It's about quality, not quantity, for Hoosiers

One game is in the books, and another will be after today.  

Then IU men’s basketball team will travel to Puerto Rico on Tuesday, where they will play three games in four days. At the end of the Puerto Rico Tip-off on Sunday, the Hoosiers will have played a total of five games in 10 days.

For that reason, staying fresh will be critical for IU coach Tom Crean’s squad as they dive deeper into this grueling week.

“We’ve got a game Monday, then we travel to Puerto Rico Tuesday,” freshman forward Christian Watford said after the team’s 83-60 win on Friday. “If people can come in and relieve others and we don’t really lose nothing, I feel like that’s what we need to do.”

They’re off to a good start, as Crean used many combinations in Friday’s game, with no player seeing the floor for more than 26 minutes. In fact, all 12 scholarship players had entered the game by the 8:18 mark of the first half when senior center Tijan Jobe checked in for the first time.  

“I thought the game started to look like if we could really stay fresh, we could start to wear people down as the game went on,” Crean said after the game.

And they did.  

Though IU went without a field goal for more than seven minutes at one point during
the first half, they finished the half on a 23-9 run from that point on. 

IU remained fresh after halftime, as they came out of the locker room and outscored Howard 18-6 in the first six minutes of the second half.

Crean wrote the word “pace” on the locker room board at halftime, he said, and he talked about how that word has taken on a new meaning this year.

“We didn’t have numbers, we didn’t have a deep bench, we couldn’t play fast, so it was easy to pace yourself some. This year, that’s gone,” Crean said. “We’re going to play at a fast pace. To that, what I want them to understand is that it’s the quality of the minutes, not the quantity.”  

Several of the freshmen in particular exemplified that.

Derek Elston played just 14 minutes, but he finished with 14 points on 6-of-7 shooting, three rebounds and zero turnovers.

Jordan Hulls scored two points and dished out five assists without committing a turnover in his 17 minutes of game action.  

In 24 minutes, Watford recorded a double-double, scoring 14 points and pulling down 11 rebounds. The forward shot 4-of-6 from the field and 5-of-5 from the free-throw line and made his lone 3-point attempt.  

Maurice Creek, meanwhile, went for 17 points on 7-of-11 shooting to go along with two rebounds, two assists, one block and one steal. He said he understands the way things worked out on Friday.

“You have other people on the floor that can get the job done just as well,” he said. “Time really don’t matter to me. It only matters about a win. As long as you be getting the ‘W’ in some sort, in some way, I’m perfect with that.”

Playing another lower-tier Division I school today against USC Upstate, another “W” should not be hard to come by here in Game 2.

But considering the team flies to Puerto Rico on Tuesday to play a talented yet underrated Mississippi squad on Thursday, each player must continue to play that quality basketball with their given minutes.  

Just as he has said many times before, Crean spoke about the players continuing to get used to playing at a “high level for a long time.”

“If you max it out when you’re in there, you get another chance,” he said. “If you don’t, it may be a while. I want that to be the way this team is built right now.”

Monday might not be much of a test in terms of playing a strong team, but by the end of the week, we will start to see what this season’s Hoosiers are really made of.