Don't miss out on any of our exclusive football, basketball and recruiting coverage. Sign up with TheHoosier.com here.
It took the Hoosiers until the game's final seconds, but Indiana won a gritty back-and-forth battle against Xavier on Friday 81-79. After getting out to a slow start in the first quarter Indiana was able to clean things up thanks to All-American Trayce Jackson-Davis. The veteran helped Indiana by punishing the Musketeers in the paint with a 30-point performance on the road, and the team as a whole able to expose Xavier down low having finished with 50 of their 81 points in the paint.
The Indiana forward was also able to shoot efficiently from the field having only missed three shots the entire game. Jackson-Davis finished shooting 13-16 from the field and 4-6 from the free throw line.
All head coach Mike Woodson had to say at the end of the game was how these types of performances for Jackson-Davis is nothing new.
"He's capable of doing that. You've seen it over the years that he's been here we just have to get him to do it consistently every night. I don't know if he can score thirty every night but we got him to play at that high level to help us win,” Woodson said.
Xavier tried to combat Jackson-Davis by putting pressure down low and playing zone defense throughout the second quarter, but he still scored 13 points and brought down three rebounds in the second half. Xavier head coach Sean Miller acknowledged that his team got beat by this very factor and gave credit to Jackson-Davis’s performance.
“You don't want to lose a game against Indiana and have Trayce score thirty…We lost the game because we had no answer for him. I will say it is not an easy task and I did think there were about six to eight plays where it wasn't about basketball but it was about getting the rebound and I'm not so sure we got more than two of them,” Miller said.
Although Jackson-Davis shined in the post, he got some help from his freshman teammate Malik Reneau, who started off having a slow first half only recording two points and three rebounds. With Jackson-Davis and Indiana guard Xavier Johnson being the main contributors to the Indiana offense, Reneau stepped in for a key second half.
He scored 10 points and shot 4-5 from the field in the final 20 minutes of play adding a spark to the Hoosier offense. The freshman forward played a key factor down the stretch for the Hoosiers finishing as the team's third leading scorer. Woodson wasn't surprised by this performance simply because of what he's seen from Reneau since he came to campus.
“I trust him, he's solid. I played him with the four fouls knowing that if he fouled out I still have an ace in the hole with Race so that's the beauty about our team this season. I told him when we broke huddle that I didn't play the rotations that we played in the first couple of games, but stay ready.” Woodson said.
All across the board, Indiana was able to win this game because of their work down low. The Hoosiers were also able to out-rebound Xavier 37-34. Even on a night where Race Thompson did not find a hot hand in the scoring column, he still led the Hoosiers in rebounding finishing the game with a team-high eight. In pretty much every stat, Indiana just simply outplayed Xavier on the inside.
The Hoosiers came into the Cintas Center facing their toughest road test of the young season but walked out of Cincinnati with a win. Indiana saw limited production from a few players but with a combined 42 points from Jackson-Davis and Reneau, the Hoosiers were able to stay unbeaten and move to 3-0. Indiana will now face Miami (OH) on Sunday at Gainbridge Fieldhouse as their final game before the week of Thanksgiving.
----
• Talk about it inside The Hoops Forum or The Football Forum
• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Follow us on Twitter: @IndianaRivals
• Like us on Facebook.
