Indiana University Athletics
IU Can Jive With Top Five
11/29/2017 7:35:00 AM | Men's Basketball
By: Andy Graham, IUHoosiers.com
BLOOMINGTON, Indiana - When it comes to sustained noise, start to finish, there were perhaps a couple of louder games over the past half-century.
But experienced denizens of Indiana's Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall say maybe the loudest single moment in that hoops mecca's history came the last time Duke visited.
Duke, which brings a No. 1 ranking and 8-0 record into Wednesday's 9:30 p.m. tipoff with the host Hoosiers, was also top-ranked on its previous trip to Bloomington on Nov. 30, 2005.
It was another Big Ten/ACC Challenge game. But that time the Hoosiers were also ranked, at No. 16. This season's 4-2 IU squad is unranked and still in the nascent stages of adjusting on both ends of the court to the approaches preferred by new coach Archie Miller.
Duke roared to a 16-2 start in that 2005 game, but IU and its home crowd had some roar in store, too.
The Hoosiers had an 11-0 run to take their first lead of the game, 59-58 with 7:42 to play, on a fast break give-and-go capped by Marco Killingsworth's thunderous dunk that brought the place to peak volume.
"The house is rockin' tonight!" exclaimed ESPN play-by-play man Dan Shulman, his voice barely audible on video over the din.
Duke went on to win, 75-67. But Indiana has won nine of 10 games at Assembly Hall against Top 5 foes over the past five seasons, with the lone setback coming in 2014 to No. 5 Michigan State.
Included in that stretch were a pair of IU wins over No. 1-ranked opponents, an 81-73 triumph over Michigan in the 2012-13 campaign, and the epic 2011 "Wat Shot" game – 73-72 over Kentucky on Christian Watford's buzzer-beating 3 that set off a communal celebration unseen in these parts except perhaps for NCAA title-game wins.
The overall sound levels Wednesday night will be dictated by the course of play, naturally, but expect the Hall to rock at tipoff in a manner as yet unheard this season.
IU grad-student wing man Collin Hartman has experienced that sort of sonic sensation before. And, having missed all of last season and the first five games of this campaign to injuries, he's anxious to help bring the noise again Wednesday.
"This is the kind of game that I came here for, in the first place, and the kind of game that I came back for," Hartman told the media Tuesday, alluding to his decision last spring not to forego his final year of eligibility at IU. "And I'm really excited to have this opportunity to compete with my guys."
And the opportunities to compete at a high level continue immediately after the Duke game, too.
In Wednesday's wake comes the start of Big Ten play, with Saturday's trip to Michigan and Monday's home game with Iowa. That's a new December reality for conference teams and fans, spurred this season by an early Big Ten Tournament the first week of March, and guaranteed in future seasons by the shift from an 18-game league schedule to a 20-game Big Ten slate.
"It's an exciting week, and clearly a lot of excitement around the Big Ten/ACC Challenge with Duke coming to Bloomington, and then right after that a quick turnaround to two Big Ten games in three days," Miller said. "There's going to be a lot of excitement, I think, around the opportunities that we have.
"I think the games will really bring a heightened sense of awareness to our players. The environments that we're going to be in are what you want to be in when you're at this level. I think this time brings a lot of excitement."
Tack on IU's Dec. 9 trip to No. 17-ranked Louisville and Dec. 16 Crossroads Classic game in Indianapolis against No. 5 Notre Dame, too, and it probably is as challenging a five-game stretch as any team nationally will have seen so far this season.
But the Duke game looms as the tallest task of the bunch. Literally.
Duke deploys a quartet of players 6-foot-10 or taller in its regular rotation, including the freshman tandem of Marvin Bagley III (the Blue Devils' scoring and rebounding leader at 22.3 and 11.3) and Wendell Carter, Jr. (12.8, 9.1).
"Just the size and length they present," IU senior guard Robert Johnson said when asked about what makes Duke tough down low. "And I think, even more so than that, they are relentless on the glass."
Duke out-rebounds opponents by an average of 11.3 per game and has a rather astonishing offensive-rebound rate of .432 on its missed shots.
"They're good ISO guys, and they work well together in tandem," Hartman said of Bagley and Carter. "And you have to know that when somebody puts up a shot, you'd better get a body on them.
"They have two, three, sometimes four guys coming in to rebound. We have to really stay focused, have our defense set, and have everybody ready to help if we have to rotate a bit."
Miller's pack-line defense is designed, in part, to take opportunities in the lane away. But he knows the Hoosiers will need an all-hands-on-deck approach to that Wednesday, especially in terms of rebounding.
