Five takeaways from IU basketball’s win against Alabama A&M

Photos of IU basketball's 98-51 win against Alabama A&M.

IU basketball opened the 2025-26 season with a 98-51 win against Alabama A&M on Wednesday night at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.

Here are five takeaways from the win against the Bulldogs:

Reed Bailey flashed his versatile skill set

After a quiet preseason, Reed Bailey showed Wednesday evening why he was one of the most coveted bigs in the transfer portal last spring.

At 6-foot-10 and 230 pounds, Bailey glides around the floor like a guard, is a good passer and a better athlete than he’s given credit for.

Bailey, an All-A10 honoree last season at Davidson, finished with a game-high 21 points in IU’s blowout win, shooting 7-for-9 from the field and 7-for-7 from the free-throw line.

He finished numerous plays with authority, including a back-to-back dunk sequence early in the second half that put the Hoosiers up 40.

“We’re all new here,” Bailey said postgame. “And we just wanted to come out and be able to show what we can do.”

There will be nights when Bailey struggles against more physical players in the post and rim protection is a legitimate question mark for the Hoosiers. But Bailey’s size, mobility and high IQ will make him a tough cover for plenty of opposing frontcourts.

Indiana let the 3-point shot fly, but didn’t hunt perimeter looks

Indiana’s ball movement and unselfishness led to numerous wide-open 3-pointers on a night when four different Hoosiers connected from beyond the arc.

But the volume of 3-pointers – 24 attempts – doesn’t jump off the stat sheet.

That’s because the Hoosiers weren’t hunting perimeter shots. Most of their 3-point attempts came organically from ball movement and running the offense.

There will be many nights when IU takes more 3-pointers but this group will prioritize taking what the defense gives it.

Indiana shot 41.7 percent on 3s in the win.

“A lot of that shooting percentage is a product of ball movement and getting the right kind of shots, the right kind of threes,” Darian DeVries said. “But we have a really confident group. They’re very sure of themselves, and they know that they have the green light. They put in the time and the work, so on game night, let it rip.

“That’s kind of our philosophy. We don’t want them to hesitate even when they miss one. I don’t care where they take them from, just know that it’s something that you work on every day, and we’re good with it.”

Wilkerson and DeVries flash their shooting prowess

It’s no secret that Lamar Wilkerson and Tucker DeVries are IU basketball’s two best shooters.

The duo combined for eight of IU’s 10 made 3-pointers on Wednesday night.

Wilkerson carried the perimeter shooting load in the first half, making all four of his triples in the opening 20 minutes. His ability to get hot in an instant is a game-changer for an IU program that has lacked knockdown perimeter shooting in previous seasons.

And in the second half, it was DeVries who was hot as the two-time Missouri Valley Conference player of the year made three triples over the final 20 minutes.

The 18-point effort put DeVries over the 2,000-point plateau for his career. He’s the active leader in points scored in college basketball.

Tayton Conerway’s energy, aggressiveness and enthusiasm are fun to watch

When Tayton Conerway spoke to Don Fischer on the pregame radio show Wednesday night, you could hear the genuine excitement in his voice for his first regular-season game as a Hoosier.

For Conerway, a native of Burleson, Texas, arriving on the biggest stage has been a long road.

After two stops at junior colleges and two seasons at Troy, Conerway earned the opportunity to play at the high-major level to finish his career. And he’s cherishing the opportunity.

Conerway did a bit of everything against Alabama A&M. He scored 14 points on an efficient 6-for-7 shooting night. He dished out a game-high five assists and also had two steals.

More importantly, he helped set the tone for the Hoosiers with his aggressiveness on both ends of the floor.

On defense, Conerway applies relentless ball pressure and knows how to play the passing lanes. His 98 steals last season were a program record at Troy.

And when the ball is in his hands, he’s trying to get it in the paint to either finish at the rim or look for a teammate on the perimeter. Alabama A&M did a poor job of stopping his drives and Conerway had multiple dunks in IU’s blowout win. Those lanes won’t be open against better competition, but Conerway will have no shortage of options to find behind the 3-point arc for quality shots.

Indiana’s offense came from the perimeter and at the rim

The Hoosiers attempted 58 shots in their 47-point win on Wednesday.

Of Indiana’s 34 attempts inside the 3-point line, 32 were classified as dunks or layups in the play-by-play:

IU basketball shot chart vs. Alabama A&M.

(Shot chart credit: UMHoops+)

It’s not that Darian DeVries is opposed to the midrange shot.

There will be nights that defenses will be in drop coverage, daring the Hoosiers to beat them with 2-point jump shots. The Hoosiers will have to take – and make – some of those shots to win those games.

But IU isn’t scheming to get long 2s as a regular part of its shot diet.

“To be honest with you, we don’t really talk a lot about not taking mid-range shots,” Darian DeVries said. “It’s just kind of how the offense ends up. We feel very confident in our guys when they do come off, if they want to play in a deep drop with a big way back at the rim, they can come off and shoot those, too.

“It’s just I thought tonight they did a really good job because of the spacing, and when you start to make those threes, defense can tend to get stretched, and then we were able to get some slips and some rolls to the rim as guys are chasing shooters out the backside, and they just didn’t have a lot of help. I thought the guys did a good job of taking what the defense gave them tonight.”

See More: Five Takeaways, Alabama A&M Bulldogs, Lamar Wilkerson, Reed Bailey, Tayton Conerway, Tucker DeVries