IU avenges home loss to Minnesota with rout at Williams Arena

The IU men’s basketball team entered Sunday’s game with two streaks behind them.
One of those was winning Big Ten road games, in which IU was 2-6. The other was winning at Williams Arena, where the Hoosiers were 0-3 since IU Coach Tom Crean took over in 2008.

On Sunday, they got the better of both of those streaks in convincing fashion.
No. 23/24 IU (22-7, 9-7) avenged its only home loss of the season and defeated Minnesota (17-12, 5-11) 69-50 Sunday at Williams Arena.

“It’s big for us,” junior forward Christian Watford said. “It solidifies that we can get a road win. That’s something that people have been talking about that we really needed. We came out here and got that tonight.”

The 50 points allowed was not only IU’s best defensive effort in Big Ten play, but it was also the fewest points allowed in a conference road game in the Crean era.

“We helped each other out tremendously tonight,” Watford said. “That’s the main thing.”

IU also limited Minnesota to 31 percent (18-of-58) shooting from the floor and forced 16 Gopher turnovers.

Minnesota guard Austin Hollins, who had 18 points in the Gophers win in Bloomington, had 14 points Sunday. But this time, Hollins was the only Gopher to finish in double figures.

Despite IU’s defensive prowess, the Gophers were able to knock down a couple early 3-pointers to get out to a 6-0 lead. IU junior guard Jordan Hulls said IU didn’t panic with the early deficit.

“We didn’t want it to happen to start off the game that way, but it’s a long game. We knew that coming in,” Hulls said. “We just needed to clamp down and get stops in a row, and that’s what we were able to do.”

On the other side of the ball, IU displayed a balanced offensive attack.

Juniors Jordan Hulls and Christian Watford, along with sophomore guard Victor Oladipo, led IU in scoring with 12 points apiece. The 12-point effort from Hulls came after averaging two points during his past three games.

“I was just being a lot more aggressive today,” Hulls said. “That just came from the confidence my teammates gave in me to shoot the ball when I was open, to create and just be more aggressive. That’s all it really was.”

Senior guard Verdell Jones III, who was the fourth Hoosier in double figures with 11 points, had his highest offensive output since IU’s 103-89 win against Iowa on Jan. 29.
“We did a great job of sharing the basketball, and it led to a lot of us getting into double figures today,” Watford said.

 IU also found offense at the charity stripe, where IU was 84 percent (21-of-25). It’s an area Crean said IU needs to have to win in the Big Ten.

“We have to get to the foul line,” Crean said. “There’s no way around that.”

The 19-point win came despite only seven points from IU’s leading scorer, freshman forward Cody Zeller, who was plagued by foul trouble throughout the second half.

But IU didn’t need Zeller’s offense in the second half. After a 37-26 halftime lead, IU did not let the lead get into single digits the rest of the way. Hulls said avenging the first loss fueled IU’s first win at “The Barn” in four years.

”We definitely had that in the back of our minds, that we didn’t want to strike out both times,” Hulls said. “It was a big one for us today.”