EVANSTON, Ill. — For 54 seconds, Mackenzie Mgbako was virtually unguardable.
Indiana men’s basketball’s sophomore forward went on his own 8-0 run, giving the Hoosiers a 37-29 lead early in the second half in a Jan. 5 victory over Penn State at The Palestra.
Mgbako finished the game with 20 points, and he left Philadelphia averaging 14.1 points per game while shooting 49% from the field and 42.4% on 3-pointers.
But times have changed dramatically for Mgbako, who’s only 4-for-29 shooting from the floor and 0-for-15 shooting from beyond the arc across Indiana’s past four games. He totaled 16 points and 15 rebounds during that span.
Mgbako’s sudden slump has put a damper on his once-promising sophomore season entering the Hoosiers’ 7 p.m. tipoff Wednesday against Northwestern inside Welsh-Ryan Arena in Evanston, Illinois.
Still, Indiana head coach Mike Woodson doesn’t want Mgbako to stop shooting.
“He’s got to keep working through it,” Woodson said in a Zoom press conference Tuesday. “He’s taken some good shots, and he just hasn’t made them. I’m not going to throw him to the curb, because he’s a big piece to what we do.”
Mgbako’s season averages have dropped to 11.9 points per game on 43.5% shooting on field goals, and his 3-point percentage has dropped nearly eight percentage points to 34.6%.
His scoring and shooting stats aren’t his only numbers dropping — Mgbako’s playing time has fallen, too.
The 6-foot-8, 217-pound Mgbako was on the court for only 15 minutes against USC on Jan. 8 and 16 minutes against Iowa on Jan. 11, marking the second and third-fewest minutes he’s played this season, respectively. He played 25 minutes against Illinois on Jan. 14, his 12th-highest total in 19 appearances this season.
In the Hoosiers’ 77-76 overtime victory against Ohio State on Jan. 17, Mgbako played 22 minutes, tied for his fourth-fewest tally this season. He didn’t play the final 14 minutes and 40 seconds of regulation and didn’t appear in overtime after scoring just 6 points on 1-for-5 shooting.
In full, three of Indiana’s past four games rank among Mgbako’s five shortest outings this season. Woodson noted Mgbako has battled foul trouble at times, but his elongated absence against Ohio State strictly came down to performance.
“Hell, listen man: I’m trying to win basketball games, and it ain’t always the player,” Woodson said. “The player’s got to adjust to how you’re coaching in the game. We had a group in there that was pretty solid. So, if you’re about team, it shouldn’t matter.”
Mgbako, the 2024 Big Ten Co-Freshman of the Year, has battled a rollercoaster sophomore campaign. He’s scored at least 13 points in 10 games this season, including five games of 17 or more points — but four of those came in November, and he’s been limited to 9 or fewer points in the Hoosiers’ other nine contests.
Five of Mgbako’s six games with 6 or fewer points have come in Big Ten play, which includes his current-four game drought.
Woodson said practice is the only way to get out of such a funk.
“When you’re struggling to make shots, you’ve got to come in and put the time in and keep shooting and keep working on it,” Woodson said.
Indiana is one of the Big Ten’s worst 3-point shooting teams. It ranks 17th in 3-point percentage at 31.4%, 15th in 3-point makes with 116 and 14th in attempts at 370. Mgbako averages 4.3 shots from deep per game, second on the team behind senior forward Luke Goode, who takes 4.5 triples per contest.
The Hoosiers shot 25% or worse from 3-point range in four of their five losses. Indiana, which appears firmly on the NCAA Tournament bubble with 12 Big Ten games remaining in the regular season, needs Mgbako to rediscover his stroke.
Woodson thinks he could find it as soon as Wednesday night.
“We’ll keep working with him,” Woodson said. “We’ve got to get him back going because he is a big piece to what we do.”
Follow reporters Daniel Flick (@ByDanielFlick) and Quinn Richards (@Quinn_richa) and columnist Mateo Fuentes-Rohwer (@mateo_frohwer) for updates throughout the Indiana men’s basketball season.
