January hasn’t been kind to Indiana basketball.
A string of four straight soul-crushing, demoralizing losses threw Indiana off course and—for perhaps the first time ever—Indiana football overshadowed its men’s basketball team.
Frankly, Darian DeVries should be thankful given the fanbase’s tendency to turn on a coach at the first sign of trouble.
Yet, Tuesday night’s 72-67 win over Purdue was the light at the end of the tunnel. It was a peek at what DeVries’ tenure may eventually look like.
The 3-pointers falling (hallelujah), the energetic playstyle, and the fatheads behind the basket all felt very… fun.
And fun has been in short supply these past few years in Bloomington. Fun feels new, fun feels different, good basketball is fun, and fun is what the Hoosiers needed after this rough month.
Gone are the arcane two-big lineups and eye-bleeding post play. That was the old guy. The new guy brings with him modernity.
Modernity has its challenges—the lack of a traditional center has been the ultimate Achilles heel for Indiana all season—but by giving way to progress the Hoosiers can be competitive again.
DeVries is active on the sidelines (the man loves to fist pump), but it’s not all performative.
With roughly six minutes to play in the second half and with Indiana holding a 61-53 margin a loose ball skirted out of bounds with .6 second left on the shot clock for the Hoosiers.
Indiana was flying dangerously close to its usual second-half collapse that had plagued them throughout January. The Hoosiers had played so well up to that point—it was a rerun of losses to Nebraska and Michigan State, where IU let leads slip away.
The building itself felt like an inflated balloon—not one that was about to pop, but one that may deflate at any given moment and fly around the room.
I was certain that a forced, fade-away 3-pointer was in the near future. It would go down as one of those plays that signaled a switch in momentum—a spark for a Purdue run or the start of an Indiana disintegration.
Instead, DeVries orchestrated a play that resulted in Trent Sisley flashing to the rim and getting fouled by Braden Smith in the act of shooting. Sisley went to the line and hit both free throws.
How many times have I listened to Robbie Hummel or Jim Jackson laud Matt Painter for his brilliant out of bounds plays?
On Tuesday night it was DeVries’ turn to draw praise.
There’s nothing incredibly impressive about the sequence, just competent coaching and winning basketball. Two things that Indiana has lacked and that Purdue has had an abundance of.
Small, incremental plays win you basketball games. Nic Dorn’s electrifying step-back 3-pointer was important, but would have been made moot if not for plays like the one Sisley had.
Zach Horwitz made the point in his piece following the game that it was a “vintage atmosphere” inside Assembly Hall, and yes, part of that is because of the opponent, but it helps when the team plays well.
That Achilles Heel I mentioned earlier, it was still prevalent. Purdue’s Trey Kaufman-Renn finished with 23 points, but Oscar Cluff and Daniel Jacobsen were each largely neutralized.
More importantly, Kaufman-Renn and Cluff combined for only nine rebounds, while Tucker DeVries pulled down 10—nearly double his season average.
This isn’t merely players performing at a high level, it’s a strong gameplan and coaching with a purpose. Indiana played harder and was better prepared for Purdue, all while the Hoosiers were without Tayton Conerway.
It was barely over a year ago that the Hoosiers got their teeth kicked in on their home floor against Illinois. Boos rained down like a storm of arrows and you could argue that it was one of the losses that signaled the end for Mike Woodson.
It’s still the same fickle, mean-spirited fanbase, but at least there weren’t any hecklers Tuesday night.
DeVries’ first season has been far from perfect. Purdue is the first win the Hoosiers have had all season over a tournament caliber team, the aforementioned second-half woes are a major cause for concern and inconsistencies have plagued many players on the roster.
But we shouldn’t expect perfection (we’re all a bit spoiled at this point after football season). DeVries requires patience. It was in his third season at Drake when DeVries first reached the NCAA Tournament.
Indiana—along with what feels like half the teams in the Big Ten—is firmly on the bubble of the NCAA Tournament. There are wins to be had on Indiana’s schedule, and a tournament appearance isn’t an impossibility.
The jury’s still out on whether Indiana can carry this newfound swagger through February, but for now, let’s just enjoy the win over Purdue because it’s nice to have fun every once in a while.
