Ahead of IU men’s basketball’s game against Minnesota, head coach Archie Miller said Tuesday he hoped his team would get off to a good start offensively. He knew it would help get the Hoosiers’ confidence up.
Miller said IU is apprehensive on offense and a team that hopes things go well instead of making them happen, causing slow starts.
But the Hoosiers turned that around Wednesday night against the Golden Gophers. In IU’s 82-72 win over Minnesota, the Hoosiers fast start gave them the confidence they needed on offense.
“Offensively, we were pretty efficient when we didn't turn it over,” Miller said. “And we got good shots. We made some tonight, which was good.”
Within the first four minutes, forwards Trayce Jackson-Davis and Race Thompson were aggressive in their looks at the basket. The two combined to score 9 points out of the gates.
Jackson-Davis went on to record his ninth double-double of the season with 20 points and 10 rebounds.
But he wasn’t the only one powering IU’s offense — five Hoosiers scored in double digits against Minnesota. The IU guards, senior Al Durham, junior Rob Phinisee and sophomore Armaan Franklin, all put up double figures, meanwhile sophomore forward Jerome Hunter also added a career-high 16 points.
However, the Hoosiers’ offense was far from perfect.
IU turned the ball over 17 times, and Minnesota scored 25 points off those turnovers. On defense, the Hoosiers struggled to keep the Golden Gophers off their own boards, giving up 13 offensive rebounds.
“So in our last two games, in my opinion, that's one negative between the turnovers and rebounds,” Miller said. “It's really going to hurt us down the stretch if we can't get that cleaned up.”
Despite those negatives, IU still found a way to pull it together on defense and carry that over on the offensive end of the floor. And they did it as a team.
“The big stretch in this game really came from defense to offense, we were able to finally get a couple stops and get some transition,” Miller said.
IU came out of halftime down 37-35, but reclaimed the lead just over five minutes into the half through its defensive stops and confidence on offense.
The team found its guards open on the perimeter. Jackson-Davis passed it out to Durham in the corner to tie the game at 46 at the 15:13 mark with a 3-pointer. Then, Hunter went on to hit back-to-back 3-pointers to extend IU’s lead to 6.
The team relied on its role players to step up and win this game as a team — especially Hunter. After sitting out two games at the beginning of February due to a coach’s decision, Hunter regained his confidence against Minnesota.
Miller said he’s going to be a role player for them going down the stretch because of the way he’s shot the ball — going 5-6 from the field and shooting 100% from 3-point range Wednesday.
“I just had to come back with a bigger chip on my shoulder, show everybody that I apologize and that I'm here to help us win some games,” Hunter said.
The team also relied on Phinisee, who scored 10 points, grabbed four rebounds and gave out six assists.
Durham said Phinisee has had several games lately where he hasn’t been playing like himself, but against Minnesota, he did what he needed to do. He made the right passes and played hard on defense, guarding junior guard Marcus Carr.
“We don't need Rob, you know, to be honest with you to do anything other than try like crazy to be the leader on defense, push our ball, make guys better, shoot when you're open, and I think tonight, he kept it simple,” Miller said.
The Hoosiers’ fast start on offense and togetherness on defense gave the entire team the confidence to shoot the open shots, and ultimately shoot nearly 60% from the field and 3-point range.
Even with an excessive 17 turnovers, IU’s role players stepped up on both ends of the floor to pull away from Minnesota at the end of the game to put the team back at .500 in Big Ten play.