"They're the No. 1 offensive rebounding team in the country," Miller said of the Blue Devils, "and they're also scoring as many paint points, if not the most paint points, of any team in the country.
"If you just watch the Michigan State game alone, I think they got 25 offensive rebounds, and Marvin Bagley didn't play but about 10 minutes in that game. Wendell Carter and the other guys, whether it be (6-11 soph Marques) Bolden or whoever is in there, they present a serious challenge. They command a lot of attention. They're good passers. Their reputations speak for themselves.
"It is a daunting task and I think it starts with, one, the glass and how we keep them off it, and two, clearly trying our best to keep the paint crowded and make them make those guys uncomfortable as possible."
Duke's freshman-fueled lineup might be out of a comfort zone a bit at Assembly Hall, given Wednesday constitutes their first true road test in college – but the Blue Devils have already shown they can handle adversity, in the form of double-digit deficits, and come back to win against good teams.
One reason for that is Duke has a standout senior in 6-5 guard Grayson Allen and a savvy point guard in 6-3 freshman Trevon Duval.
"At times you can see four and five freshmen on the floor, but I think there's a reality of how good and how talented those freshmen are," Miller said. "And with Grayson Allen being sort of their leader, they're always going to have a guy there that you're going to be able to count on in big moments in the road venues that they're going into, so we're expecting him to be really on his game, as well."
With Bagley sidelined by fouls against Michigan State, Allen scorched the Spartans for 37 points, sinking 7 of 11 shots from 3-point range. He's averaging 16.5 points. Couple that with Bagley, Carter, Duval (13.3) and 6-6 freshman Gary Trent, Jr. (12.6) and Duke has five players averaging double-figure scoring.
Johnson and Hartman have already faced Allen, having played in IU's 94-74 loss at Duke in 2015.
"He's a really good player, their most experienced player at this point," Johnson said of Allen. "Obviously, he's an elite scorer. He can shoot it with range. He can get to the basket off the dribble. He obviously presents a challenge for us."
It's a challenge to which the Hoosiers look forward.
"We have our work cut out for us," Miller said. "We know that. We're trying to get ourselves mentally and physically prepared to play, and there's a lot that goes into this type of game …
"But we're excited for the game."
IU's fans will be, too.
And we'll see just how high the decibel level will go.
BLOOMINGTON, Indiana - When it comes to sustained noise, start to finish, there were perhaps a couple of louder games over the past half-century.
But experienced denizens of Indiana's Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall say maybe the loudest single moment in that hoops mecca's history came the last time Duke visited.
Duke, which brings a No. 1 ranking and 8-0 record into Wednesday's 9:30 p.m. tipoff with the host Hoosiers, was also top-ranked on its previous trip to Bloomington on Nov. 30, 2005.
It was another Big Ten/ACC Challenge game. But that time the Hoosiers were also ranked, at No. 16. This season's 4-2 IU squad is unranked and still in the nascent stages of adjusting on both ends of the court to the approaches preferred by new coach Archie Miller.
Duke roared to a 16-2 start in that 2005 game, but IU and its home crowd had some roar in store, too.
The Hoosiers had an 11-0 run to take their first lead of the game, 59-58 with 7:42 to play, on a fast break give-and-go capped by Marco Killingsworth's thunderous dunk that brought the place to peak volume.
"The house is rockin' tonight!" exclaimed ESPN play-by-play man Dan Shulman, his voice barely audible on video over the din.
Duke went on to win, 75-67. But Indiana has won nine of 10 games at Assembly Hall against Top 5 foes over the past five seasons, with the lone setback coming in 2014 to No. 5 Michigan State.
Included in that stretch were a pair of IU wins over No. 1-ranked opponents, an 81-73 triumph over Michigan in the 2012-13 campaign, and the epic 2011 "Wat Shot" game – 73-72 over Kentucky on Christian Watford's buzzer-beating 3 that set off a communal celebration unseen in these parts except perhaps for NCAA title-game wins.
The overall sound levels Wednesday night will be dictated by the course of play, naturally, but expect the Hall to rock at tipoff in a manner as yet unheard this season.
IU grad-student wing man Collin Hartman has experienced that sort of sonic sensation before. And, having missed all of last season and the first five games of this campaign to injuries, he's anxious to help bring the noise again Wednesday.
"This is the kind of game that I came here for, in the first place, and the kind of game that I came back for," Hartman told the media Tuesday, alluding to his decision last spring not to forego his final year of eligibility at IU. "And I'm really excited to have this opportunity to compete with my guys."
