After IU men’s basketball’s 22-point loss to No. 17 University of Texas on Tuesday, head coach Archie Miller said that was the kind of game the team has to learn from.
Less than 24 hours later, IU cleaned up some of its mistakes to coast to a 79-63 win over Stanford University to place third in the Maui Invitational.
“And for our team, we got punched good in the mouth,” Miller said. “To be able to get back up and respond and get better and deal with it the way we did, it shows that, I think, it's what you're going to need this type of season.”
The Hoosiers were led by sophomore forward Trayce Jackson-Davis, who scored a career-high 31 points.
“Trayce needed to get lit up,” Miller said. “He needed to get going and we're not going to be where we need to be unless he plays at a really extremely high level. He answered the bell today.”
Junior forward Race Thompson followed behind Jackson-Davis with 15 points and also pulled down eight rebounds. The duo combined for 13 points in the first five minutes, and finished the game with more than half of the team’s points.
“Obviously they dominated the game from the inside out,” Stanford head coach Jerod Haase said. “We knew that was their game plan.”
Freshman guard Trey Galloway dished the ball to Jackson-Davis, who powered into the lane and slammed the ball down with his left hand at the 15:12 mark in the first half.
Jackson-Davis and Thompson had six total dunks during the game.
Coming off its performance against Texas where IU only scored just 16 points in the paint, the team had 40 points down low against Stanford.
“We knew after yesterday we had to have a bounce back game,” Thompson said. “We didn’t perform how we wanted to and today we knew what our strengths were and we just attacked our strengths and went inside.”
But the Hoosiers also expanded their shooting to the perimeter, where they went 50% from 3-point range.
With five minutes left in the first half, IU swung the ball around the outside and caught Stanford out of rotation. Freshman guard Anthony Leal passed it to Thompson who sunk a 3-pointer.
“Today I just really feel like that was the first game where I really had fun and got to play with joy and energy and passion, so it was good,” Jackson-Davis said. “To see the ball go in was really good as well.”
The Hoosiers finished the first half up 31-26 and only gave up five turnovers and allowed zero points off them.
In the second half, IU pushed the ball in transition and moved it quickly around the perimeter to find the open man.
With just under 16 minutes left, Galloway secured a defensive rebound and sped up the floor and into the lane where he passed it out to Thompson who swung it to freshman guard Khristian Lander in the corner for a 3-pointer.
Sophomore guard Armaan Franklin stepped up to fill the spot of senior guard Al Durham who was out with an ankle injury. Franklin played all 40 minutes of the game and scored 13 points, securing eight rebounds and giving out five assists.
“He's accountable right now. He's playing much tougher,” Miller said. “And one of the things that I love about Armaan right now is a year ago at this time I was begging him to rebound. I was begging him to mix it up and get it dirty.”
Franklin knocked down back-to-back jumpers in a 26-second span with five minutes left in the game to put IU up by 14 points.
The Hoosiers shot 53% from the field Wednesday — more than double their percentage against Texas on Tuesday — to defeat the Cardinal by 16 points.
IU will get a week off and then travel to Tallahassee, Florida, to play Florida State University at 9:15 p.m. Dec. 9.
