{"id":339824,"date":"2025-12-10T17:07:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T17:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/339824\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T17:07:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T17:07:09","slug":"indiana-mens-basketball-fueled-by-ball-movement-in-victory-over-penn-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/339824\/","title":{"rendered":"Indiana men\u2019s basketball fueled by ball movement in victory over Penn State"},"content":{"rendered":"

Indiana men\u2019s basketball\u00a0opened\u00a0its\u00a0season with\u00a023 or more assists in three straight games. Afterward, the Hoosiers only achieved that mark once in their next six games, recording\u00a027\u00a0in a 44-point drubbing\u00a0of\u00a0Bethune-Cookman University<\/a>\u00a0on Nov. 29.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But against Penn State on Tuesday night, the Cream and Crimson\u2019s reinvigorated offense tallied 30 assists, the second most\u00a0in a single game\u00a0in program history\u00a0\u2014 Indiana had 31 against the\u00a0University of Alaska Anchorage\u00a0in 2001.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Hoosiers\u2019 abundance of playmaking\u00a0combined with the shot-making of fifth-year senior guard Lamar Wilkerson led to Indiana\u2019s 113-72 trouncing of Penn State on Tuesday inside Simon\u00a0Skjodt\u00a0Assembly Hall.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wilkerson\u2019s historic\u00a044-point\u00a0performance\u00a0headlined the\u00a0Cream and Crimson\u2019s\u00a0dominant night, but amid his prestige,\u00a0four other Hoosiers\u00a0ended the game in double figures.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Senior forward Reed Bailey scored 18 points, sixth-year senior guard Tayton\u00a0Conerway\u00a0added 17, junior guard Nick Dorn tallied 13 and redshirt\u00a0senior forward Tucker DeVries posted 12. After the historic night, head coach Darian DeVries praised his team\u2019s\u00a0revitalized offense.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s\u00a0funny how that works. Sometimes one guy gets it going, everybody feels like\u00a0they’re\u00a0hot,\u201d\u00a0Darian\u00a0DeVries said postgame. \u201cIt was nice to see tonight 30 assists to go with it. I think\u00a0that’s\u00a0a big piece of it, too. Like we talked about all year, you have 30 assists, usually that\u00a0means we were getting\u00a0pretty clean, good looks, the kind of shots that we wanted.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Indiana\u00a0lacked quality\u00a0shots\u00a0and\u00a0hit\u00a0only 41.3%\u00a0of its field goals\u00a0in the Hoosiers\u2019 Dec. 6 loss to\u00a0the\u00a0then-No. 6\u00a0University of\u00a0Louisville<\/a>.\u00a0Against Penn State,\u00a021\u00a0of\u00a0the Cream and Crimson\u2019s\u00a042\u00a0field goals were layups and dunks.\u00a0And of those,\u00a012 were\u00a0assisted.\u00a0That\u00a0night, Indiana shot 68.9%.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Joining the five\u00a0Hoosiers with double digit points, the Cream and Crimson also had five players with multiple assists.\u00a0Redshirt senior guard Conor Enright posted a season-high eight assists,\u00a0while\u00a0Conerway\u00a0had\u00a0seven,\u00a0Tucker\u00a0DeVries dished\u00a0a season-high\u00a0six,\u00a0Wilkerson\u00a0added\u00a0four and senior forward Sam Alexis tallied three.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Indiana\u2019s reemergence comes on the heels of Darian DeVries\u2019 first lineup change of the year. After\u00a0starting for\u00a0the first nine games, Bailey was moved to the bench in favor of Alexis.\u00a0While Bailey played 21 minutes to Alexis\u2019 16,\u00a0the switch provided a change of pace for the team.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought Reed responded\u00a0great, like I knew he would,\u201d Darian DeVries\u00a0said.\u00a0\u201cIt freed him up a little bit, coming off the bench,\u00a0maybe just\u00a0a chance to\u00a0process as the\u00a0game’s\u00a0going. Allows us with Sam a little more physicality to start the game, then\u00a0Reed comes in and\u00a0utilizes\u00a0some of his speed and things.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bailey made the most of his new role, shooting a perfect 6\u00a0for\u00a06 from the field and knocking down all six of his free throws.\u00a0However, the\u00a06-foot-9\u00a0Alexis\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0add much in the starting role, recording only two rebounds\u00a0and\u00a0attempting\u00a0zero field goals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After\u00a0scoring 21\u00a0points\u00a0against\u00a0Kansas State University<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Nov. 25,\u00a0Bailey\u00a0failed to\u00a0reach double digits in each of Indiana\u2019s\u00a0next\u00a0three outings.\u00a0But Darian DeVries\u2019 message after the Louisville game was clear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cJust keep being ourselves,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cJust being more physical, then playing with an edge, playing with effort, having fun.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a show of physicality, Indiana\u00a0scored\u00a042\u00a0points in the paint and\u00a0won the rebounding battle\u00a0\u2014\u00a028-21\u00a0\u2014\u00a0for the first time since Bethune-Cookman.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a team, Indiana nailed 17 3-pointers,\u00a0the most the Hoosiers have had in a game since\u00a0they\u00a0recorded a\u00a0program\u00a0record of\u00a019\u00a0makes from beyond the arc\u00a0against Illinois\u00a0in 2016.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Coming off back-to-back losses, Indiana reestablished its offensive prowess, thrashing Penn State in the process.\u00a0Up next, the Cream and Crimson will face the University of Kentucky at 7:30 p.m.\u00a0Saturday\u00a0inside Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Indiana men\u2019s basketball\u00a0opened\u00a0its\u00a0season with\u00a023 or more assists in three straight games. Afterward, the Hoosiers only achieved that mark…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-339824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}