Indiana pieced together its second straight game when it needed to take punches and respond in positive ways. For its win over No. 9 Penn State on Sunday in Bloomington, the answer was through its physicality.
The Maryland loss suffered in Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall has long followed Indiana into the final stretch of the season, poisoning much of its February by knocking th eHoosiers back onto their heels.
Indiana had Maryland down but couldn’t pin th eTerrapins in the final two minutes, and suddenly, Maryland stoel a win from the Hoosiers and deflated their sails. A loss at Penn State, followed by a loss at Ohio State and then a home loss to Purdue displayed some of the ugliest, most uninspired basketball the 2019-20 season has seen from this team.
The Hoosiers had dropped to 5-7 in conference play, with some carry-over to a bad loss at Michigan, but with two consecutive wins – the latest coming Sunday against No. 9 Penn State, 68-60 – Indiana’s Tournament hopes are alive, thanks to some hard-learned lessons in the weeks following letting its guard down against Maryland.
“We lose a couple in a row and everybody counts us out, everybody wants to freak out,” Indiana junior forward Justin Smith said Sunday. “But we never wavered. This is a tough league. All the teams are good, pretty much, and you know they're going to get you a couple times. But it's always how you bounce back.”
Finding the bounce-back was the problem for Indiana. Even a halftime ceremony for Bob Knight couldn’t spark life into Indiana against Purdue. But between its road win at Minnesota on Wednesday and its win against Penn State at home Sunday, Indiana has pieced together two consecutive performances where it took punches and responded in positive ways.
At Minnesota, the punch was in the form of a 10-point deficit in the first half before eventually gaining the lead with 13 minutes remaining and hanging onto it until the final buzzer. On Sunday, the punch was surrendering a 19-point lead in six minutes, over the course of the final couple minutes of the first half and four minutes into the second half, but steadying the ship and hanging onto a new-found seven-point lead with 7:24 remaining after a 13-0 run.
Absorbing that punch Sunday required more than one player, though. At Minnesota, Indiana fed Trayce Jackson-davis to a career-best 27 points and 16 rebounds. There weren’t any standout, dominant performances of the sort in Assembly Hall, save for the 29 points scored by Penn State’s Lamar Stevens.
“We play the game in 10 four-minute battles, 10 four-minute rounds like a fight,” Indiana head coach Archie Miller said. “The fight is a full 10 rounds, and at the end of the day, in basketball, there's going to be swings. You have to find a way to hang in there and weather it.”
The best way for Indiana to weather the punches Penn State was landing early in the second half was through physicality, the physicality that Miller had labeled as a “gradual deterioration” after the Ohio State loss, when Indiana was soft in the interior.
Much of the change is credit to redshirt sophomore Race Thompson, who had logged two career days – one against Iowa and another against Minnesota. Thompson has played 20 or more minutes in three Big Ten games this season, and all three have come in the last 10 days, and when Indiana was the victim of a barrage of Myles Dread and Lamar Stevens scores Sunday, Thompson scored six of his team’s first 12 points of the second half and fought off interior contributors that Miller compared to bouncers at a club – 6-foot-9, 257-pound Mike Watkins, 6-foot-9, 240-pound John Harrar and 6-foot-8, 225-pound Lamar Stevens.
“Race is not afraid,” Miller said. “He's not a young kid. He's been here three years. And unfortunately his season was taken from him last year with injury or he would have helped last year because he knows what he's doing and he's a smart guy. If you look at our wins here recently, he's played a big role because the physicality in our league is above any other league in the country.”
But Thompson wasn’t enough on his own. Penn State was rolling, up 48-42 and bullying Indiana on the boards. Indiana needed more, quickly. Then Justin Smith checked back into the game and immediately provided a presence. He brought down two rebounds in two minutes and primarily guided Indiana during a 15-2 run that regained the lead. Smith was also crucial in defending Stevens in stretches when no other Hoosier could contain him.
Perhaps his biggest play of the game, though, came when Indiana led by five, 61-56, and Penn State gained possession on a controversial replay call. Smith stole the inbounds pass with a minute remaining, and the Hoosiers coasted to a win after his two free throws.
Miller stressed that having multiple hands on deck is becoming more comfortable for Indiana, that each player individually is beginning to further understand his role on the team, and with that comes performances like Sunday’s. Because the punches won’t stop coming just because Indiana weathers them with wins.
“This group has been really, really good about not worrying about what everybody's saying to us or about us,” Smith said. “That's just what comes with it. It's good that we show some resilience and we're able to stay with it.”
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