Written by: TJ Inman
On a night that the Assembly Hall crowd honored the 1976 NCAA Championship squad, guard Lamar Wilkerson took center stage and put on a show for the legends in attendance. The senior transfer had 25 points in the second half and 41 points overall, dominating the Oregon Ducks and propelling IU to a runaway 92-74 victory that improves the Indiana Hoosiers to 17-8 and 8-6 in the Big Ten and advancing one step closer to an NCAA Tournament bid.
On paper, the Oregon Ducks are a difficult matchup for Indiana. The visitors brought a lot of size and talent to Assembly Hall and jumped out to a 6-0 lead while the Hoosiers struggled to find any rhythm against the Ducks’ matchup zone. Sam Alexis jumpstarted the crowd as he scored four straight, continuing his great play from Saturday’s win over Wisconsin and helping the Hoosiers fight back and grab lead as Conor Enright knocked down a three-pointer.
Oregon got surprising production from their point guard position and bench and the game see-sawed back and forth. IU star guard Lamar Wilkerson missed his first five shot attempts but snapped out of his slumber with ten straight points in a burst to put the home team ahead 30-25. The Ducks kept on responding to stay close and IU shot only 4-16 from three in the first half but the Hoosiers went into the locker room ahead 36-30, led by Sam Alexis with eight points and Lamar Wilkerson’s 16.
In a must-win game for IU’s NCAA Tournament resume, the Hoosiers came out of the locker room firing and in the first 3:53 of the second 20 minutes, Darian DeVries’ team outscored Oregon 14-6 and extended the lead to 14 points at 50-36 and prompting a timeout by Oregon coach Dana Altman. Oregon was able to stem the tide a bit, getting some buckets from guard Wei Lin and forcing plenty of fouls on IU to get to the foul line but Lamar Wilkerson continued his torrid pace and kept the Ducks at bay.
Despite fouls limiting minutes for Sam Alexis, IU was outstanding on the offensive end in the second half and torched Oregon’s defense for 56 points and shooting better than 81 percent from the field after halftime.
The victory improves IU to 17-8 and 8-6 in the Big Ten, keeping the Hoosiers on pace for an NCAA Tournament bid in Darian DeVries’ first season in charge in Bloomington. IU now hits the road for two very difficult challenges, facing Illinois and Purdue in hostile atmospheres. The final four contests include home games against Northwestern, Minnesota and Michigan State and a final road trip to Ohio State.
Getting to ten league wins would place Indiana squarely on the bubble heading into the Big Ten Tournament while reaching 11 wins or above would almost certainly lock up a bid. Lamar Wilkerson started 0-5 but was unbelievably good the rest of the way, racking up 41 points and continuing to prove nearly impossible to stop for Big Ten defenders. He became just the fifth Indiana University player to have multiple 40-point games in a single season. Nick Dorn found a bit of rhythm and had 11 points in the second half while Tucker DeVries had 15 and Sam Alexis was 8-8 from the field and finished with 16 points and five rebounds. Conor Enright, the unsung conductor for the offense, had a team-high eight assists and six rebounds.