BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Welcome to the Hoosiers On SI live blog! Indiana opens its Big Ten account as it hosts Minnesota.
Having some wireless issues at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, so bear with us.
Oumar Ballo was listed as questionable coming into the game according to the availability report, but he’ll give it a shot tonight. Gabe Cupps is out.
Starters
Indiana – Oumar Ballo, Mackenzie Mgbako, Trey Galloway, Malik Reneau, Myles Rice.
Minnesota – Mike Mitchell Jr., Femi Odukale, Lu’Cye Patterson, Frank Mitchell, Dawson Garcia.
• Kanaan Carlyle is not listed on the availability report, so we’ll see how much he plays tonight.
• Decent turnout for a 6:30 p.m. ET game on a Monday night. West balcony has a sizable amount of fans. East balcony has a smattering. Lower portion of Assembly Hall filled enough.
• Mike Woodson pregame boo watch … about the same as the last game. Noticeable, but by no means a high percentage of the turnout.
• Minnesota 12-10, 1542 1H. Defense? What’s that? Neither team playing much of it. Indiana has been taken advantage of on both of its turnovers as the Golden Gophers got easy transition buckets from both. Indiana has failed to keep Dawson Garcia from getting into a rhythm. He scored Minnesota’s first bucket and already has 6 points.
Indiana committed to getting the posts down the floor quickly for early shot clock post feeds. Oumar Ballo and Malik Reneau have seven of Indiana’s 10 points. Guard play hasn’t been very good for the Hoosiers so far.
• Minnesota 16-14, 1407 1H. Mike Woodson calls an immediate timeout after a very lazy pass by the Hoosiers when bringing the ball up the floor results in an easy bucket for Lu’Cye Patterson. Indiana’s passing is so lackadaisical sometimes.
• 16-16, 1316 1H. Kanaan Carlyle has entered the game. Hopefully, he can bring a spark to Indiana’s backcourt. Mackenzie Mgbako has been a scoring threat, but everything else has collectively been poor from the guards in the early going.
• Minnesota 22-20, 1125 1H. My word. The defense has been really poor both ways. The offense both ways hasn’t really been great either. Plenty of one-on-one stuff. Can’t really call it isolation, but just individuals taking it upon themselves to dribble down. Minnesota’s Brennan Rigsby hit a couple of rainbow fall-away jumpers and that’s the difference right now.
Both teams are shooting above 70%. It’s stretches like this from Indiana that make it hard for fans to buy the fact that they can be (and often statistically are) a decent defensive team. But it’s rare that it sustains for 40 minutes, so you get periods like this where the Hoosiers don’t play up to their potential.
• Indiana 24-22, 937 1H. You can tell that the film study has been done on Bryson Tucker. Minnesota taking away that angle he likes to use to get his elbow jumper going. The freshman is finding other ways to score (4 points) … an encouraging development.
• Indiana 30-23, 729 1H. Indiana bench to the rescue. Bryson Tucker, Kanaan Carlyle and Luke Goode gave Indiana the defensive nous needed to take control of this game. Indiana pushed Minnesota’s guards out past the 3-point line and forced them into lower-percentage two-point and three-point shots. The Golden Gophers have missed their last four shots.
Meanwhile, Tucker got himself going with a putback layup to start. He’s been able to spread his mid-range game all over the floor and has 8 points. After an off-game in Indiana’s last contest, Tucker is on it tonight.
• Indiana 30-23, 634 1H. Indiana fans verbally show their appreciation for Carlyle and Tucker as they sub out. Excellent shift from both, especially on the defensive end.
• Indiana 33-23, 458 1H. Myles Rice hobbles off the floor. Whatever is bothering him must be painful because he fouled to get himself out of the game.
• Indiana 36-26, 317 1H. Myles Rice briefly went to the trainer’s room but has since re-emerged and is on the bench. We’ll see if he can go in this one.
Minnesota went almost 8 minutes without a field goal. A Mike Mitchell Jr. 3-pointer broke the drought after a Trey Galloway turnover. Galloway has 4 turnovers as he’s forcing the issue too often.
In a sign of how bad the defense was early, Minnesota went almost 8 minutes without a field goal and is still shooting 52.2%. Better late than never, I suppose. Indiana still converting at a 63.6% clip.
• Halftime – Indiana 44, Minnesota 31. After a hopeless defensive effort from both teams in the first 10 minutes or so, Indiana tightened up while the Golden Gophers remained pretty hopeless. Hoosiers converted 63% of its first half shots to pull ahead.
Oumar Ballo and Bryson Tucker with 11 points each. Malik Reneau has 10 points. Dawson Garcia got off to a hot start with 8 points, but didn’t do much in the final 10 minutes of the half. Mike Mitchell Jr. also has 8 points for Minnesota.
• Indiana 46-31, 1849 2H. Myles Rice back on the floor so the ankle he turned obviously wasn’t very serious.
• Indiana 50-33, 1548 2H. Indiana picked up where it left off at the end of the first half. Minnesota has yet to make a bucket in the second half. Minnesota doesn’t know what to do with itself when its half-court dribble-drive game breaks down. Good denial by the Hoosiers a key part of that. After Dawson Garcia had four buckets in the first six minutes of the game, he’s had none since.
On the offensive side, all three of Indiana’s second-half makes are in the paint. Hoosiers have doubled up the Gophers 32-16 on points in the paint.
• Indiana 55-41, 1300 2H. Hoosiers showing some signs of slippage as a couple of turnovers allowed Minnesota to cut a bit closer after Indiana’s lead peaked at 17. A Kanaan Carlyle 3-pointer in the midst of it settled things down a bit for Indiana.
For the analytics-minded, Myles Rice is allowing 80.8 points per 100 possessions, which is good. Trey Galloway and Mackenzie Mgabko are allowed 107, which is not.
• Indiana 59-45, 1131 2H. Indiana has only taken nine 3-point shots. That will freak out the people who only understand a good shot to be a 3-point shot, forgetting that a high-percentage shot at the rim is just as analytically sound. Indiana is 12-for-16 on shots classified as a layup in the official stats.
• Indiana 63-47, 1039 1H. Beginning to think there’s a Hoosiers On SI live blog curse. Last game, I picked a picture of Mackenzie Mgbako and was 2-for-7 from the field. Today, I pick Trey Galloway and he’s 0-for-1 with four turnovers.