And the opportunities to compete at a high level continue immediately after the Duke game, too.
In Wednesday's wake comes the start of Big Ten play, with Saturday's trip to Michigan and Monday's home game with Iowa. That's a new December reality for conference teams and fans, spurred this season by an early Big Ten Tournament the first week of March, and guaranteed in future seasons by the shift from an 18-game league schedule to a 20-game Big Ten slate.
"It's an exciting week, and clearly a lot of excitement around the Big Ten/ACC Challenge with Duke coming to Bloomington, and then right after that a quick turnaround to two Big Ten games in three days," Miller said. "There's going to be a lot of excitement, I think, around the opportunities that we have.
"I think the games will really bring a heightened sense of awareness to our players. The environments that we're going to be in are what you want to be in when you're at this level. I think this time brings a lot of excitement."
Tack on IU's Dec. 9 trip to No. 17-ranked Louisville and Dec. 16 Crossroads Classic game in Indianapolis against No. 5 Notre Dame, too, and it probably is as challenging a five-game stretch as any team nationally will have seen so far this season.
But the Duke game looms as the tallest task of the bunch. Literally.
Duke deploys a quartet of players 6-foot-10 or taller in its regular rotation, including the freshman tandem of Marvin Bagley III (the Blue Devils' scoring and rebounding leader at 22.3 and 11.3) and Wendell Carter, Jr. (12.8, 9.1).
"Just the size and length they present," IU senior guard Robert Johnson said when asked about what makes Duke tough down low. "And I think, even more so than that, they are relentless on the glass."
Duke out-rebounds opponents by an average of 11.3 per game and has a rather astonishing offensive-rebound rate of .432 on its missed shots.
"They're good ISO guys, and they work well together in tandem," Hartman said of Bagley and Carter. "And you have to know that when somebody puts up a shot, you'd better get a body on them.
"They have two, three, sometimes four guys coming in to rebound. We have to really stay focused, have our defense set, and have everybody ready to help if we have to rotate a bit."
Miller's pack-line defense is designed, in part, to take opportunities in the lane away. But he knows the Hoosiers will need an all-hands-on-deck approach to that Wednesday, especially in terms of rebounding.
"They're the No. 1 offensive rebounding team in the country," Miller said of the Blue Devils, "and they're also scoring as many paint points, if not the most paint points, of any team in the country.
"If you just watch the Michigan State game alone, I think they got 25 offensive rebounds, and Marvin Bagley didn't play but about 10 minutes in that game. Wendell Carter and the other guys, whether it be (6-11 soph Marques) Bolden or whoever is in there, they present a serious challenge. They command a lot of attention. They're good passers. Their reputations speak for themselves.
"It is a daunting task and I think it starts with, one, the glass and how we keep them off it, and two, clearly trying our best to keep the paint crowded and make them make those guys uncomfortable as possible."
Duke's freshman-fueled lineup might be out of a comfort zone a bit at Assembly Hall, given Wednesday constitutes their first true road test in college – but the Blue Devils have already shown they can handle adversity, in the form of double-digit deficits, and come back to win against good teams.
One reason for that is Duke has a standout senior in 6-5 guard Grayson Allen and a savvy point guard in 6-3 freshman Trevon Duval.
"At times you can see four and five freshmen on the floor, but I think there's a reality of how good and how talented those freshmen are," Miller said. "And with Grayson Allen being sort of their leader, they're always going to have a guy there that you're going to be able to count on in big moments in the road venues that they're going into, so we're expecting him to be really on his game, as well."
With Bagley sidelined by fouls against Michigan State, Allen scorched the Spartans for 37 points, sinking 7 of 11 shots from 3-point range. He's averaging 16.5 points. Couple that with Bagley, Carter, Duval (13.3) and 6-6 freshman Gary Trent, Jr. (12.6) and Duke has five players averaging double-figure scoring.
Johnson and Hartman have already faced Allen, having played in IU's 94-74 loss at Duke in 2015.
"He's a really good player, their most experienced player at this point," Johnson said of Allen. "Obviously, he's an elite scorer. He can shoot it with range. He can get to the basket off the dribble. He obviously presents a challenge for us."
It's a challenge to which the Hoosiers look forward.
"We have our work cut out for us," Miller said. "We know that. We're trying to get ourselves mentally and physically prepared to play, and there's a lot that goes into this type of game …
"But we're excited for the game."
IU's fans will be, too.
And we'll see just how high the decibel level will go.
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