Zeller starts ‘The Movement’ a year early

Cody Zeller’s parents missed a lot Wednesday night.

The Zeller parents were in attendance, sporting T-shirts that were half IU colors for Cody and half North Carolina colors for Cody’s brother Tyler.

Unfortunately for the Zellers, they left Cody’s game too early for Chapel Hill, N.C., to see Tyler play Wisconsin.

“Maybe they shouldn’t have come at all,” Zeller joked. “We might’ve won by 20.”

They missed their youngest son closing the door on N.C. State to win 86-75, marking the first time in the Tom Crean era that the Hoosiers won in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge.

A total of 13 of Zeller’s 19 points came in the second half, as IU was able to outlast the Wolfpack in the final minutes.

Zeller’s game-high five offensive rebounds helped keep possessions alive for the Hoosiers down the stretch. While the true freshman fell a rebound short of notching his second career double-double.

Zeller helped get the IU offense going with four points in the first 5:21 of the first half to give the Hoosiers a 19-9 lead. The Wolfpack responded and kept Zeller at two points in the last 14:39 of the half.

The true freshman said he needed to make some halftime adjustments.

“The offensive rebounding was a real good indicator that we weren’t playing real tough in the first half, and I think everyone stepped it up another level,” Zeller said.

As he did in the first half, Zeller got the second half started with two quick buckets to get IU the lead back. But just like in the first half, the Wolfpack was able to limit Zeller after those two quick buckets.

Hulls said they needed to make a better effort to try and get Zeller the ball inside.
“We just got to throw it in there,” Hulls said. “Sometimes we don’t throw it in there all the time when he is open or we miss him late or whatever the case may be. But I think our timing was a lot better in the second half.”

This time, Zeller went nearly 12 minutes without a basket.

IU trailed by five with 6:19 to go when Zeller broke his scoring drought with a dunk off a feed from senior guard Verdell Jones.

A Zeller layup a minute later trimmed the lead to one. Then, a Zeller tip-in just 36 seconds later tied the score at 68 all.

Zeller’s six points in less than two minutes erased an IU deficit the Hoosiers would never look back at.

“It was just a gut check for us,” Zeller said. “We weren’t playing as hard as we should’ve in the first half getting into people. I think we played a lot harder in the second half, and that’s why we got the win.”

This article previously stated that Zeller's parents were wearing North Carolina State's colors. The Zeller's wore North Carolina colors, for their son Tyler's UNC game. The IDS regrets this error.