Opposing Sideline: Stopping Wyoming Point Guard Hunter Maldonado Critical For Indiana

DAYTON, Ohio — Hunter Maldonado, Wyoming's crafty and clever 6-foot-7 point guard, has been in Laramie a long time. The Colorado Spring native is in his fifth year with the Cowboys and, much like his Indiana counterparts on Tuesday night, he's never played in an NCAA Tournament game, either.

For the Cowboys to make more than one postseason game, Maldonado is going to need to have a big game. And the concern for Indiana in this 12-seed First Four play-in game? It's that he's done that plenty of times.

Maldonado has scored 1,686 career points since 2017, and has 508 assists. He's the head of the snake for the Cowboys, a tall and lanky point guard with great vision and a methodical style of play that keeps turnovers to a minimum. He can hurt you at all three levels, and the Hoosiers already know that after their quick film study.

"They have a point guard who's 6-7 and he likes to back people down,'' Indiana's Trayce Jackson-Davis said Monday. "So we've got to be locked in on defense, take away the stuff they want to do and just communicate with each other. I think we have the best defense in the league, in Big Ten, and one of the best in the country. We're just going to have to show it.''

Maldonado will test them. He's averaging 18.4 points per game, 6.3 assists and 5.8 rebounds for the 25-8 Cowboys

He's scored in double figures in 30 of their 33 games, and had nine points twice and four in the other game. He's had four games with double-digit assists and had a rare college triple double on Feb. 28 against San Diego State, a fellow NCAA Tournament entrant. with 13 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists.

In this era of positionless basketball, he's the poster child for the positionless player. He's dangerous from everywhere.

"I think I do whatever the team needs,'' Maldonado said Monday. "And I see myself as just a basketball player. I go out there. I handle the ball. I get it to the guys that need to get the ball, if they're hot. Whether Drake (Jeffries) hits a couple of shots or Graham (Ike) is going to work in the post, I just kind of facilitate and make sure I'm the leader of this team.''

Maldonado's matchup with red-hot Indiana point guard Xavier Johnson will be a key to the game, though you might see Indiana switching other guys on him when he posts up. Johnson likes to push the ball and play downhill, but Maldonado would prefer a slower approach. But he's seen plenty of games played both ways.

"I think it's something we've kind of seen in our (Mountain West) conference with teams pushing the pace and then having some three or four teams that do slow it down,'' he said. "So it's not the first time we've seen it. It will just be a team effort and we'll try to play to our style and stick to our habits.''

Second-year Wyoming coach Jeff Linder likes to keep the reigns on his point guard.

"Maldo knows when he plays fast I get mad at him,'' Linder said. "The way that we use him and the way that he plays, being that he's 6-7, we're really unorthodox in terms of using him as kind of the old school Mark Jackson, Gary Payton, Charles Barkley, get him into a lot of dribble-downs to where he can use his size.

"He's an incredible passer. And people think it looks easy to be able to dribble down and back your guy down from 19 feet. Well, it's in reality, hard to do. And he's got great body control. He was a post player in high school. He naturally knows how to feel his way around. He's a guy, too, that forces the other team to decide if you're going to try to guard him small because with his size, he puts a lot of pressure on you in terms of being able to score. If you try to put a bigger guy, now he's quick enough and he's shifty enough to where he can create angles that way too. So he's a tough matchup.''

Linder said he's actually watched a lot of Indiana games this year in the Big Ten, and he's been impressed with Johnson and his skills at the point guard position in running the Hoosiers' ball-screen offense. There are a lot of personnel similarities with these two teams.

"In the case of Xavier Johnson, having watched him on film — I have actually watched Indiana quite a bit during the regular season — my teams have always been offensively one of the top teams in the country in terms of the number of possessions played in the ball screen. Maldo is not necessarily a guy you'll put in that many ball screens. With him, and you add (6-foot-9 left-handed forward) Graham Ike in the mix, knowing that I was going to play through those two guys, the Big Ten is the one league in the country where you're playing through the post most of the teams, whether it's Purdue, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan. So I watched a lot of Big Ten basketball just watching how some of those teams try to utilize their post players and some of the different things they did knowing that that's how we play.

"So now you watch Indiana on film and in a lot of ways they mirror us in terms of Trayce being on the right side of the floor playing to his left hand. Race on the left side playing to his right hand. And you've got the X factor in Xavier Johnson, who from a talent standpoint is as talented as any guard out there.''

Johnson respects Maldonado's game, but as you would expect with his usual swagger, he's not sure that the Wyoming guard has seen defenses that Indiana, the No. 1 ranked team in the Big Ten, will throw at him.

"I believe he's a good player, playing in the Mountain West, averaging 18 points, six assists. That's big-time,'' Johnson said. "But I don't think he's played against the type of guard that's actually going to pressure him a lot up the floor. So I'm just ready to compete against him.''

Indiana has hung its hat on defense all year long, and that plan won't be deviated this week, either. The Hoosiers will only go as far as their defense will take them.

The players know that, and Indiana coach Mike Woodson knows it, too.

"Defense has always been our identity. And I made that very clear when I took the job, that we had to establish a defensive system because offensively I just didn't know where it was going to come from,'' Woodson said. ""I knew if we did that we would put ourselves in a tremendous position to win games.

"Defense is where we've been good in terms of being able to compete all year. As we go into this tournament we're going to have to stay at that level because I've always felt defense wins titles. I mean, it gives you an opportunity to, I look at it that way.''

Being just 45 miles from the Indiana state line, Dayton is an easy road trip for a long of Indiana fans. With two teams from Texas — No. 16 seeds Texas Southern and Texas A&M-Corpus Christie play the first game — and Wyoming, the 13,000-seat UD Arena is sure to be packed with Indiana fans.

Wyoming guard Drake Jeffries, who's from Mattoon in central Illinois, knows all about Indiana's stories basketball history.

"Obviously, Indiana is a blue-blood basically. It's a very storied, very good program,'' the 6-foot-5 senior guard said. "Coach Woodson has done a very good job over there. It's basically going to be almost like a home game for them. We're expecting to be a lot of Indiana fans in here.

"It's about four hours away from where I'm from. I know we'll have a couple of Wyoming fans in here as well. and I'm excited for that. I just think that it will be fun environment for sure.''

Indiana is a 4-point favorite in the game according to the Fanduel.com gambling website. The winner plays No. 5 seed Saint Mary's on Thursday night at 7:20 p.m. in Portland, Ore.

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