To say IU had to go back to the drawing board after a 57-point win against Howard Monday night might be a little unfair.
But the squad has gone about business as usual to prepare to take on the University of Maryland, Baltimore County Thursday night at Assembly Hall.
"Our thing tomorrow night is, let's not come out here to get through it and have a workman-like attitude," IU Coach Tom Crean said. "Let's come out here and be really, really good because it's going to be hard to duplicate what they did the other night. I mean, they were really good."
That they were as they scorched Howard with a season-high 13 different scorers. The IU bench nearly outscored Howard by themselves, scoring 47 points on 15-of-20 shooting.
But IU will be without one of those bench scorers against UMBC. Junior forward Derek Elston underwent surgery on Tuesday for his fractured nose. Crean said they expect Elston to miss Thursday's game but that he'll be back in time for the Big Ten opener against Michigan State on Dec. 28.
Though the injury occurred in practice last week, Elston played through it and chipped in eight points against Howard.
"It was an accident," Oladipo sheepishly admitted. "It was just in practice and we were doing a drill. I had gone up---I have boney elbows and I'm kind of boney all over--- and Derek had gone up, too. I kind of came down with the ball and they kind of swiped him a little bit. Derek will be fine."
According to Crean, a prime candidate to take on more minutes in Elston's absence is freshman forward Austin Etherington, who played a season-high nine minutes and scored four points against Howard.
"I think Austin is going be crucial because we're not going to have Derek tomorrow night," Crean said.
Etherington will add another three-point threat to an IU squad that already leads the nation in three-point field goal percentage at 47 percent. The Hoosiers will put their No. 1 three-point percentage to the test against a UMBC squad that has allowed its opponents to shoot only 31 percent from beyond the arc.
But Hulls said it's the defensive side of the ball that has allowed them to be successful on offense.
"I just feel like our mindset has been a lot better as the season has gone on," Hulls said. "That's just another sign of maturity and creating our offense off that defense."
That IU defense has held its opponents to an average of five made shots and 17.5 points in the first half in the last two games. Any way you slice it up, that's not too shabby.
"We've been good defensively all year but each game I feel like we go through adversity but we end up playing a lot better defensively, whether it be in the second half or the first half," Hulls said.
Can IU possibly top its performance on Monday night? Crean said that might be a tall task but the mindset will not be any different.
"It's going to be a game that we have to come out and establish how we're going to play and that's what our guys did the other night," Crean said. "That's the most important thing and that's what we've been focused on"
