INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana men’s basketball hasn’t played a regular-season game. It’s yet to tip off the Darian DeVries era in Bloomington.
But with three exhibition games in Puerto Rico in August and two in their home state in late October, the Hoosiers have earned five wins. In three of them, the Cream and Crimson faced double-digit deficits.
Indiana trailed Baylor University by 13 points with just over seven and a half minutes left in the first half of Sunday’s exhibition inside Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. A late-first-half surge allowed the Hoosiers to hold an advantage for much of the second period.
However, the Bears marched back in the final minutes to regain the lead. Once more, Indiana responded to secure the 76-74 victory.
Each time the Hoosiers faced adversity in their preseason contests, they answered. Three victories followed.
“I think it's a great quality and hopefully it continues when it goes in the win-loss column, but it is something that matters,” DeVries said postgame. “You get three opportunities out of four that we've had so far where we had to come from behind and figure out a way to make some adjustments and come back to find a way to win.”
Both squads opened the first seven and a half minutes of the contest by largely trading buckets. Fifth-year senior guard Lamar Wilkerson had 7 of the Hoosiers’ 13 points with 5 coming from the charity stripe.
After redshirt senior forward Tucker DeVries scored consecutive layups, the Bears then went on a 14-2 run to lead by 13. DeVries followed with a 3-pointer, becoming the first Hoosier to connect from 3-point range as they missed their first five attempts.
But Baylor responded with a longball of its own. Tayton Conerway then notched his first points of the contest, as the sixth-year senior guard layed the ball into the basket. The under-eight media timeout ensued 37 seconds later.
With his squad trailing by 11, Indiana head coach Darian DeVries understood the game could turn in several ways. A run to tighten the gap ahead of halftime could pave the way for a victory. Or the Hoosiers could find themselves down by 20 as they were against Serbian professional squad Mega Superbet on Aug. 11.
So, DeVries delivered a message to his squad in the huddle.
“I challenged the guys in the timeout of, ‘Don't let this get to 20,’” DeVries said. “’This can't be what we just do all the time.’”
Indiana heard DeVries. It outscored Baylor by 6 points throughout the rest of the first half to enter the locker room behind by 5, which gave the first-year head coach’s all-new squad a “much more manageable” final 20 minutes ahead.
The Hoosiers came out of the break and took the lead via Wilkerson’s third 3-pointer of the game. Now, it was time for the Cream and Crimson to match the physicality the Bears displayed in the opening half.
DeVries said the matchup was a “great opportunity” to experience a contest against a collegiate foe with speed, athleticism and playmaking. And it was clear the Hoosiers weren’t quite used to such an opponent.
“I thought the first half, you could see struggle with that at times, and I thought at halftime when they came back out, they kind of readjusted and I thought we were much more aggressive the second half, defensively especially,” DeVries said. “So, I thought they did a nice job of kind of taking what they saw in the first half, changing it and flipping it in the second half.”
Indiana led by as many as 9 points in the second half. However, Baylor went on a quick 8-0 spurt to lead by 2 with just over two minutes left. The Hoosiers, who largely collapsed in late-game situations under former head coach Mike Woodson’s four-year tenure, now had their first such moment under DeVries.
However, the Cream and Crimson weren’t running their new-look DeVries offense. Instead, they were “pretty vanilla” on that end, DeVries said. The Hoosiers still regained the lead as Wilkerson made back-to-back trips to the charity stripe and converted both shots.
But when the Bears regained the lead with 1:16 left and eventually tied the contest with 12 seconds remaining, DeVries said he would’ve normally called a timeout to allow his squad to regroup and draw up plays. Not Sunday — he wanted to see how his squad would respond.
Conerway bounced back with a drive to the bucket with eight seconds left, where he got his 13th and final field goal attempt of the day to drop. Although Conerway didn’t convert the 3-point play at the line, the Bears missed a game-winning 3-pointer and a game-tying layup.
The Hoosiers escaped.
“What a great learning opportunity for us to have this,” DeVries said, “have the game come down to the wire.”
Conerway was only in the contest, however, because DeVries and Baylor head coach Scott Drew agreed pregame that a player’s fifth foul wouldn’t sideline him. Conerway committed his fifth with 2:40 left in the game, while Wilkerson earned his fifth with just under four minutes remaining. The former led the Hoosiers with 26 points while the latter finished with 17.
Although its win column didn’t benefit from Sunday’s contest, DeVries thought Indiana did with 10 days until the season opener.
“I thought it was really good for us,” DeVries said, “and we don't play for a while, so we've got some great tape to go look at.”
Follow reporters Dalton James (@DaltonMJames and jamesdm@iu.edu) and Nathan Shriberg (@NShriberg and naashri@iu.edu) and columnist Kasey Watkins (@KaseyWatki8773 and kaslwatk@iu.edu) for updates throughout the Indiana men’s basketball season.
