By Matt St. Charles
This season, Indiana has been a team reliant on the 3, sometimes even to a fault. Entering Saturday’s matchup with Wisconsin, it took 52% of its shots from behind the arc, eighth in Division I.
Through the first half, that notion held true for the most part. But when the Hoosiers went 4-13 from 3 in the opening 20 minutes, they changed their mindset, and the result, for 16 minutes of the second half, was incredible.
Although it fell apart at the end of regulation, IU grabbed a crucial 78-77 overtime win against Wisconsin. In the process, it discovered a new style.
With Indiana cold from 3–23% for the game–and Wisconsin switching more often on defense, Sam Alexis found himself in plenty of mismatches, and he was able to exploit them.
“Sam was tremendous in that second half,” Indiana coach Darian DeVries said. “We were able to take advantage of a few switches. That’s why they were able to stay in front of us a little better; they were switching more. Then, we were able to throw it inside, and the guys did a good job–we ran a few things to try to get it to him, and we got it to him. Sam did the rest from there. He had five blocks on the game, [seven] rebounds; that’s a big night.”
To the tune of 19 points on 9-10 shooting, Alexis was the lifeline of the Indiana offense in the second half. In the first half, he scored mostly off rolls and slips, as usual. But in the second, he was scoring with his back to the basket, getting to drop-step layups, and even mid-post fadeaways.
Conor Enright was able to attack those same switches throughout the game, getting bigs on him out on the perimeter and driving them to the basket. Even when he didn’t get the matchup, he shouldered his way to the cup against the Wisconsin guards for layups.
Unable to make a high volume of 3s, Indiana had to take on a different style, and it worked.
“We’ve really been trying to do that a lot more in the last five or six games,” DeVries said. “We felt like there were a couple of games in there where we just weren’t being aggressive enough driving the ball. Even though we don’t have a lot of wiggle with some of our ball handlers, I felt like our guys have done better just finding creases to get in there, finish at the rim, get fouled, and then hit some kick-out 3s. So, we weren’t as reliant on it. A lot of nights we’re up in that 30 range in attempts, and tonight, we were at 22. Now, if we were making them, we’d fire a few more up there. But we weren’t hitting them as we normally do, so I thought the guys did a good job adjusting and adapting.”
Unfortunately, the only cold stretch of the day came at the worst possible time, when the Hoosiers missed 11 straight shots, all after the last media timeout. In that time, a 10-0 Badgers run gave them a 72-68 run after IU led all game.
But Lamar Wilkerson adapted that bully ball mentality for the rest of the game, hitting four free throws in the last 50 seconds of regulation to send the game to overtime. Down three in the extra period, Wilkerson drove to the rim again for a layup with 30 seconds left, before Enright drew an offensive foul to give IU possession back with 15 seconds left.
“We were trying to get a turnover first, trying to see if they’d cough it up,” Enright said. “Honestly, I was panicking, trying to get a hold of [Nick Boyd] because he was wasting time. I just saw his shoulder go into me, and I figured, if it’s going to be a foul, might as well try to get a charge. It worked out.”
Wilkerson drew another foul at the rim with two seconds left and made both to secure a big win for Indiana. Against a team very similar to themselves, the Hoosiers were the aggressors all night, maybe for the first time in Big Ten play, and when things got tight, this veteran group stuck together once again.
“We’ve just got a whole bunch of seniors,” Alexis said. “It’s our last year, we’re just trying to make it a big year for us. We just want to go out there, play hard, and make it fun.”