After a grueling stretch of four games in eight days for IU, the Hoosiers have gotten a much-needed break since a home win last Sunday.
That break will end Saturday when IU plays Houston Baptist in Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.
During the week off, IU has worked to grow and improve as a team, even as finals approach.
“This is a big week to take the next step,” IU Coach Tom Crean said. “This week and next week are huge weeks for improvement, individually and as a team. At the same we structure this week the way it is because of the academics. It’s a very busy week for them academically leading into exams, so we want to make sure that they have a good amount of time to get their projects done and all the stuff that they have this week, but at the same time, when we’re here we’ve got to be really locked into the improvement.”
Houston Baptist comes into Bloomington at 3-4 and looks to put those improvements to the test, but the Huskies have not won a road game this season. Senior forward Colter Lasher is Houston Baptist’s leading scorer with 13.1 points per game.
The Huskies’ other major weapon is junior center Josh Ibarra, who is averaging 10.7 points per game to go along with 6.4 rebounds per game. His point and rebounding marks are good for second on the team in both categories.
Houston Baptist is giving up an average of 80 points per game and are allowing teams to shoot 47.3 percent from the field. The Huskies also lack an intimidating post defense, with only 12 blocks so far this season.
The weak Husky defense will allow IU to continue working on its entry passes to both sophomore forward Thomas Bryant and freshman forward De’ron Davis.
One of the biggest developments for IU in the past few games is the emergence of Davis, who scored 14 points in two consecutive games. Like Bryant did in his freshman season, Davis is getting things done close to the basket and is currently shooting 61.3 percent.
According to Crean, as Davis continues to get in better shape, his minutes will increase.
“As long as he stays on the pace he’s on and continues to work on his fundamentals the way that he is, and this will be a really good two weeks for him coming up with two games in two weeks, so very good for him to continue to build on that,” Crean said.
Davis is well aware of what he needs to do.
“I’ve been working hard over the past couple of weeks to get myself in shape, in game shape,” Davis said. “And me and Coach have been talking about me playing like hockey minutes and stuff like that, me going hard and coming out and going in and out like that. Over this last week, this long stretch, I’ve been playing a lot more, so I think the conditioning is getting better, but I can always get better.”
With Davis’ improvement and the strong play of sophomore forward Juwan Morgan, IU’s starting lineup is subject to change when sophomore forward OG Anunoby returns from injury. The next few games will help IU figure out its lineup heading into conference play.
“I told them this is not a — the first five, second five deal at all this next two weeks,” Crean said. “We’ve got to really compete. There’s a lot of room for improvement. I’m not married to a lineup.”
