INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana men’s basketball faced a stiff preseason test.
The Hoosiers took on Baylor in an exhibition game on Sunday at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, and this contest wasn’t easy for them. They had to overcome some challenges and hold their nerves in a close late-game situation. And IU came out on the right side, in a 76-74 win.
Indiana is back in action on Wednesday, Nov. 5 to open the regular season at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall against Alabama A&M.
Here are two takeaways from the exhibition victory.
Late-game experience could be valuable
Indiana kept its offense pretty vanilla and didn’t run most of the sets the team will use in the regular season. And for this exhibition game, the teams agreed to overlook fouls — both Tayton Conerway and Lamar Wilkerson reached five fouls and continued playing, as did two Baylor players.
So this wasn’t an exact replica of how the Hoosiers would handle late-game drama. Head coach Darian DeVries said he normally would’ve called a timeout during Baylor’s 15-4 run to regain the lead in the second half, but he wanted to see how his players would respond in this setting.
“I thought they did a nice job of that,” DeVries said after the game. “We kind of let them just kind of play and play off of one another. So I thought they did a good job there of finding ways to go make plays and execute when they needed to.”
In the last two minutes, Indiana outscored Baylor 8-4. The Hoosiers, in that stretch, shot 2 for 2 from the field — a Tucker DeVries pull-up jumper, and a Conerway layup with eight seconds left that won the game. They also went 4 for 5 at the foul line. Meanwhile, the Bears shot 1 for 5 from the field in the last two minutes, as IU forced them into some tough looks.
Conerway came up clutch with his winning points. Baylor had just tied the game at the foul line, and the guard let the ensuing in-bounds pass bounce up near the halfcourt line before picking it up. He didn’t waste any time once he did that. Conerway went right at the basket, stopped, and put up a reverse layup that went down, nd he drew a foul. The Hoosiers stopped Baylor on the last possession.
“What a great learning opportunity for us to have this, have the game come down to the wire,” DeVries said. “I thought it was really good for us. We don’t play for a while, so got some great tape to go look at.”
Adjustments proved key
Indiana had some trouble in the first half in a lot of areas. DeVries has lauded his team’s 3-point shooting ability as one of its biggest strengths, and getting good 3-point looks is one of its main offensive objectives. But the Hoosiers needed more than 11 minutes of game time on Sunday to make their first triple, and they finished the first half 2 for 10 from 3-point range.
Some of that, as referenced earlier, can be attributed to IU keeping its offensive action vanilla. That contributed to the slower offensive start, as it led to the team taking some time to get into a rhythm. IU trailed by 13 points multiple times in the first half. But the Hoosiers adjusted and responded.
“They had to learn how — against people taking some of our stuff away, how do we score? And I thought they made some good adjustments as that game went on with that,” DeVries said. “I thought a huge part of the game today was, we were down 13 with about seven minutes to go in the first half, and the game can go a lot of different ways right before halftime. I challenged the guys in a timeout of, ‘Don’t let this get to 20. This can’t be what we just do all the time.’ I thought they did a really good job of fighting back and getting it down to four at halftime.”
Defensively, Baylor’s athleticism and playmaking tested Indiana’s defense.
The Hoosiers gave up a lot of straight line drives early in the game, and Baylor exploited some cracks in their defense with some quick passing. DeVries said he and his staff found those traits difficult to simulate in practice, which made the Bears a good opponent for an exhibition game like this.
But just like the offense, IU’s defense adjusted as the game went on and figured some things out. DeVries liked the aggressiveness his team showed on defense in the second half. And, overall, he sees his team making progress heading into the regular season.
“I think we’re getting better. I think that’s the No. 1 thing,” DeVries said. “I think there’s an identity that we have defensively that’s really come a long ways, and I think you saw that in the second half. I think defensively, we have a chance to be really good on first-shot opportunities. I think our guys, we got some guys that really committed to it, they understand, they communicate well.”
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