Up by three points, 2.2 seconds on the clock. Indiana head coach Mike Woodson put seven-footer Kel’el Ware on the inbounds play with the game of the line. The result of the play? A tipped pass by Ware that allowed time to tick down to a 78-75 Indiana victory over Michigan.
“He’s seven feet tall so we’ve got to put his butt on the ball,” Woodson said to Don Fischer on the radio postgame.
With the Hoosiers’ first 2-0 start in Big Ten play since 2018, Indiana has picked up some momentum entering the final stretch of non-conference outings. A lot of Indiana’s success is attributed to its big men Ware and Malik Reneau, who combined for 28 points and 14 rebounds Tuesday night.
The contest up in Ann Arbor was eerily similar to how last season’s game played out, both coming down to the final Michigan possession with Indiana’s defense holding strong. Credit Woodson’s coaching down the stretch in the Hoosiers’ win; putting Ware on the inbounds, giving Mackenzie Mgbako the basketball at the free-throw line, fouling while up by three.
“Nobody wanted to give up tonight,” Woodson said on Peacock after the game, “It was back and forth. They played well but I thought down the stretch we made the plays we needed to make defensively.”
Indiana’s bench production showed out with 28 total bench points and CJ Gunn led much of the charge with eight points and two triples. Gunn came into Tuesday night with only two made threes in his career. Woodson said after the game on Peacock how nice it was to see Gunn get involved in the offense and give them a spark off the bench.
It certainly wasn’t a pretty victory for the Hoosiers. Ten turnovers in the first half, many self-inflicted, prevented Indiana from pulling ahead. Without sixth-year guard Xavier Johnson, players were expected to step up into larger roles and the Hoosiers got that across the board. Every player who touched the hardwood got into the scoring column in one way or another.
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take,” CJ Gunn said to reporters in the postgame press conference.
Indiana’s next two outings will be against teams ranked in the top 20 in KenPom with Auburn coming in at 19 and the Kansas Jayhawks at 12. With the Hoosiers riding a four-game hot streak, their confidence is slowly building in the early season. Next up for the Cream and Crimson will be a road trip down south to Atlanta where they will face the Tigers in State Farm Arena.
