Five takeaways from IU basketball’s win against Lindenwood – Inside the Hall

IU basketball improved to 5-0 with a 73-53 win against Lindenwood on Thursday night at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.

Here are five takeaways from the win against the Lions:

Tucker DeVries bounces back from Incarnate Word struggles

There weren’t many bright spots for Indiana offensively in Thursday’s win, but redshirt senior forward Tucker DeVries delivered his most complete offensive game of the young season.

The 6-foot-7 forward finished with a game-high 25 points on 7-for-15 shooting, including a 5-for-10 mark on 3-pointers.

DeVries earned his first KenPom game MVP in five games. It was a strong bounce-back performance after Sunday’s win against Incarnate Word, when the senior wing shot only 4-for-13 from the field and missed three free throws.

The two-time Missouri Valley Conference player of the year played 35 minutes without a turnover and shot 6-for-6 from the free-throw line.

He scored 13 straight points in less than three minutes in the second half as IU built a 22-point lead.

Through five games, DeVries is 20-for-43 on 3s, good for 46.5 percent.

Hoosiers struggle from the perimeter for a second straight game

In each of its first three games, Indiana shot better than 41 percent from distance and made 10 or more 3-pointers.

But the Hoosiers went cold against Incarnate Word and the perimeter shooting woes continued on Thursday against Lindenwood.

Indiana shot 9-for-28 from distance against the Lions, a mark of just 32.1 percent.

While IU emerged from the Incarnate Word and Lindenwood games with a pair of wins, the Hoosiers won’t be able to overcome poor perimeter shooting against better competition consistently.

Overall, Indiana’s 3-point shooting is still among the nation’s elite and a pillar of its revamped offense.

Through Thursday’s games, Indiana ranks 38th nationally in 3-point shooting percentage at 39.4 percent.

Sam Alexis continues his early-season success

Another game, another stellar performance from Florida transfer Sam Alexis.

The 6-foot-8 forward has been IU’s most consistent front-court producer early in the season.

Alexis finished Thursday’s win with eight points, 10 rebounds and four blocked shots in 25 minutes off the bench.

He’s shooting 73.9 percent on 3s and 87 percent from the free-throw line on a team-leading 23 attempts.

“He loves playing the game of basketball,” Tucker DeVries said postgame of Alexis. “We all feed off that and the extra effort plays and toughness plays he makes is what really makes our team go.”

Reed Bailey has been underwhelming on the glass

Darian DeVries made it no secret in the preseason that Indiana would need to emphasize team rebounding on the defensive end to limit second-chance opportunities.

Through five games, IU’s opponents are grabbing 27.9 percent of their missed shots, which ranks 100th in the country. That’s a solid mark for a team with limited size and depth in the interior.

What the Hoosiers aren’t currently getting from Reed Bailey, the starter at the five, is regular production on the glass.

After a one-rebound game against Incarnate Word in 13 minutes, Bailey had just two rebounds in 16 minutes against Lindenwood.

Bailey does plenty of things well – he’s an efficient finisher, an excellent free-throw shooter and an above-average passer for a big man – but he’s been underwhelming on the glass. As the competition level picks up significantly in the coming weeks, the Hoosiers need Bailey to be better in that area.

Numbers say IU’s offense is elite despite struggles in last two games

After scoring more than 1.32 points per possession in its first three games, IU scored 1.07 points per trip against Incarnate Word and 1.03 against Lindenwood.

Still, the overall numbers this group has produced through five games are among the nation’s best.

The Hoosiers currently rank 30th nationally in offense, according to KenPom, and 27th in effective field goal percentage and 17th in turnover percentage.

IU is also 62nd in 2-point field goal percentage and 60th in free-throw percentage.

While acknowledging the offense hasn’t had the same efficiency in the last two games as it did in the first three, Darian DeVries wasn’t sounding the alarm bells in his postgame comments.

“We don’t get to move it quite as easily (the last two games),” DeVries said. “In some of the actions where they’re not switching, you set a pin down and now a guy comes off a screen and he’s got an advantage because his guy is trailing versus when they switch it, they are coming off a taking away that next pass, so now you got to get to a second action.

“It just takes a little bit for us as an offense right now. That’s what we’re working hard at getting better at, is ‘how do we exploit that and use that to our advantage?’ Like I said, we’ll get there. Just hasn’t been very clean these last couple games.”

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