SEATTLE - When Mike Woodson went to bed on Wednesday night, he did not know if junior forward Malik Reneau would be boarding Thursday’s 4 p.m. flight to Seattle.
“The main thing was could he fly with the team and not spread whatever he had amongst the players. That was my big concern, so we had talked about maybe flying him out separately,” Woodson said postgame. “But our good doctor, doctor Rink suggested that it would be okay, so it all worked out.”
After being sent to the emergency room prior to the Penn State game, Reneau picked up where he left off from his perfect 7-of-7, 15-point performance against Purdue last Sunday afternoon.
The junior came in off the bench, scoring a game-high 22 points in Indiana’s 78-62 victory over Washington on Saturday night in Seattle.
Reneau finished 10-of-13 from the field, pushing the Miami native to 17 of his last 20 from the field. Reneau made his first six shots of the game, extending his streak to 17 straight made field goals spanning back to the second half of the UCLA game.
In addition to Reneau’s superb performance, Indiana got a boost from Luke Goode.
Though his eligibility is up in the air at the moment, Goode has been playing the best basketball of his career when his team has needed him most.
The Fort Wayne native drilled a team-high five triples en route to an 18-point outburst.
Goode has been nearly automatic from deep in conference play, shooting 46% in Big Ten play. In his last five games dating back to the UCLA loss, the Illinois transfer is shooting 13-of-31 from behind the arc, helping his team to a 4-1 record in the stretch.
In his postgame interview with Indiana radio’s Don Fischer, Associate Head Coach Kenya Hunter pinpointed why the team has succeeded without two bigs on the floor.
“It’s because of Luke Goode,” he said.
There has been much ado about Indiana’s tournament hopes, but the Hoosiers have clicked at the right time in a stretch of must-win games.
“We’ve been playing much, much better basketball, and these last three games, these guys have come and showed up,” Woodson said. “You can call it that [playing less stressed]. I call it when you win; it eases the mind.”
Saturday night’s 40 points between Goode and Reneau is another in a list of great stat lines that have pushed Indiana over the edge in four of its five games. However, for Woodson and the rest of the Hoosiers, it is the start of what they hope to be a two-win road trip out west.
“Can’t win two games until you get the first one, so we were able to win tonight and the Oregon team is a tough team, man, they play extremely hard and we gotta go in with our A game and see where it leads us.”
As expected, Indiana will stay overnight in Seattle then drive four hours south to Eugene in preparation for Tuesday evening’s clash with the Oregon Ducks.
“We’ll have dinner tonight as a team, and tomorrow we’ll get up, practice, and get ready for Oregon.”
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