted for most of the 3-point damage, shooting a combined 12 for 19 from beyond the arc and racking up 50 points between the two of them.
IU did get other important contributions, like Tayton Conerway dishing eight assists, along with Sam Alexis and Trent Sisley reaching double-figure scoring off the bench. The Hoosiers needed every available rotation player Sunday to overcome their biggest obstacle in this game: fouls.
The Golden Eagles got into the bonus just over 4:30 into the game, and again less than six minutes into the second half. Indiana dealt with major foul trouble throughout the contest — four players had multiple fouls at halftime, and by the first media timeout of the second half, three Hoosiers had three fouls and one had four.
IU showed during some preseason action that fouling could be an issue — multiple players reached five fouls during the exhibition game against Baylor, but continued playing as the teams agreed to not enforce foul-outs in an exhibition game. Sunday’s foul-heavy game didn’t alleviate those concerns.
“We got a little handsy at times, and we gotta clean that up,” coach DeVries said. “We have to be physical with discipline, and that’s our No. 1 thing right now, is continue to get into the ball, continue to be aggressive, challenge ball handlers, challenge screeners. Just do it with a little less hand activity. So we can still be physical and not foul.”
Conor Enright was the lone Indiana player to foul out. But Conerway and Tucker DeVries both finished with four fouls, and Alexis and Reed Bailey finished with three each. Sisley was the only Hoosier to avoid multiple fouls by the end of the game.
IU still has four scholarship players injured, in Aleksa Ristic, Nick Dorn, Jason Drake, and Josh Harris. So DeVries didn’t have many other options on the bench as fouls piled up. The Hoosiers just had to adjust and play through foul trouble in the second half, while still protecting their lead.
And that’s exactly what they did. Indiana finished the game with 25 fouls, as a team, but only Enright fouled out. It was a balancing act for the Hoosiers to keep most of the team on the court by the end of the contest. They might not be able to get away with it in other games down the road.
But on Sunday, Indiana pulled it off, while playing some otherwise strong basketball. IU scored 1.37 points per possession against a high major team, and allowed just 1.027 PPP to Marquette.
This was only game two, and the Hoosiers have more challenging opponents on the schedule later in the season. And, clearly, this team still has some things to clean up. But early returns are positive for this new-look IU team.
“I think we have a very resilient group. We have a lot of guys that played a lot of basketball. So it’s a veteran group, for the most part. And then we have some younger guys that are sprinkled in there as well,” DeVries said. “I like the approach this team takes every day. I like the way they all in tune to a scouting report and how they prioritize that. Because all those little different areas and buckets are what eventually lead to you winning and losing. And I think our guys do a good job of kind of taking it all in and making it a priority.”
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