Hulls' 3-point shooting leads Hoosiers

Senior guard Jordan Hulls said that when he grew up playing basketball in Bloomington, he learned to be a pass-first guard.

But Friday night at Assembly Hall, as the Hoosiers took down Jacksonville 93-59 in IU’s final non-conference game of the season, those on hand were able to witness the fruits of what Hulls said his teammates have been challenging him to do his entire career: be more aggressive.

Hulls took nine shots – all 3-pointers – during Friday night’s win, and in the first half, they seemed to come at crucial times when the Hoosiers needed a boost.

IU was held scoreless in the first three minutes of the game, allowing the Dolphins to jump out to an early 5-0 lead as the Hoosiers missed their first four shots of the game – including two Hulls’ 3-pointers.

As a team, IU would take 18 3-point shots in the first half, eventually making eight of them, but even for Hulls, they weren’t quite falling early.

“It’s what they were giving us,” Hulls said. “We would have liked to get inside more, and we may have took too many shots on the outside, but it’s not like they were bad shots. They were open.”

With 16:48 left, Hulls hit his first of the night to put the Hoosiers on the board. But even as the Hoosiers began to take form, Jacksonville kept the game close, though, with the help of three early buckets from beyond the arc and five total in the first half.

Hulls would match that number himself.

His second three of the half sparked a 9-2 IU run where the Hoosiers first brought their lead into double digits midway through the half. The Dolphins came back with a brief counter, but Hulls knocked down three 3-pointers in the span of 43 seconds towards the end of the half to account for nine-straight IU points and lengthen the team’s lead to 15 at halftime, 48-33.

Hulls began the second half in similar fashion, knocking down another 3-pointer for the team’s first basket of the period. With that bucket, he finished with 20 points on a 6-for-9 shooting night from beyond the arc.

And although Hulls did admit to taking his teammates’ wishes of seeing more aggressive play from their senior guard to heart, he and junior guard Victor Oladipo, who also connected on two early 3-pointers for the Hoosiers, said the credit goes to their fellow starting guard, freshman Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell.

The freshman was often the man dishing the ball out to Hulls, Oladipo and the rest of his teammates as they connected from long range Friday. Ferrell finished with 10 assists to set a career-high as a Hoosier.

“Not only has he gotten bigger – a little bit taller, but not really – but he’s gotten better as a player,” Oladipo said. “He gets better in games, and he gets better as days go on. It doesn’t cease to amaze me when he has nine or 10 assists. That’s just the player he is.

“For someone so short, I don’t know how he sees the court, but he does a great job of it.”

Hulls added that whenever he’s heading down court, he often tries to head towards the outskirts of the 3-point line, and he knows if he’s open from long range, Ferrell will likely find him.

“I love it,” Hulls said. “He’s a great passer, and he finds guys right when they need the ball, so when I’m running the floor, I try to run to a corner and try to run off some screens, and he’s doing a great job of not turning the ball over and getting those assists and finding people at the right time and making the right plays.”

And Ferrell did just that. To go along with his 10 assists, the freshman didn’t record a single turnover Friday night to go along with six points, two steals and two rebounds.

Sophomore forward Cody Zeller followed Hulls with 16 points. Oladipo and junior forward Will Sheehey each added 14, and senior forward Christian Watford scored 11 as the fifth Hoosier in double figures Friday.

Oladipo said that after the team’s loss to Butler on Dec. 15, he’s seen the Hoosiers become a lot strong on the defensive end with better communication, and that has been the reason for the stronger offensive performances like the one his teammates put on against Jacksonville.

“We came together and realized what we had to do to improve,” Oladipo said. “I think we’re ready going into the Big Ten. We have leaders who have been through it, and we have young guys who are getting mentally prepared for it.

“I’m looking forward to it.”