Indiana freshman Trayce Jackson-Davis posted career-highs of 27 points and 16 rebounds in Indiana's win at Minnesota on Wednesday night, showing that Indiana does still have life as the regular season nears its end.
After Indiana suffered a loss to Michigan on Saturday that had the Hoosiers’ season teetering on the ledge, head coach Archie Miller didn’t mince words when discussing what he needed out of freshman forward Trayce Jackson-Davis, who had just five points and two rebounds in Ann Arbor.
Miller said Jackson-Davis needed to play harder and that if he wanted to be one of Indiana’s best players, he would need to do so on the road as well. But Trayce Jackson-Davis had averaged nine points and six rebounds in conference road games before Wednesday. The freshman, who handles the majority of Indiana’s free throw attempts on a game-to-game basis, also had just two free throw attempts at Michigan.
If senior guard Devonte Green couldn’t take time to dip after a huge game against Iowa, as Miller said following that win in Bloomington, Jackson-Davis certainly didn’t have time to underproduce on the road while the Hoosiers try to piece together a tournament resume. And he didn’t waste any time.
The freshman ended his day with a career-high 27 points and 16 rebounds to guide Indiana to a 68-56 win in Minneapolis.
“Our main focus was to get Trayce going early,” Miller said. “He’s so important to our team.”
Before the first four-minute media timeout at Minnesota, Jackson-Davis had already put up four shots, hitting three of them to total six points, and by the time the first half hit its midway point, Jackson-Davis had eclipsed the 10-point mark.
It wasn’t the first time Jackson-Davis recorded an encouraging first half, though. Perhaps his best half of the season occurred at the beginning of the Arkansas game, when he scored 16 points before halftime but recorded just four in the second half on Indiana’s way to losing the lead and the game. For all he’s meant to the 2019-20 Hoosiers, putting together 40 minutes of a consistent presence hasn’t been commonplace for the freshman.
“At times, he doesn’t post hard and at times, he’s not as engaged,” Miller said Wednesday.
But Miller and the Hoosiers got as close to a 40-minute effort from Jackson-Davis as they’ve seen since the wave of Power Five opponents hit shore.
Bits of Jackson-Davis were littered throughout the entire game, particularly in the second half, when Indiana fought for seven minutes to game the lead and for the rest of the 13 minutes to maintain it. Whether it be Jackson-Davis putting Isaiah Ihnen on a poster to give Indiana its largest lead at the time (6 points), or cleaning up easy missed buckets by Devonte Green and Justin Smith for four of Indiana’s 10 second chance points, or drawing a charge late in the second half after Green turned the ball over on offense, Jackson-Davis represented the effort that separated the Indiana that either never found a lead or lost an eventual lead in these types of games and the Indiana that earned its second road victory of the season.
“He doesn’t get enough credit nationally. He doesn’t get enough credit surrounding our team,” Miller said. “He’s been a bright spot for us. I think he’s Freshman of the Year in our league. He’s my guy.”
That version of Trayce Jackson-Davis, to an extent, fueled Indiana in a similar way that Devonte Green fueled Indiana with seven threes but not in the same way that 18 points from De’Ron Davis didn’t make a difference at Michigan. His play, like Green’s, is contagious.
Miller mentioned that the Indiana guards slowed the game down, turning the ball over just 10 times and assisting 15 of 24 made field goals. Indiana found its response reflex that Miller said during his radio show Monday that the team lacked, as Minnesota had six points off turnovers and second chances while totaling 13 offensive rebounds and forcing 10 turnovers. Race Thompson, in his home state, posted career-bests in minutes (25), rebounds (10) and plus/minus (+21).
Jackson-Davis can be credited, in one way or another, for parts of each of those notes. That’s the impact a team’s best player can have.
For all the times Jackson-Davis has been absent during road games, he’s also been one of the most productive players on the team, as he leads Indiana in both points (13.6) and rebounds (7.7) per game. But Miller has also noted on numerous occasions throughout the season that a freshman being a team’s best player lends itself to some adjusting, whether that be anticipation of the target on his back or the grueling Big Ten schedule.
The head coach said he tells his players to “be numb” to the aspects of a Big Ten season winding down – the pain, the mental exhaustion, the rising stakes. It can be easy to tune out, Miller said, but this is what Indiana looks like when its best players aren’t tuned out. Coming off of a stretch where Indiana lost five of its last six games, it was refreshing.
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