The Minute After: Chicago State

Photos from IU basketball's win against Chicago State.

Thoughts on a 78-58 win against Chicago State:

As Indiana rained 3s on Chicago State in the first half, we looked to be heading into repeat territory.

Another 100-point-plus scoring performance at home against an inferior opponent. Another offensive record centered on 3-pointers, too. The Hoosiers made 14-of-26 from 3-point range in the first half, a mark it hasn’t even hit in an entire game the last seven seasons. The all-time program record for made 3s in a game is 19. Indiana seemed primed to break that mark this afternoon.

But as the second half began, Indiana couldn’t buy a bucket from deep. Misses piled up and kept coming. And it wasn’t because of Chicago State’s defense, either. The Hoosiers got several clean, good looks. They just couldn’t convert. By the time Nick Dorn connected from deep with 8:24 to go, Indiana had missed a whopping 16 straight 3-pointers to start the half, including a couple of air balls.

Dorn’s triple would be Indiana’s only 3-point make of the second half, as the Hoosiers finished 1-of-20 from 3-point range over the final 20 minutes of the contest.

And it wasn’t like the rest of the offense was humming outside of the 3-point misses in the second half. Trent Sisley went 1-of-6 from the line. Lamar Wilkerson and Tucker DeVries finished a combined 2-of-10 from the floor over the final 20 minutes. DeVries is now 5-of-26 (19.2 percent) from deep over his last three contests. Dorn’s 3-pointer and Wilkerson and DeVries’ combined two baskets were the only other buckets of the half outside of Reed Bailey’s 5-of-7 (13 points) performance.

That’s right: Indiana made just eight baskets the entire second half and was even outscored by the Cougars, 29-26. The game box score had the Hoosiers at .72 points per possession for the half after they entered halftime at 1.61 points per possession.

Indiana still ended up cracking a program record for 3-pointers, however. IU’s 46 attempts from distance bested the previous game record high of 39.

“The shots we got in the second half were the same ones we got in the first half,” Darian DeVries said after the game. “We were getting really good, clean looks by some of our best shooters. The easy thing to do is to say, ‘let’s get more paint touches, go drive it.’ The hard thing to do is, if you’ve got a guy who’s wide open and he’s making 7 out of 10 3s, finding that balance of I don’t want him to hesitate. You want him to stay confident.”

Had such a second-half performance come against a better opponent, it could have spelled danger for Indiana. But the Cougars were down 20 or more the entire half before briefly getting as close as 19 with under a minute to go in the game.

And despite all the misses in the second half, Indiana still shot an okay 32.6 percent (15-of-46) from 3-point range, a better percentage than its output against Kentucky (16.7 percent), Louisville (32.4 percent) and Minnesota (29.6 perce t), its three losses so far this season.

I wouldn’t read too much into this one. Indiana’s just got one more non-conference game to go on Monday, and then things get real. How the Hoosiers perform in Big Ten play will ultimately define this season, not a Dec. 20 game against Chicago State.

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