Indiana Beats McNeese State, Remains Unbeaten At Home

Saturday, December 12

Bloomington, IN

6:30 PM

Indiana University

8-3

105

McNeese State

1-7

Team	1	2	F
McNeese State	31	29	60
Indiana	53	52	105

Indiana Beats McNeese State, Remains Unbeaten At Home

12/12/2015 8:21:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

By Sam Beishuizen, IUHoosiers.com | Twitter

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Three games, three double-digit wins.

Indiana's homestand between its road game against Duke and Crossroads Classic matchup against Notre Dame came and went without much stress. The Hoosiers capped their three-game winning streak with a 105-60 blowout of McNeese State on Saturday night to remain an undefeated 7-0 at Assembly Hall.

"I feel like (the homestand) was a spark to what we want to do," sophomore guard James Blackmon Jr. said. "We wanted to come out and make a statement a little bit."

The latest statement came at the expense of the McNeese State Cowboys, who struggled to contain Indiana's scorers while shooting just 31.7 percent from the field themselves. The Hoosiers outperformed the Cowboys in virtually every major statistical category.

"I thought our guys played an impressive game from start to finish," head coach Tom Crean said. "We did a lot of good things tonight. Really good effort and I thought everyone contributed."

Indiana (8-3) and McNeese State (1-7) were tied 11-11 in the early going before IU went on a 16-2 run to build the lead it maintained the remainder of the night. The Cowboys were especially turnover prone during the Hoosiers' four-minute run, at one point giving coughing the ball up on three consecutive possessions.

Those turnovers were only the beginning of a long night for McNeese State.

The Cowboys turned the ball over 19 times by the end of the game, leading to 30 Indiana points off turnovers. At the same time, McNeese State's own players struggled to find quality looks, leading to stretches of ill-advised shots that allowed the Hoosiers to pull away.

Once Indiana got ahead, the visiting team couldn't manage much of a response.

"It was aggressiveness," Blackmon said. "I felt like one time in the huddle when we saw that they were scoring on us a couple times we just brought it together and said let's tighten up on that."

The usual suspects did most of the damage for the Hoosiers. Five different players finished with double-figure scoring, led by Blackmon's 24 points on 9-of-17 shooting. He was 5-of-10 from beyond the arc and added five rebounds, two assists and two blocks.

Freshman center Thomas Bryant anchored IU inside with 18 points on a perfect 7-for-7 shooting from the field. He came one rebound short of a double-double just one game after Crean revealed he's been dealing with a nagging foot injury the program is dealing with internally.

"He's worked hard," Crean said of Bryant. "We got some extra work done with him today, which was this morning or this afternoon before walk through, which was good. And just kind of reestablishing a couple things for him. But the ball moved really well. Those guys did an excellent job tonight, no question."

Though McNeese State doesn't have the name as say, next weekend's opponent Notre Dame, Crean explained that opponents like the Cowboys are important for the Hoosiers in revealing their strengths and weaknesses, even if the end result isn't always reflective of it.

Nothing will be off limits when Indiana analyzes film during their nearly week-long break from competition. The Hoosiers and the Fighting Irish will tipoff at 2 p.m. Saturday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

"Everything. We've got to get better at everything," Crean said. "There's really not any one thing that I would say that we hang our hat on. You want to work on everything offense, defense, rebounding, special situations, individual improvement, team breakdowns, all those types of things."