BLOOMINGTON — Indiana men’s basketball handled business smoothly in its first exhibition game of the 2025-26 season.
The Hoosiers cruised past Marian for a 107-46 victory on Friday at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall. This was Darian DeVries’ first time taking the court in Bloomington as head coach, and his team showed a lot of potential.
As always, an exhibition game should be digested with a grain of salt — IU has obvious advantages over Marian that will always make statistics and scores look lopsided.
That said, here are three main takeaways from Indiana’s exhibition win.
Ball movement looking good
Indiana is be a new team with a lot of pieces playing together for the first time. But it didn’t look like that on Friday.
The Hoosiers displayed coherent team basketball for most of the night, particularly in the first half, when they mainly utilized players who will start or play real roles this season. They finished with 27 assists on the night, on 39 made field goals, with 10 turnovers. At halftime, IU had 17 assists on 24 made field goals, with just three turnovers.
DeVries suggested this wasn’t a fluke — this is how his team has looked in practice as well.
“The other day in practice, we had 31 assists and three turnovers. I’ve never had that. That’s in 5-on-5 play. But I’ve never had that as a coach,” DeVries said after the game. “These guys really understand how to play. We talk about playing off of two feet, making sure that you can still be aggressive, but let’s make the right plays at the end of the night. I like how these guys have really adapted to the way we want them to play offense.”
Tucker DeVries led the way with six assists and one turnover on Friday. Conor Enright and Tayton Conerway each dished four, and Trent Sisley posted three. Again, individual stats like that should be taken with a grain of salt in an exhibition game. But it’s a promising sign for the Hoosiers to have this level of ball movement from several different sources.
Tucker DeVries is an alpha
If there was any doubt who will likely be driving the bus for the Hoosiers this season, that was removed within the game’s first few minutes on Friday.
Tucker DeVries is the most accomplished player on this roster, and the biggest known quantity IU has. And he showed why, very quickly, in this exhibition game. The redshirt senior scored Indiana’s first nine points, on 3-for-4 shooting, with two made free throws.
“It’s great to have a guy like Tucker. He’s been playing in this offense for a long time. He’s the guy,” forward Sam Alexis said after the game. “He’s a great leader on and off the court.”
DeVries tied Sisley with a team-high 23 points on the night, while shooting 7 for 9 from the field and 5 for 7 from 3-point range. He scored all his points by halftime — he played just six minutes in the second half, as coach DeVries gave his reserves and walk-ons more action after halftime. The redshirt senior, along with the aforementioned assists, added five rebounds and two steals.
The numbers from this exhibition game don’t mean anything in the big picture. But DeVries’ performance gave fans a taste of what he’ll bring to the Hoosiers this season. He’ll be the guy they look to in big moments, when they need a spark.
“One of his better qualities, I think, is just his feel and his IQ and his ability to kind of play off defenses,” coach DeVries said. “We rely on a lot with some of his play making as well, coming off of ball screens and things. And also being able to utilize him on the move.”
Defensive intensity
Indiana held an open practice for the media over the summer, ahead of the Puerto Rico trip, and again in late September as official practices began. One of the biggest things that stood out from both sessions was the high energy the team practiced with, and particularly, how much intensity the group defended with.
But it’s one thing to observe that in practice, when the team is going against itself. The Hoosiers showed that same tenacity in game mode on Friday. They hold obvious advantages over Marian in terms of size and talent, so statistics don’t tell the whole story.
IU flies around the court defensively, in an organized, yet chaotic manner. The team is very aggressive on defense, which puts opponents in uncomfortable positions and can force mistakes.
The ferocity can sometimes be a fault, though. There were a few times where players overcommitted on pump fakes and gave up easy looks as a result. That sort of thing could be exploitable if it becomes a long-term trend, but it’s something that should be easily correctable early in the season. And DeVries noted that the mentality of players in exhibition games could cause mistakes like those.
“Sometimes you can get a little bit too aggressive when you have the ability to go out and make plays and stuff. We wanted our defense to stay sound behind the ball. So get into the ball, make sure we’re good behind it, that we’re giving our guys protection, like we work on, and not get away from all our principles and things,” DeVries said. “A lot of that came from being in Puerto Rico. We learned a lot (from) some of the mistakes we made defensively when we were there. And we were able to really clean a lot of that stuff up because of that opportunity.”
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