Indiana men’s basketball remains on the NCAA Tournament bubble. After picking up wins over Purdue and UCLA, the Hoosiers defended home court with an overtime victory over Wisconsin ahead of a home matchup with Oregon, which is 17th in the Big Ten standings.
Despite a slow start, the Cream and Crimson took control of the Ducks and pulled away for a 92-74 victory Monday night inside Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall in Bloomington.
Tensions rose almost immediately as the crowd inside Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall erupted after redshirt senior guard Conor Enright and redshirt senior forward Tucker DeVries picked up early fouls. Oregon senior guard Drew Carter scored five quick points and the Ducks grabbed a 6-0 lead.
It took nearly four minutes for the Cream and Crimson to notch their first points. A hook shot from senior forward Sam Alexis kicked off a 6-0 Hoosier run that knotted the score. The teams traded buckets for the next few minutes, with DeVries and Enright knocking down 3-pointers to give Indiana a 14-12 lead at the under-12 media timeout.
The Hoosiers and the Ducks continued to go back and forth throughout the half, as the lead changed hands a total of nine times in the first 20 minutes of action.
Fifth-year senior guard Lamar Wilkerson drilled a right wing 3-pointer for his first points of the game with seven minutes left in the half. Wilkerson missed each of his first five attempts from the field but scored 10 straight Indiana points after getting on the board.
In the final minutes of the opening frame, Wilkerson, Enright and Alexis added to the Hoosiers’ point total, dueling Oregon senior center Nate Bittle and a plethora of Ducks. A pair of Wilkerson free throws gave the Hoosiers a 36-30 lead entering the halftime break.
After taking 13 minutes to register his first bucket, Wilkerson ended the half with 16 points. Only four Hoosiers scored in the first half, as Wilkerson was joined by Alexis, DeVries and Enright.
The Cream and Crimson shot just 4 for 16 from beyond the arc in the first half. Junior guard Nick Dorn remained cold, missing each of his four attempted longballs. Wilkerson shot 2 for 6 and DeVries went 1 for 5 from 3-point range.
Coming out of the break, the Hoosiers’ offense returned much more potent. Enright found Alexis and then DeVries for quick scores in the paint on Indiana’s first two possessions of the half. Wilkerson and DeVries each drained a 3-pointer before Alexis nailed a baseline floater to take a 14-point lead and force Oregon to call a timeout with just over 16 minutes remaining in the game.
Wilkerson pushed the lead to 15 points with a right wing 3-pointer, but Bittle answered with a longball of his own. Ducks senior guard Takai Simpkins scored through contact from Hoosiers senior forward Reed Bailey to bring Oregon within 10 and force Indiana to call a timeout.
For much of the remaining minutes, the game reverted to its prior back-and-forth state. But this time, the Cream and Crimson started with a double-digit cushion. After over 28 minutes of game time, Dorn knocked down three free throws to become the fifth Hoosier to score.
Dorn went on to score Indiana’s next eight points before Wilkerson scored seven more to push Indiana’s lead to 16 points. Wilkerson poured it on in the final minutes as the Cream and Crimson pulled away for a 92-74 victory over the Ducks.
Wilkerson notched his second 40-point performance of the season, finishing the game with 41 points on six 3-pointers to come up three points short of the Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall scoring record that he set in December. Alexis added 16 points, DeVries scored 15 and Dorn racked up 11 quick points just in the second half.
Indiana will have five days off before its next game, a road contest against No. 8 Illinois at 1 p.m. Sunday inside State Farm Center in Champaign, Illinois.
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.
