Indiana wins its fifth game in a row with a 87-68 victory over Little Rock

Indiana started the game without their usual big man in the starting five. Forward Trayce Jackson-Davis was taken out of the starting lineup and did not play in the game for precautionary reasons. Jackson-Davis was one of three players listed as inactive alongside Trey Galloway and Anthony Leal. In his place was freshman Mailk Reneau who made his first career start.

A Race Thompson layup started off the scoring for Indiana as the Hoosiers would go off and score three straight baskets to start the game. Injuries came to bite Indiana quickly after the opening tip with Reneau taking a hard fall in the opening minutes. Reneau, who was in for Jackson-Davis, went up for a layup and came down crashing onto the hardwood at the 10-minute mark. Reneau exited the game visibly holding his lower back and would head to the Indiana locker room. Reneau did not come in back into the game until the final five minutes of the first half.

It was a back-and-forth battle between the Hoosiers and the Trojans for the majority of the first half but Indiana’s defense looked sloppy in many areas throughout the entire game. Little Rock would keep the game within margin throughout the majority of the first half never being down by more than nine points in the first 10 minutes. Jordan Geronimo would get inserted early in the half adding a boost of life for the Hoosiers scoring six points in four minutes of play. Indiana would try and pull away from the Trojans but Little Rock would hang around for the most of the first half.

Indiana was able to amount to a 15-point lead with five minutes left in the half but the Hoosiers struggled to close out the half. Little Rock would get back-to-back threes from D.J. Smith to cut the lead to six and then the Trojans ran away with an 8-0 scoring run in the final five minutes of the first half. The half came out to an end with a score of 39-30 but Indiana held the lead for the entirety of the first 20 minutes.

The Hoosiers continued shooting well as a team going into halftime with a 51 percent shooting percentage from the field. Indiana would get the majority of its production from the inside having 34 of its 39 points come from the paint. Even though Reneau missed a chuck of time in the half, Reneau would still lead the team in points with 10 at the half.

The second half would again start in similar fashion with Little Rock haining around with Indiana. The Trojans would cut down the lead to six to start the second half but the Hoosiers would go out and quite down Little Rock’s short lived run. Indiana would get out to another 15 point lead at the 12 minute mark thanks to Miller Kopp sinking back to back threes to give Indiana a bit of momentum.

Little Rock would once again do what they did all evening and came back for another crucial minutes. The Trojans would go on a 12-5 scoring run to give them a little bit of life. That would be as much of an offensive push that Little Rock would create for the remind of the game. Indiana would close out the game making nine of their last 10 shots while Little Rock finished just 1-7 to finish out the game with a final score of 87-68.

The Hoosiers finished the game with four players in double digit points with Thompson leading the pack. Thompson finished the game with 20 points and eight rebounds playing a total of 30 minutes. On a day where Indiana did not shoot particularly well from the outside, the Hoosiers made sure to get their offense from the inside. Indiana shot 58 percent from the field while also finishing with 52 points in the paint. 40 minutes of basketball was played and Indiana lead for every single minute.

Indiana struggled at moments to pull away from the Trojans but the Hoosiers earned their fifth win in a row as they move onto 5-0 on the season. Indiana will play their second game of the week a day after Thanksgiving hosting Jackson State on Friday Nov. 25.

----

• 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.

FUTURECAST

2026Top Targets

No top targets for Indiana available at this time.