Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall is equipped with 360-degree cameras capable of capturing monstrous dunks.
With the departure of Troy Williams, a question arose as to which IU player would be the first to have a highlight worthy of the technology.
Freshman Devonte Green answered that question emphatically as his first career points at home came on a dunk that punctuated a dominating stretch of play for IU in the second half.
The dunk signaled that IU’s offense was rolling and picking up right where it left off in Hawaii as IU waltzed to a 100-78 win over UMass-Lowell on Wednesday.
The Hoosiers saw this as an opportunity to be in complete control against a lesser nonconference opponent and play as well as they could.
“Just not playing the team,” sophomore OG Anunoby said. “Just playing to dominate. Getting multiple stops on defense, rebound and just move the ball on offense.”
It wasn’t always dominant. IU started out sluggish on both ends of the court, and its defense allowed UMass-Lowell to get easy baskets early.
The River Hawks were able to get out to a small five-point lead early behind Tyler Livingston’s shooting. He would finish the first half with 12 points.
However, IU stayed patient and started pounding the paint to open up the offense.
“I think, again, it’s always what’s correctable,” IU Coach Tom Crean said. “And the correctable was we’re not going through the paint enough, we’re shooting too many threes. And it’s not that we don’t want to shoot threes, but we don’t want to shoot threes without going through the paint.”
Crean said once IU stopped playing into the defense’s hands, it was able to take control of the game. The Hoosiers really couldn’t find a rhythm until late in the half, when their 3-point shooting caught fire, which came after they started getting post touches.
Junior guard James Blackmon Jr.’s inferno helped IU get out to comfortable 17-point lead heading into halftime. The sharpshooter had 20 points in the first half to power IU’s offense.
Coming out of half, the Hoosiers continued scorching the River Hawks from three. IU shot 40.7 percent from three in the game, and four of IU’s first six made field goals to start the half were threes. Anunoby and juniors Rob Johnson and Josh Newkirk all hit threes to extend IU’s lead and effectively bury any chance UMass-Lowell had at a comeback.
That spurt started on the defensive end for the Hoosiers.
“It all starts on defense,” Johnson said. “That’s where you can get out in transition. Once we get stops, specifically defensive rebounds, we can get ourselves in place. So once we string stops together, I think that’s really good for us.”
It wasn’t just from three where the IU offense found success. IU was able to force turnovers and get out into the open court, where it finished with 22 points on the fast break. The Hoosier guards were consistently able to knife into the lane at will and finish easy layups.
Reaching 100 for the second straight game, IU had no trouble scoring, but Crean knows they still have room to improve.
“Twenty-three assists in a game like this is good for us,” Crean said. “There will be good things to build off of that we can get better at.”
