Bloomington, IN -- It was not the prettiest of games. It did not lend much to the ‘how much did we learn?’ discussion. Nevertheless, Indiana came away Friday night with a comfortable 79-66 victory over Nicholls State.
After jumping out to a 37-22 lead by halftime, the Hoosiers never had the game in doubt, despite not outscoring the Colonels in the second half.
It was one of Indiana’s best shooting games of the season to date. They shot 24-44 (55%) from the field, 5-12 (42%) from 3-point land, and 26-35 (74%) from the free-throw line.
The Hoosiers showed some new wrinkles on the defense side of the ball. They implemented a zone press to speed up of the game.
“We have to be able to change tempos in the game,” explained Indiana head coach Tom Crean. “We’re not going to be successful if we let teams set their pace, especially when it’s more deliberate.”
A cause for concern was the turnovers that Indiana committed. Their 20 giveaways was a season high, something that does not sit well with the players.
“We’ll correct the turnovers,” said senior forward Will Sheehey. “20 is obviously too high for our team, but we’re playing a different pace. We’ve been practicing at a different pace so we’ll get it fixed.”
“We played a lot of guys (all 18 Hoosiers played, including 14 in the first half) so you’re never going to get into a great rhythm but it wasn’t about rhythm tonight as much as it was about just all-out, hard-nosed, bringing a lot of pressure to the game,” added Crean.
Yogi Ferrell led the way with 16 points and 8 assists. Sheehey and Jeremy Hollowell added 14 apiece.
Indiana improves to 9-3 on the season. The final non-conference games comes Sunday at noon at Kennesaw State. That game will also be carried on the WIUX airwaves. After that, they will travel to Illinois on New Year’s Eve Day to open up Big Ten play, followed by a home tilt against Michigan State.
After falling to Notre Dame in Indianapolis last Saturday, this team is still looking for signature wins in order to make the NCAA Tournament. The Big Ten season will be tougher than the last two seasons were due to the current inexperience. However, there will be plenty of opportunities to display what kind of improvements they’ve made and bolster their resume.
“It’s all a matter of getting guys to understand that the greatest form of toughness is your consistency and we’ve got to become a consistent team and then we’ll be a lot better and tougher in a lot of different areas,” said Crean.
