Indiana Cruises Past Morehead State

Saturday, December 5

Bloomington, IN

7:00 PM

Indiana University

6-3

Morehead State

5-2

Morehead State

Indiana

12/5/2015 9:38:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Indiana's players talked about their defense against Duke. They weren't going to ignore it.

The Hoosiers had a problem on the defensive end, one they considered unacceptable. In both one-on-one conversations and informal group meetings, the players talked among themselves about needing to take pride on the defensive end of the floor.

It paid off.

The Hoosiers rolled past Morehead State 92-59 Saturday night thanks, in part, to a renewed focus on defensive pressure. IU (6-3) held the Eagles (5-2) to just 31.4 percent shooting from the floor and forced 23 turnovers.

"I think we know our defense needed to get better and we really worked on it the past two days," fifth-year senior forward Max Bielfeldt said. "I think we really kind of worked together today and put out a really good product."

Indiana used a 25-3 run over 7:33 in the midst of the first half to open a 37-16 lead just over 14 minutes into the game. During that stretch, the Hoosiers connected on 8-of-10 shots and hit 7-of-9 free-throws.

Meanwhile, Morehead State shot just 1-of-7, didn't get to the foul line and turned the ball over seven times. The Eagles turned the ball 16 times in the first half alone, helping Indiana to a 50-26 advantage at halftime.

Though Indiana's offense was efficient, the run was a credit to IU keeping Morehead State off balance with constant ball pressure. Too many of the Eagles' possessions ended with forced shots late in the shot clock after failing to create any sort of workable offense against Indiana's persistent ball pressure.

"The coaches always preach on-the-ball pressure just to make it harder for them to get post ups, make it easier on our big men where they can get around and not make that post catch easy," senior guard Yogi Ferrell said. "We want to go out there and just kind of pressure the ball, really. That's what we want to get."

Indiana head coach Tom Crean said he was proud of the way Indiana responded and learned from what he called "a long couple of weeks" where Indiana played mostly away from Assembly Hall. He said taking what the Hoosiers have been studying in practice and bringing it to Saturday night's game made the difference.

"We were aggressive on both ends of the court, which is absolutely critical," Crean said. "It's real easy to look at one end of the court and think we're not where we need to be like we weren't defensively the other night (against Duke), but we weren't aggressive on either end of the court. And tonight, the aggressiveness carried out in a lot of ways."

Crean once again took time in his press conference to point out that it's still the first week of December. Indiana's win against Morehead State, despite showing a renewed commitment to defense, doesn't necessarily mean it's here to stay.

It does provide an example of how Indiana's team defending could look. It's a base upon which IU can build upon in the coming weeks and into the Big Ten season where the challenges will get tougher and more frequent.

But if one thing wasn't obvious already, it's a more enjoyable brand of basketball.

One Bielfeldt wouldn't mind getting used to.

"It was fun," he said, "seeing guys play together, all five, as one unit."

It made the difference.