IU Finds Another Gear Late, Defeats Kennesaw State

Tuesday, December 22

Bloomington, IN

6:00 PM

Indiana University

Kennesaw State

IU Finds Another Gear Late, Defeats Kennesaw State

12/22/2015 8:01:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

By Sam Beishuizen, IUHoosiers.com | Twitter

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Juwan Morgan spent the majority of Tuesday's 99-72 win against Kennesaw State on the bench, biding his time.

The freshman forward has been limited since late last month with various nagging injuries. He said he's spent his extended time on the bench taking mental notes of what he sees during the game. When his number is called, as it was with 17:48 left in the second half and Indiana up by six points, Morgan puts those notes to the test.

He passed Tuesday night at Assembly Hall, providing Indiana with the spark it needed to hold off a late Kennesaw State run. He only took two shots and finished with just two points but was able to reenergize IU's defense when it fell in a lull.

"I just saw where the team wasn't talking as much, and I was making mental notes in my head of when I get in the game of what I was going to do to help us bring up the energy," Morgan said. "When I got in, just talking and telling everybody where they need to be, yelling where I was and making sure they knew I had their back, that just picked everybody up."

Indiana's six-point lead ballooned to as high as 31 in the second half. He combined with fellow freshmen Thomas Bryant and OG Anunoby for a plus/minus of +41 on a night IU closed out its non-conference schedule undefeated at Assembly Hall.

Bryant was the most efficient of the freshmen, scoring a career-high 20 points on 8-of-9 shooting to go along with five rebounds. He would have been the star of the night had it not been for junior forward Troy Williams matching him with 20 points while dishing out six assists and grabbing four rebounds of his own.

Williams' performance is the latest in what has been a hot streak of scoring. He's averaging 16.4 points per game over Indiana's five-game winning streak.

"This year, I had another jump," Williams said. "Now that I'm able to make plays and throw the assists to my team, it's a great way to be. As Coach (Tom) Crean would say, (I'm being) a Swiss Army knife for the team."

Williams and the freshmen trio provided enough firepower to hold off a pesky Kennesaw State team that managed to hang around into the second half. The Owls (3-11) pulled within six points of the Hoosiers (10-3) before Indiana managed to lock down defensively when players like Morgan entered the game with a defense-based mindset.

Until then, Kennesaw State gave Indiana trouble with its flex offense. The Owls were getting the layups and elbow jumpers they sought out and didn't appear intimidated until the Hoosiers pushed their lead back to double-digits and ran away.

"We knew we were doing well, and then we got anxious," Kennesaw State head coach Al Skinner said. "You have to credit Indiana because they don't give in and they continue to fight. They did not crumble even though we made an effort to come back."

Indiana completed the non-conference portion of its schedule 10-3 overall and a perfect 8-0 at Assembly Hall.

Two of the Hoosiers' losses came in a three-day stretch in the Maui Jim Maui Invitational while the other came a week later on the road against Duke. Last weekend's Crossroads Classic victory against Notre Dame and the Gavitt Tipoff Games win against Creighton highlight IU's wins to date with more opportunities looming in the Big Ten.

Crean saved media the trouble of asking what things he'd like to fix between the final non-conference game and the start of Big Ten play by saying the list was too long. Nothing will be off limits in practice this week, especially after Kennesaw State hung around like they did.

But for a second consecutive game, Indiana did enough to win. That much, Crean will take.

"It's all correctable," Crean said. "It was much more correctable in the second half, but it's going to be good to look at what we've got to get better at, look at, really evaluate that, look at what our lineups are best and get ourselves ready for the Big Ten."