IU dropped its first game of the season to Fort Wayne Tuesday night, and will look to use the Sunday matchup against Mississippi Valley State as an opportunity to start a new winning streak.
The Hoosiers view their loss to the Mastodons as an opportunity to learn, and know they can't linger on it for too long as the Delta Devils come to Bloomington.
“That’s what we have to do," junior guard James Blackmon Jr. said. "We don’t like the outcome so that’s definitely what we have to do.”
Mississippi Valley State enters the matchup at an 0-6 clip on the season.
As a part of the Indiana Classic, Mississippi Valley State lost to two teams IU has already beaten this season. UMass-Lowell pulled out a close, 76-71 victory, and Liberty surged to a double-digit, 70-55 win.
IU Coach Tom Crean mentioned noticing IU's Achillies' heel after the Fort Wayne defeat, and Sunday offers his squad the first chance to implement any changes.
“All you can do is grow from this,” sophomore forward Thomas Bryant said. “Wins and losses, all you can do is grow from it. We’ll watch the film and we’ll get after it in practice.”
After IU struggled to shoot from three against Fort Wayne, the Hoosiers will look to take advantage of a Delta Devil perimeter defense that's giving up an average of 11.7 made threes per game and 43.2 percent shooting from behind the arc.
Senior shooting guard Marcus Romain leads the Delta Devils with 12.7 points per game, thanks in part to a 60-percent clip from three, but he's missed the last three games and hasn't played since Nov. 16.
Freshman guard Darrell Riley is also shooting 60-percent from behind the arc, and leads the team with an average of 2.8 assists per game. Senior forward Michael Matlock leads the team in rebounds, averaging 6.2 rebounds per game.
Cracking down on Mississippi Valley State's strengths will require improved communication, something Crean and his players cited as a contributing factor to their recent loss.
The lack of communication is coupled with the struggle for a leader to emerge.
“We have nobody on our team who’s ever been responsible for somebody else,” Crean said. “We don’t have the guys that can take the bull by the horns and lead the other guys through the thick and thin.”
His players know it’s going to take a team effort to remedy the problem.
“I don’t think it’s going to be one person because that’s not who we are as a team,” Blackmon said. “We’re not a one guy team. Everybody as a whole, especially the five guys that are out on the floor.”
