Indiana Basketball: 3 Takeaways from win vs. Troy
The defense was good, but has room to improve
Indiana’s main bugaboo has been allowing three-pointers by performing half-baked rotations and closeouts. While this still happened at times in this game (Al Durham was guilty a few times, as was Armaan Franklin), the three-point defense looked much better. Troy had been shooting the ball very well from three in their first two games, but shot a paltry 20 percent Saturday night.
The feet-chopping closeout technique looked to be hammered into every Hoosiers’ head, and they played the three over the drive almost every time an opponent received a pass. It worked, but there were some downsides to it as well.
Troy’s Zay Williams looked fantastic, scoring 28 points and snagging eight rebounds. Yes, Williams is a solid player, but it is a bit concerning to see a 6-foot-9 forward dominate Indiana on the inside when IU has two big men on the floor. You’d especially like to see Trayce Jackson-Davis, a player who is much more physical and strong than Williams, be able to handle that assignment, but even he struggled in post defense. Hopefully this issue gets ironed out when much bigger opponents like Matt Haarms come up on the schedule.
De’Ron Davis, quite frankly, looked really, really bad on defense tonight. He was extraordinarily slow getting back in transition and hedging on screens, leaving his man open several times and forcing the other members of the Hoosier defense to scramble in order to save an easy bucket. He has always been fairly lumbering, but when you’re not the fastest guy on the perimeter you really can’t afford to react late to your defensive rotations. His minutes will most likely become more valuable in Big Ten play where the physical play is much more prevalent.
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Obviously, Indiana’s performance against Troy was extremely positive. There are always things to nitpick though, and tonight’s defense looked average at times. This will be something they look to improve on as they play Princeton on Wednesday.