Another game, another 90+ point performance for Darian DeVries’ Indiana.
The Hoosiers’ head coach, in his first season leading the program, has brought a new-look offense the likes of which hasn’t been seen wearing friendly colors at Assembly Hall since the days of Tom Crean. Indiana, which previously avoided the 3-point line like the plague, now takes shots from 22 feet away from the hoop.
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More importantly, it makes them.
In Wednesday’s 101-70 drubbing of Milwaukee, favorites in the Horizon League, the Hoosiers went a searing 14-28 from long range. That’s obviously half, or 50%, which is pretty ridiculous. Moreso for a program that’s spent eight years playing the kind of hoops you’d be more used to seeing in faded television broadcasts without a scorebug.
Lamar Wilkerson led the way in scoring with 24 points on 5/6 (!!!!!!) shooting from deep. He wasn’t just taking the usual catch-and-shoot 3s you’d expect, he was pulling up from several feet beyond the arc in a way that’d make every high school coach around the state start levitating a bit to get ready to pull whoever had the gall to do it. But the ball just kept going in.
Now, is Indiana going to shoot 50% from 3 every game this season. No, even if that’d be pretty cool. These Hoosiers are going to have off nights, but the fact that they can have on nights, which they’ve had three of in a row here, tells you that they’ll be able to hang with just about anybody.
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But, perhaps just as importantly, they’ll be able to sate the appetite of fans who’ve spent just about a decade yearning for Indiana to play a style of offense that makes sense in 2025. The cream and crimson faithful have seen team after team buried by that kind of offense while said team was getting its three points the old fashioned way: contact under the rim.
Is Indiana good? Sure looks like it three games in. Is Indiana fun? Incredibly.
Right now, that’s all this fanbase is asking for. DeVries is delivering.
