Sophomore forward Thomas Bryant was proud of freshman forward De’ron Davis.
After one of Davis’s baskets in the first half, Bryant came up to him and patted him on the chest multiple times, encouraging his understudy.
Bryant had a lot to be pleased about. Davis had broken out and scored a career high 14 points, helping IU beat SIU-Edwardsville 83 to 60 Friday.
“For me, I feel like for me scratching the surface,” Davis said. “My teammates look to get me the ball and I look to have big games. It was just a good night for us as a team.”
The freshman took awhile to get on campus, as he wasn’t able to arrive at IU until mid-August after having to take care of an academic matter at home. This caused him to miss valuable time during the summer where he could have acclimated to the college game and his teammates.
Add to that, he also missed time this preseason season due to injury.
Seven games into the season, he’s looking more comfortable on the court.
Sophomore forward Juwan Morgan has seen him grow as the year has unfolded.
“I think just his confidence,” Morgan said. “After practice, I was telling him, ‘we have to work on this because we need you, we’re going to need you to play right away.’ He took that to heart and he started going against himself, looking himself in the mirror and saying this is what I got to do. I think that’s really showed up in these last few games.”
Coming into the game, Davis was averaging only 4.8 points per game, shooting an efficient 58.8-percent from the field. He doubled that total in the first half alone.
Instead of merely being Bryant’s backup, Davis has assimilated into a niche where the two players are both on the floor at the same time. The twin towers look has been wildly successful for the Hoosiers so far this season and Friday it helped IU take control of the game in the first half.
“Just having two bigs that can play inside out,” Davis said. “Granted, I’m working my way trying to move around the perimeter, work my way into shape. Towards the end of the season, when I’m in better shape and better condition, and we can do more things me on the outside, we’re unstoppable.”
His conditioning is coming along, and that will allow him to play for longer stretches of the game moving forward.
“He did an excellent job of understanding what the game was giving him,” IU Coach Tom Crean said. “We wanted to make a couple of adjustments for him to make it a little more conducive to where he skill level is right now, especially on the offensive side. He played well and I think it will continue to grow as he gets healthy and as he gets in even better shape.”
With junior forward OG Anunoby out indefinitely with a high ankle sprain, there are frontcourt minutes to be had and Davis proved Friday that he should be in the conversation for those minutes.
After providing strong production against North Carolina’s bigs, Davis backed it up in a big way against SIUE. Now, he’s just focused on continuing to grow as a player.
“As the season goes on, I’m going to continue to get better and so is my team,” Davis said.
