How Indiana basketball 'took a big step' to close exhibition games unbeaten

EVANSVILLE — The run had everything coach Darian DeVries desires from his team. 

Ball protection. Rebounding. A Bryce Lindsay flurry and “quality” bench play. 

Indiana basketball was down 68-65 with 4:17 left after Western Kentucky‘s layup. It took Lindsay eight seconds to come down the court and hit a pull-up 3. It started an 8-0 IU run over the next 2:48.

Indiana won a 79-74 game in its final preseason exhibition game Sunday at the Ford Center. The brief late-game stretch exposed why the latest polls ranking the Hoosiers outside the top 25 may be flawed.

How one run fulfilled Darian DeVries’ demand 

Indiana trailed for nearly 28 minutes. Turnovers haunted the Hoosiers and kept them from flowing on offense for most of the game.

Indiana committed eight first-half turnovers against WKU, with the final one leading to a half-court buzzer-beater by Hilltoppers guard Teagan Moore. The Hoosiers had 12 turnovers in their win against Butler on Oct. 11 and 15 against Mike Malone’s North Carolina team on Oct. 18.

Indiana committed one turnover during its second-half stretch run.

“I thought we took a big step in the turnover department,” DeVries said. “In the North Carolina game, we took (a step) backward. The turnovers in all three games have been a massive emphasis in practice for our guys. Not taking care of the ball is a killer for a defense. No. 1, we don’t get a shot on goal, and then we don’t get a chance to get an offensive rebound.”

They got both late. Three of the eight points came off second-chance free throws. Indiana grabbed three offensive boards during the stretch, including two by fifth-year forward Sam Alexis. Alexis finished with 15 points on 6-of-7 shooting.

In addition to retaining Alexis, DeVries added 7-footers Aiden Sherrell and Samet Yigitoglu to address the rebounding issue.

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IU ranked 13th in the Big Ten in rebounding last season with 32.4 per game. The Hoosiers outrebounded Butler 53 to 33. They snagged the same amount against UNC. Indiana grabbed 49 rebounds, while Western Kentucky had 38. 

The Hoosiers’ 14 offensive rebounds led to 12 second-chance points.  DeVries said rebounding was Indiana’s “whole focus” this offseason.

Indiana brought in 11 scholarship players this offseason, including Lindsay from Villanova and first-year guard Prince-Alexander Moody. DeVries went with his bench to close the final third of the game.

“We wanted to get those guys in. But our goal was to win the game from the jump,” DeVries said. “This was not, ‘Hey, we’re just going to play guys and do this.’ We wanted to win the game, and we weren’t getting it done.”

Moody’s 3 cut the Hilltopper lead to five with 13:46 remaining and tied it 68-68 with 5:39 left. Lindsay did the rest. He scored five of Indiana’s eight points during the run.

Lindsay posted a team-high 20 points on 6-of-11, the second straight 20-point game for whom Malone, a former NBA coach Mike Malone, called a “heck of a player.”

Western Kentucky held an 11-point lead with 14:31 to play. DeVries said he planned to give his bench “quality” minutes. They took advantage. Indiana had 57 bench points and provided a needed “spark.” A nearly $20 million wage bill is expected to come with luxurious depth.

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Indiana closed its preseason 3-0 and will host Eastern Illinois in its season opener Nov. 1. Despite three exhibition wins, DeVries and his team won’t get ahead of themselves.

“Our expectation is the first game coming up. Everything is a process of, ‘Hey, we got to be as good as we can be to win that game. That’s all that really matters to us,” DeVries said. “You start thinking of big picture stuff, and you lose sight of what you need to be really good at. And those are the things we talked about on a daily basis of being really fine-tuned in all the details.

“It starts with incredible effort every night, and then everything else falls in line with it.”

Joshua Heron covers the Fever, college sports and enterprise stories for IndyStar. Follow him on Twitter at @JoshEHeron. Want more Hoosiers coverage? Sign up for IndyStar’s Hoosiers newsletter. Listen to Mind Your Banners, our IU Athletics-centric podcast, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch the latest on IndyStar TV: Hoosiers.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: How Indiana basketball ‘took a big step’ to close exhibition games unbeaten