Indiana Basketball: Hoosiers’ success in hands of backcourt

The Indiana basketball backcourt has been anything but special this season, but it’s up to them to get the Hoosiers back on track.

It was the same story for Indiana basketball on Saturday as another road game turned into a blowout loss, and it has now turned into a situation becoming all too normal to Indiana fans.

A lead that ballooned to 30 for Maryland, was wiped away late in the game thanks to 13 points in the final 3:30 for Devonte Green, who finished with 18 for the game. Outside of that stretch for Green, the Indiana guards combined for 5-of-23 shooting from the field.

There is no question that Trayce Jackson-Davis is the best player on this team and should get most of the shots, but with teams starting to double-team the freshman on every touch, it leaves the Indiana guards wide open, with the ability to make plays. But that’s not what they’ve been able to do.

Since the Florida State game, when the competition took a huge step up for Indiana, the backcourt for the Hoosiers have averaged just 8.2 points per game collectively. With Devonte Green being the sole outlier, averaging 13.4 points, including his 30-point outing against the Seminoles, the rest of the guards have been anything but average.

Take away Green’s five double-digit outings since, the other three guards have totaled just four games of 10+ points. How bad is that? That trio has also had 10 games where each of them had one or less field goals in the game.

So where does that leave Indiana moving forward? It’s quite simple; the guards NEED to play much better in order to have a successful season.

Most of it begins and ends with Al Durham. The junior captain has taken multiple steps down since the first month of the season in which he was averaging 13.7 points per game. In that time, Durham was averaging 8.3 attempts per game – still low – but since then, he has been seemingly noneexistent.

In the last seven outings, Durham has regressed to just 8.1 points per game while averaging 6.3 attempts per game. With Devonte Green and Trayce Jackson-Davis being options one and two, Durham needs to reassert himself as a consistent and quality third option. How can it start? By making his open threes. Shooting just 5-of-17 from deep in the last seven games, his inability to hit from deep makes him a non-threat on the offensive end.

As for Rob Phinisee, while injuries have definitely contributed to his lack of effectiveness at times, there comes a point where either you play him and he plays through it, or you have to keep him out of the lineup due to his inability to contribute. Scoring just seven total points in the last three games, it is his playmaking ability for his teammates which has been lacking the most.

After averaging 4.5 assists a game in his first four games of the season, that number has dropped dramatically to just 2.0 a game in the last five outings. As the lone true point guard on the roster, his lack of ability to get the offense in a rhythm has caused a major drop-off in the effectiveness for Indiana, hence the long scoring droughts in almost every game this year.

The Hoosiers need more production out of their guards consistently in order to live up to the expectations that Indiana had throughout most of the first few months of the season. If they do, Indiana will be just fine and be well on its way to an NCAA Tournament berth, but if not, they will miss the tournament for the fourth consecutive season.