The Indiana Hoosiers have played five exhibition games since Darian DeVries was hired in the spring. IU is 5-0 in those games. None of that counts in the standings or record books, but the lessons learned from these exhibition games have only benefited the Hoosiers. The biggest lessons came in IU’s 76-74 win over Baylor in Indianapolis on Sunday.
“This is awesome for us.” DeVries said after the game.”I would do these games all the time. I think it’s great to either be at home or road, have some atmosphere, be in front of fans and watch how guys respond to different types of situations. So for us, every scenario that could happen today was going to be a good thing for us, because it’s something that we can learn from.“
The Hoosiers were faced with various situations, some more similar to this group than other. IU fell behind early and battled back before halftime. DeVries challenged his players to not let the Baylor lead balloon to 20 points. IU went into half time down just five. They used a 7-2 run to open the second half to change the tied.
“They’ve been through it a little bit. I think even our Puerto Rico games, both games against Mega (SuperBet) where we were down 20 and had to find ways to come back in those games, were good for us as well.” DeVries explained. “So we’ve had several games here in an exhibition type setting, where we’ve, you know, had our guys challenged and have to respond to some type of adversity.”
For a team that has not been together for that long of a period of time, this Hoosier squad has built the pillars of their identity in an exhibition season that normally gets tossed out the window for various reasons.
“You get three opportunities out of four that we’ve had so far where we had to come from behind and figure out a way to make some adjustments and come back to find a way to win.” DeVries said.
It should be noted that the rules were bent on Sunday in a way they wouldn’t in a regular season game. IU’s Lamar Wilkerson and Trey Conerway technically fouled out, but were allowed to finish the game. It allowed for a heck of a finish too. Baylor had two players “foul out” as well.
“There’s going to be opportunities for (us to) go back on the practice floor and get some things figured out.” Devries said.
The Hoosiers have a week and a half before their regular season opener on November 5th against Alabama A&M.