Indiana men’s basketball beat Lindenwood 73-53 on Thursday night at Assembly Hall in Bloomington.
It was the second consecutive ugly game for the Hoosiers, with an inferior opponent sticking around far too long and making the game too close too early. It’s only November and there’s plenty of opportunity for this team to grow, but it’s hard to call that kind of game against the 334th ranked team in KenPom’s efficiency metrics inspiring in any way.
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Here’s three things we learned from the matchup.
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Tucker DeVries is Indiana’s go-to guy and the Hoosiers will go as far as he can take them until proven otherwise. When others struggled, he remained fairly stout with 25 points on 5/10 shooting from long range, leading the Hoosiers in attempts and made shots from distance. His versatility allows him to impact the game in several different ways, adding three assists on the night that might’ve been more if the rest of the roster made shots reliably.
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The Hoosier defense could end up being more of a factor than expected this season. I hesitate to say “better” because any competent high major should be able to hold a group like Lindenwood to 53 but it was that end of the floor that allowed Indiana to keep this from becoming anything even vaguely resembling a disaster. The Lions got plenty of open 3s but are hitting 24.7% of their 3s of any kind on the season to literally any attempt from long range is a shot you live with if you’re the Hoosiers.
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Rebounding is going to be a real issue for the Hoosiers this season. Indiana lost the battle on the boards 48-44 and had some balls get away from them after looking to be corralled under the rim when things got physical. That’s not great but survivable against a team as poor as Lindenwood. Against Michigan State, that’ll get you eaten alive but I have a feeling Indiana will be more up for that game than this one
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Lamar Wilkerson needs to find a way to score when his shots aren’t falling. He went just 1-7 from long range and put just 10 points on the board, with one of those coming at the line. Indiana is small enough (and poor enough on the glass) that enough of those misses are empty possessions going the other way. On one hand, you can’t tell good shooters to stop taking good looks. On the other, he’s too good of a scorer to put up just 10 points against a team like Lindenwood.
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It is November and we don’t know what Indiana is going to look like here in two months or so. The Hoosiers have pretty much no depth handling the basketball, and that’s hurt them a bit. It’s worth waiting to form any solid opinions on this team, just like then it put 100 on Marquette.
