Indiana’s first Power Five test of the season turned into exactly the kind of late-game exam Darian DeVries had been trying to build toward all preseason.
The Hoosiers trailed Syracuse by four at halftime and were down five late, but they steadied themselves and pulled out an 83-80 win at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. It was Indiana’s first victory over Syracuse since the 1987 NCAA National Championship game, and the finish came down to the kind of response DeVries has been stressing since the summer.
“That’s probably the biggest takeaway for us,” DeVries said. “Just from a coaching standpoint, it's to see that response. You know, until you’re in that situation, you don’t know for sure.”
That response didn’t happen by accident. DeVries pointed to Indiana’s exhibition schedule as a major reason the Hoosiers were ready for a game like this one.
Since 2004, Indiana had played only three Power Five teams in exhibition action, and two of those came this season. DeVries said those matchups were designed to show his team where the cracks were before the games started counting.
“You’ve got to play together. When you get to play against teams that you’re going to see in the regular season, teams that are similar to Big Ten opponents, that’s where you can gain the most valuable information,” DeVries said after Indiana’s exhibition win over North Carolina. “You want to find out some of your holes before you get into real games and that starts to go in the win-loss column.”
Against Syracuse, Indiana’s backcourt delivered the answer. All four rotational guards combined for 69 of the Hoosiers’ 83 points, with Markus Burton and Darren Harris scoring 20 apiece and Jaedan Mustaf adding 18 points and seven rebounds. Bryce Lindsay supplied all 11 bench points for Indiana and has scored in double figures in every game this season.
The second half opened with Harris taking over. Indiana came out of the break trailing 38-34, and Harris sparked an 8-0 run by himself to flip the momentum.
“We really felt like just our overall physicality needed another step up, another notch,” DeVries said. “I thought we came out of the locker room in the second half and did a good job of that.”
Harris also delivered at the line, going 10-for-10 on free throws. No Hoosier had done that since Eric Gordon in 2007.
“That’s definitely huge,” Mustaf said of Harris. “That’s something we work on in practice. We shoot a lot of free throws, so everybody just trusting the work and playing together is big for us.”
Indiana’s rebounding gave the Hoosiers another edge when the shot-making wasn’t clean. They opened with a 6-0 advantage on the offensive glass for the second time in three games and finished with 14 offensive rebounds, which led to 12 second-chance points.
“Again, I love the rebounding component,” DeVries said. “I’ve been very pleased with that, and that’s been a priority for us.”
Still, for DeVries, the most important part of the night wasn’t the scoring or the glass. It was the way Indiana handled the pressure in the closing stretch after being tested in exhibition play, including a five-point win over Western Kentucky.
“There wasn’t a lot of panic,” DeVries said. “It was very much the next play. They weren’t worried about the last play.”
That, more than anything, was the point of the preseason grind.
“You’re going to have a lot of games decided by two, three possessions,” DeVries said. “So you’ve got to find ways to win them.
Every night’s going to be a little bit different. There’s going to be different things that happen, and you’ve got to be able to respond to them and find a way still.”
On Monday night, Indiana did exactly that.
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