At the buzzer: Indiana 71, Butler 68

  • 12/15/2018 6:14 pm in

Quick thoughts on a 71-68 win over Butler:

How it happened: Another game, another close win for Indiana. It looked all afternoon as if the Hoosiers wouldn’t find a way to get over the hump. Butler was the aggressor early and kept the Hoosiers playing from behind on the strength of its 3-point shooting. But as we’ve seen throughout this recent stretch of games, Indiana is finding a way to prevail in close games. The last two minutes were a back and forth affair. Justin Smith put Indiana up by two with 34 seconds to go and Kamar Baldwin answered with a bucket to tie it with 18 seconds to play. And then, as the Hoosiers looked as if their final play would stall out and this one would go to overtime, Rob Phinisee launched a deep 3-pointer to lift the Hoosiers past the Bulldogs at the buzzer.

Standout performer: Juwan Morgan broke his own Crossroads Classic with a career-high 35 points in 32 minutes. Morgan was 12-for-14 from the field, 4-for-6 on 3s and 7-for-7 from the free throw line.

Statistics that stands out: Indiana hit 9 of its 21 attempts from 3-point range (42.9 percent) and a strong 8-for-10 on free throws (80 percent).

Final IU individual stats:

Final tempo-free stats:

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