Hoosiers Cruise Past Bethune-Cookman, and Now the Fun Begins

Trayce Jackson-Davis scored 21 points on 9-of-10 shooting, and No. 13 Indiana made 10 three-pointers and 21-of-22 free throws in a convincing 101-49 rout of Bethune-Cookman. on Thursday night.

Tom Brew | Nov 10, 2022

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Indiana Hoosiers

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — In its final tuneup before the real tests begin, Indiana was firing on all cylinders Thursday night. Star forward Trayce Jackson-Davis was nearly perfect, and the Hoosiers made 10 three-pointers, something they did only four times a year ago.

And get this: Indiana, a team that allegedly can't shoot free throws, was 21-of-22 from the line.

It all added up nicely in a 101-49 rout of Bethune-Cookman, as the No. 13 Hoosiers moved to 2-0 in the first week of the season. Now the fun begins. The next stop is at Xavier next Friday, the first of five huge nationally televised contests in five weeks that will go a long way in determining how good this team really is.

So far, so good. From top to bottom. There is no dropoff at all right now when Indiana coach Mike Woodson goes to his bench.

"This team is competitive, man,'' Woodson said. "I'm just telling you, if you'd been able to sit in at practice and watch the journey from when we started 4 1/2 months ago, they just, they're just competitive. They go at each other in practice, which is kind of nice.

In return, it's a nice carryover into the ballgame. They all want to play. There's only so many minutes in the game, so they're making the most of the minutes when they're out there. The second unit, back-to-back games, man, they've been phenomenal in terms of how they've come and performed and have really built our lead for us. It's kind of nice.''

It was a second straight total team effort, with Jackson-Davis leading the starting unit, and all five bench players contributing in a big way. It was just 12-10 Indiana when the first wave of bench players came in, and they promptly went on a 17-2 run to blow the game open. Freshman forward Malik Reneau had two early baskets and then the Hoosiers hit three straight three-pointers, one from Jordan Geronimo and two from Trey Galloway. Geronimo finished with 11 points, and Galloway had 10.

Indiana shot 58 percent from the floor and was 10-for-24 from three.

"Obviously it makes a big difference, just being able to spread out the floor and make shots because we've been working on that, and we've been working on game rep shots and getting shots up,'' Galloway said. "I think just shooting the ball with confidence is a big thing for us because we know we've got guys that can make shots. So just continuous repetition of that and having guys be ready to step up and knock it down, that's big for us.

The free-throws is pretty much mental. You've got to go up to the line with that mentality that you're going to step up and knock it down. So I think we've been really focused on taking free throws seriously during practice and walking in and taking them serious and just knocking them down is what matters.''

The starters did their thing, too. Jackson-Davis, still playing with his sprained right thumb heavily wrapped, made 9-of-10 field goals and all three free throws to lead the Hoosiers with 21 points. He did all of that in 21 minutes of action.

Miller Kopp had a great night, too. He was 4-for-6 from three, tying his Indiana career high for made threes. He did that twice last year, against Syracuse and in the regular season finale at Purdue. He's only had one better shooting night, back in March 2020 when he made five against Penn State when he was still playing at Northwestern.

Indiana did a great job of moving the ball, racking up 27 assists. Playing point guards Xavier Johnson and Jalen Hood-Schifino really helps a lot, and one of them is basically on the floor all the time. Hood-Schifino didn't shoot well — he was just 2-for-8 from the field and missed all five three-point attempts — but he had eight assists. Johnson, who was just 1-for-3 shooting, had six assists.

"The short period that I've been in college as a coach, I truly believe you've got to have good point guard play and perimeter play to win at a high level,'' Woodson said. "I mean, just watching teams and the great teams that are from last season and just seems to win every year at a high level, they've got good perimeter players and good guards out front.

"X has come into his own. I thought he proved that at the end of last season. And Jalen is still learning, but I think he's ahead of schedule in terms of how he's performed for us on the floor. I'm still learning our team. I'm mixing and matching, and guys are responding, and that's kind of nice to see from a coaching standpoint.''

Indiana had a great night from the free throw line, which was shocking to many considering this team's struggles there the past several years. It carried over to this year too, when they made just one of their first seven attempts on Monday against Morehead State and were just 12-of-21 for the game. They made 21-of-22 on Thursday — Hood-Schifino had the only miss — for 95.5 percent. It was a top-10 all-time shooting night from the line. (Indiana has been perfect five times.)

"We've been shooting a lot of them (in practice, and beyond), I know that,'' Woodson said. "Nobody wants to go up and miss free throws. I think it's a mental thing, man. I mean, somebody gives you free free throws, you've got to take advantage of it.

"I thought tonight, everybody, our focus and concentration level was high, and we stepped up to the line, and we made them.''

Indiana won its two exhibition games by an average of 40.5 points, and now have won their first two regular season games by 43.5 points per game. The preliminaries are over, though. Next time out is at Xavier, a top-40 team that's loaded with talent and is always tough at home. It's the start of a month of high profile games, including North Carolina in Bloomington (Nov. 30), at Rutgers (Dec. 3), against Arizona in Las Vegas (Dec. 10) and at Kansas.

What we've learned so far is that Indiana is a very deep team. They ran into trouble last year when the second unit played, but this year — at least so far — they been even better than the starters in extending leads.

So far, so good, right? Now we get to learn a lot more.

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