NBA News NBA News, Match Reports and Updates
Indiana was favored by KenPom and Bart Torvik entering the game, but this had all the makings of a rough, weird home struggle for the Hoosiers.
The team’s been off for nearly two weeks, Washington matches up generally well with Indiana, and most of the focus in Bloomington has been on the football team of late, for good reason.
Advertisement
Darian DeVries’ group came out shooting like it wanted to avoid the upset though, hitting five straight threes to start the game. All five came from Tayton Conerway, who hit three, and Conor Enright, with two, who were being dared to shoot by the Huskies defense. Washington head coach Danny Sprinkle had to adjust from there.
Defensively, Indiana struggled to compensate for the lack of size inside, but won the rebounding battle and got enough points in the paint on the other end of the court to survive the 3-point shooting droughts that are inherent to Indiana’s playing style.
There were some scary moments throughout, but DeVries group stuck it out and earned a solid home win to gain momentum as the season restarts.
Here’s three takeaways:
Advertisement
Interior Scoring
Indiana finished with 30 points in the paint tonight, narrowly behind Washington’s 34 inside, making up for the fact that the Hoosiers lack the lottery-caliber big man that the Huskies have in Hannes Steinbach. DeVries also had to scheme around Franck Kepnang, not a scoring threat, but an imposing presence at 6’11” 253 lbs.
It wasn’t necessarily pretty, with plenty of missed layups, but Indiana was able to do it mostly by committee tonight, a mix of drives from guards and finishes from bigs or cutting wings. Reed Bailey had eight points in the first half before going cold in the second, but Trent Sisley came in off the bench to pick up the slack.
Post scoring will be a work in progress all season, but with the size Washington brings, regularly playing two centers at once (sound familiar?), it’s good to see Indiana tough out 30 points against that team. Hopefully…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/3-takeaways-indiana-men-basketball-041331806.html
Author :
Publish date : 2026-01-05 04:13:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
