BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Tuesday night, it didn’t take long for Indiana to be reminded of what it was missing from Kel’el Ware.
Rebounding a rattling missed three inside the game’s first five minutes, the 7-footer easily elevated to slam home a putback. Pretty good way to reintroduce yourself.
“We needed him back in the worst way,” head coach Mike Woodson said in the immediate moments following Indiana’s win over Iowa.
The length he provides, defensive versatility, skill around the rim and his prowess he possesses both scoring and rebounding the basketball left a noticeable void in the numbers columns of IU’s final scorelines. In following, IU also came away empty-handed in both contests he missed.
While it took a toll on Indiana’s season to be without its man in the middle for two tall tasks on the road, the same effect was bestowed upon Ware. In the words of Anthony Leal – often regarded as the best teammate in the Hoosier locker room – his mental and emotional well-being took hits, too.
“He loves us as teammates and he wants to win more than anything,” Leal said.
A return to the lineup versus an Iowa team that’s been a thorn in the side of this current Hoosier head coach was supposed to bring stability, even if only in spurts. On his pregame radio spot, Mike Woodson mentioned he’d been very limited in practice, that he was unsure of how much he could lean on his returning big in actual game minutes.
Soon though, he’d be left no choice. Malik Reneau prematurely exited due to an injury of his own, sidelining the fellow five-star second-year presence in the IU frontcourt for the evening. That left just Ware to shoulder the load of a frontcourt-heavy Hoosier attack clamoring to end a spiraling three-game skid.
As the game wore on, his condition worsened. What started as a small gimp turned to full pauses during stoppages, where his ability to even continue would be questioned. Increasing risk came with every elevation, grabbing at his lower legs before even being able to rejoin a play in some instances.
No celebration followed a thunderous jam home over Iowa’s Owen Freeman. That’s pretty casual for Ware, who is among the last players up and down this roster that would generally be tabbed for an outburst of emotion. He’s calm, cool-mannered and mostly to himself, all things considered.
Yet this response was not typical either. Instead, he winced in pain and made another grab at his lower leg. Battling a war of attrition with the earlier loss of Reneau – plus a scare to Xavier Johnson later in the evening – any minutes the Hoosiers would be able to extract from a reeling Ware in a tight-knit game would be of value.
In the end, IU got 35 of some of the most productive minutes all night. The same player outcast from his previous school for a supposed lack of toughness and motor would leave nothing in the tank on his way to pouring in 23 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks.
That perseverance hasn’t come without ‘a lot of Coach Woodson screaming at him,’ pushing him to unlock his potential and be the player Indiana knows – and needs – him to be.
“The first two or three weeks with him was a nightmare in terms of his energy and his get-up-and-go,” Woodson said. “We’ve kind of coached him into playing better, playing with a little more energy.”
He anchored an Indiana defense that continued its strong performance last Saturday and prevented a high-powered Iowa offense from scoring 70 or more points for just the fifth time this season. The Hawkeyes converted on just 17-of-43 twos, and shot 35.4% overall from the floor. Teams are forced to make different decisions at the rim when he’s at his best.
Although IU likely doesn’t have Ware at 100% right now, they got enough of him to emerge victorious in a game his fingerprints are all over.
“That's the thing we need from him,” freshman guard Gabe Cupps said postgame, commenting on his ability to stay in Tuesday’s win to the very end. “He's obviously super talented, super skilled. And a lot of people's knock on him is that he's not tough. And I think he shows it in spurts, but once he can be consistent in that -- and he showed that tonight -- he's an unstoppable player.”
Gutting out such a performance – one of that caliber – helps put to bed such narratives outside the locker room of whether the one-day NBA hopeful has the fortitude to rise to the occasion when called upon.
In dunking home the exclamation point to Indiana’s win as time dwindled down the stretch, that emotion finally came. He’d put Tuesday’s win on ice and more respect on his own name. This time, in a roar only drowned out by the louder adoration raining down on him, there would be no stopping the following showcase of strength.
“[I]t was good to see him show some emotion and fight through some nicks and bruises and whatnot,” Leal said. “But especially with Malik going down, he stepped up big time for us.”
How close to full-strength he is the next time out is yet to be determined. But in a game Indiana absolutely doesn’t win without him, sometimes you learn that having a fraction of your best player is better than not having him at all.
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