Indiana Hoosiers MBB, go 1-2 in Battle 4 Atlantis tournament in Bahamas

Indiana Hoosiers men's basketball struggled in their Battle 4 Atlantis trip to the Bahamas ending with a 1-2 record with losses to Louisville and Gonzaga and a win over Providence.

The Louisville loss was a shocker, with IU being down by 38 points early in the second half and the Hoosiers just looked messy on defense at on offense with 23 turnovers. The Hoosiers ended up losing 89-61.

Indiana faced Gonzaga who was coming off of an upset loss to West Virginia and took their anger out on IU with a 89-73 win over IU.

Former Zag Oumar Ballo had 25 points for Indiana while the second leading scorer was Mackenzie Mgbako who scored 13.

I think when you get your butt beat like we did for two games, you better be connected. I thought we were connected tonight. I still think defensively, we got to clean up some things, and we got to rebound the ball better. Those two areas are huge. Make no mistake about it,” Woodson said after Friday nights game. “We shot the ball well tonight offensively. But defensively, I still think we’re a little behind, especially these last three games that we’ve played.”

“We got to play harder, get better. We’ll continue to practice and work hard, and I got to keep pushing them,” Woodson said. “Gonzaga, there’s a reason why they’re a good team. They’re well-coached, and those guys play hard. Louisville played hard. We got to get our guys playing at that level because if we do, we can put ourselves in position to beat really good teams.”

Indiana did defeat the Providence Friars, 89-73 to finish seventh place yesterday to cap off a disappointing tournament at Battle 4 Atlantis.

Mike Woodson’s team shot a season best 53.3% from the 3-point line against the Friars, IU was led by Mackenzie Mgbako’s game-high 25 points.

Indiana (5-2) now travels back to Bloomington where it will host Sam Houston University Dec. 3 at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, they will likely drop out of the AP and Coaches top 25 polls.