The Indiana Hoosiers had two come-from-behind victories over Serbian team Mega Superbet, including an 81-80 win on Monday afternoon, to finish 3-0 on the program’s exhibition trip that kicked off Darian DeVries’ first season as the head coach of the Indiana Hoosiers. Prior to the trip, Hoosier Huddle cautioned that making any definitive or declarative statements based on anything that occurred in Puerto Rico would be foolish but we could learn some useful data points that might teach us some projectable traits to expect during the 2025-2026 regular season.
The most important parts of this trip were the team bonding that occurred while the Hoosiers spent eight days with each other and very few distractions and the ten extra practices teams that take an international trip are permitted. Those will be vital as IU should enter regular season practices ahead of where most teams with massive roster turnover are going to be. Beyond the team-building and practice time, what trends are worth keeping in mind heading into the 2025-2026 campaign?
Shot Selection
Modern basketball teams do their best to run offense that results in shot attempts occurring at the rim or from behind the three-point line. As IU fans are all too aware, that has not been the strategy deployed in Bloomington by the past two head coaches. During these three games, IU averaged 29 three-point attempts. Last season, the Hoosiers shot 19 triples per contest. Ten more three-pointers attempted per game is certainly noteworthy. Not only are more three-pointers being attempted, IU nearly eliminated shots that were attempted in areas that could be described as “mid-range”. In this case, a picture is worth 1,000 words. Below is the shot chart courtesy of the fantastic Trevor Andershock of peegs.com (this has been used with peegs.com’s permission).
In a word: BEAUTIFUL!
Team Effort to Rebound
Indiana is not a big team on the interior and there don’t have any single player that would be considered an elite glass cleaner. The players and coaches made it very clear at the media availability session ahead of the foreign trip that every person would need to contribute as a rebounder and that emphasis showed up in Puerto Rico. Indiana averaged 44 rebounds per game, were equal or superior on the glass to both of their opponents in all three games and had six players that averaged at least four rebounds per game with no player above 7.7 rebounds.
Sam Alexis was the top rebounder with 7.7 boards in 20.7 minutes per game and Reed Bailey was right behind him at 6.7 in 20.3 minutes per game. Tucker DeVries did not shoot it well but he stuffed the stat sheet and had 6.3 rebounds per game. Josh Harris did not play in the final game but he averaged 5.5 rebounds per game and guards Jasai Miles and Tayton Conerway both chipped in with four rebounds per game each. That kind of team effort will be important all season and the IU players are clearly aware of its importance.
Competitive Fight
These were exhibition games and the outcomes will be forgotten by most people long before the regular season tips off but the Indiana Hoosiers showed good competitive spirit and resiliency, particularly in coming back from 20-plus point deficits in both games against Mega Superbet. Indiana trailed by 23 in the first half on Saturday before roaring back and eventually leading by nearly 30 before coasting to a win. They then led 2-0 on Monday, fell behind by 20 and took their second lead of the contest at 81-80 on a Reed Bailey dunk with eight seconds remaining and then holding on for the one-point victory. Refusing to fold and battling back from large deficits are not something we have seen from Indiana teams recently. On the flipside, the slow starts are something the Hoosiers will look to avoid when the real action begins.
Individual Performances of Note
- Trent Sisley did the majority of his damage in the first two games but he played very solid basketball in all three outings and there’s a lot to like about his potential. In total, he averaged 21.7 minutes per game and had 11.3 points per game while knocking down 6 of 10 three-pointers. Is Sisley going to be a part of the rotation as a true freshmen? I think things are trending in that direction, yes.
- Tayton Conerway is clearly the primary point guard for this team. Conerway was reportedly, according to peegs.com, outstanding against significant size and intense ball pressure by Mega Superbet. He handled the ball without turning it over, broke pressure from the defense and set up the offense and got downhill and into the paint. In total, he averaged 13 points per game in 21.3 minutes per game, tied with Tucker DeVries for the team lead with four assists per game, added four rebounds per game, led the team with seven total steals and got to the line 14 times in the three games. If there were doubts (there should not have been) about IU’s point guard position, Conerway has put those to bed.
- Sam Alexis and Reed Bailey combined to give the Hoosiers quality minutes from the “center” position. I put “center” in quotation marks because these two are not the type of big men IU fans have grown accustomed to but they are playing the “5” in IU’s lineups and that could be an interesting wrinkle during the regular season. Alexis and Bailey combined to play right around 40 minutes per game so there was always one of them in the contest and together, they averaged 20.7 points per game, 14.4 rebounds per game, one block per game and 2.7 assists per game.
Indiana’s exhibition trip to Puerto Rico went about as well as Darian DeVries and his coaching staff could have possibly expected. The Hoosiers got one easy victory and then were challenged in back-to-back contests before overcoming deficits and winning over Mega Superbet. They were able to do a lot of team-bonding activities during the course of the eight-day trip and the ten extra practices will surely prove to be beneficial when the actual season begins. The focus now shifts to preparing for the start of regular season practices in October and hoping to get players like Jason Drake and Nick Dorn healthy while working on what was learned during the trip.