Hoosier State of Mind
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Indiana Basketball: Grading the 2019-20 season

By Adam Childs

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA - DECEMBER 21: Armaan Franklin #2 of the Indiana Hoosiers celebrates after making the game winning shot against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish during the Crossroads Classic at Bankers Life Fieldhouse on December 21, 2019 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA - DECEMBER 21: Armaan Franklin #2 of the Indiana Hoosiers celebrates after making the game winning shot against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish during the Crossroads Classic at Bankers Life Fieldhouse on December 21, 2019 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images) /
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COLLEGE PARK, MD – JANUARY 04: Anthony Cowan Jr. #1 of the Maryland Terrapins dribbles the ball as Armaan Franklin #2 of the Indiana Hoosiers defends in the second half at Xfinity Center on January 4, 2020 in College Park, Maryland. (Photo by Patrick McDermott/Getty Images)
COLLEGE PARK, MD – JANUARY 04: Anthony Cowan Jr. #1 of the Maryland Terrapins dribbles the ball as Armaan Franklin #2 of the Indiana Hoosiers defends in the second half at Xfinity Center on January 4, 2020 in College Park, Maryland. (Photo by Patrick McDermott/Getty Images) /

Defense

B

Believe it or not, but the defense played fairly well for the Hoosiers this year. In their 32 games on the year, they only gave up 80 or more points three times. One of those was in an overtime win against Nebraska in what was probably one of their worst games defensively all year. The other times were on the road against Wisconsin and Michigan. Both of those games got out of hand early and the Hoosiers seemed to lose focus and got blown out.

The Hoosiers ranked fifth or sixth in the Big Ten in almost every major defensive category including steals and blocks per game. They only gave up 66.7 points per game and the defense did a great job of keeping Indiana in games even when the offense was struggling.

With the number of times the Hoosiers went on scoring droughts this year, the assumption would be that they were blown out of a lot of games but that wasn’t the case. Indiana was able to stay in a lot of games this year because of their defense.

Yes, the offense had spurts to get them back into games, but without the defense playing as well as they did at times, they would have never had a chance to come back. There were very few games where it looked like the defense was overmatched this year.

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They did a great job of limiting some big names in the conference on their way to picking up big wins. They helped drive the Hoosiers to pick up ranked wins against Iowa, Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan State, and Florida State.

Overall the defense was the strength of this team. They still had their lapses, but when they were playing with high intensity this was a team that was tough to score on. If they can continue to play like that next year and make the normal yearly improvement this could be a scary good team defensively in the Big Ten.

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