Sophomore forward OG Anunoby yelled out the word “flex,” setting up the Hoosier defense.
And as the Mississippi Valley State offense attempted to move the ball, it was pressured by the IU defense and forced into a shot clock violation. Whenever the Hoosiers got a stop, it ignited their offense.
Those types of spurts were the backbone of IU’s 85-52 win, which helped the Hoosiers get back on track after suffering their first loss of the season.
Junior guard Robert Johnson said he saw the game as a total step up from the Fort Wayne loss.
“As far as defense, that’s always how we want to come out and set the tone,” Johnson said. “I think we did a good job of doing that early and just keeping that type of mindset throughout the whole game.”
From the beginning of the game, IU’s improved ball movement allowed the Hoosiers to shoot uncontested shots. As a result, IU shoot 36 percent from 3-point range Sunday. This was missing in the loss to Fort Wayne.
However, when MVSU started pressuring the ball toward the middle of the half, IU didn’t have any answers and bogged down.
This allowed MVSU to stay in the game and claw back to within five after facing deficits of 17 multiple times in the first half.
IU Coach Tom Crean said things started to change when the Hoosiers simplified how they attacked the press and started to play more through the middle.
“What really changed was that we got our energy back,” sophomore forward Thomas Bryant said. “The energy died a little bit with us. We started looking at the pressure that they were going giving us and started to realize what we could really attack at instead of just going out there like chickens with our head cut off.”
A late 7-0 run by sophomores Juwan Morgan and OG Anunoby helped propel IU to a 12-point halftime lead.
Stops started to come at the start of the second half, which allowed IU’s lead to balloon. A 12-0 run to start the half helped the Hoosiers to regain complete control.
However, IU fell into another lull, and it took longer for the Hoosiers to take advantage of their strong defensive play.
In the second half, IU forced MVSU to shoot 21.6 percent from the floor and stifled the Delta Devils with size and length.
“We got better this week,” Crean said. “We got better today. We’ve got a lot of basketball coming up over the next week obviously.”
The most significant test comes Wednesday when North Carolina comes to Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.
“We’re just staying poised right now,” Bryant said. “We’re not looking ahead too far. We know we have, we know what we have up ahead and what’s against us, but we’re going to look at the film, get better from tonight’s game and keep moving forward.”
