'We're Here to Stay': Indiana Basketball Earns Statement Win vs Kansas State

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — With fans on their feet and a chorus of cheers and applause covering the floor, the crowd inside Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall started to feel the moment.

Then, Darian DeVries pointed sixth-year senior guard Tayton Conerway onward.

Conerway listened, delivering a savvy drive-and-kick to senior guard Conor Enright, who swung the ball to the left wing, where sixth-year senior guard Lamar Wilkerson buried a 3-pointer and put the cherry on top of a statement-making 86-69 win over Kansas State on Tuesday inside Assembly Hall.

Tuesday marked Indiana's lone non-conference home game against a high-major opponent, and Kansas State, a middle-of-the-road Big 12 team the past two seasons with one of college basketball's best offenses to start this year, figured to pose a fair measuring stick.

The Hoosiers may have raised the bar on their season expectations Tuesday night.

"I think we proved we can hang with the best of them," senior forward Reed Bailey said postgame. "They came in averaging 90-something points a game and that's a tough ask when you got a guy like that that can score 30 (in junior guard) P.J. Haggerty.

"But I think it showed we're just scratching the surface and we're here to stay for sure. We just want to keep out and keep playing our basketball."

Indiana led by double figures the entire second half, and it delivered perhaps its most well-rounded performance of the season.

The Hoosiers held Kansas State, which entered Tuesday averaging 92.8 points per game, to a season-low 69 points. The Wildcats hadn't scored below 84 points through their first six games, but they posted just 0.958 points per possession in Bloomington.

Haggarty, the nation's leading scorer at 28 points per game, scored a season-low 16 points on 7-for-17 shooting while committing six turnovers. He was largely stifled by Enright and Conerway, and with its star guard minimized, Kansas State struggled picking up the slack.

"We wanted to build walls," Conerway said. "Make sure we got back. We knew they played good in transition, so if we could slow them down and make them have to run their sets and make somebody else beat us, we knew we would have a good chance."

Indiana wanted Enright to press and jam Haggarty after every shot to limit his transition potential. DeVries said Kansas State is "elite" in transition, prompting the Hoosiers to emphasize transition defense in their game plan. Indiana executed, as the Wildcats scored 11 fastbreak points Tuesday night.

The Hoosiers also made significant strides in the defensive rebounding department. After being outrebounded by Lindenwood on Nov. 20, DeVries said Indiana had a few spirited practices marked by additional body-on-body reps with hopes of fixing its rebounding woes.

Kansas State entered the day averaging 35.5 rebounds per game and outrebounding its opponent by five boards. The Hoosiers won the rebounding battle, 35-28, and held the Wildcats to only eight offensive rebounds and 4 second-chance points.

By cleaning the glass, Indiana forced Kansas State into a bevy of one-shot possessions, and the Wildcats connected on just 42.1% of their attempts from the floor.

"We have to continue to make that our mindset every night," DeVries said. "We have to defensive rebound if we're going to be good, and I think the guys that get that. I think they've seen it enough now that we just got to continue to improve and improve and make it a priority."

Bailey reiterated DeVries' belief that for the Hoosiers to ultimately maximize their potential, they need to be a better rebounding team. On Tuesday night, they took a significant step forward.

"I think rebounding, that's one of the things that's really going to push us over the line to be as good and as great as we can be," Bailey said.

Bailey's emergence is another important ingredient to Indiana's ascension. The 6-foot-10, 230-pounder matched a season high with 21 points, 14 of which came in the second half. He was 4-for-7 shooting from the field and 13 of 15 at the free throw line.

DeVries has frequently acknowledged Indiana lacks premium size relative to its Big Ten counterparts. Bailey, the Hoosiers' starting big man, battled highs and lows through the season's first five games. He played his most aggressive half of the season to close Tuesday night's win, and he showed a new, physical side of his skill set that hadn't yet been released.

"That was the things that excited us about him as we saw him this summer and fall," DeVries said. "He was doing those things in practice and tonight was a time I thought you really got to see some of the things he's capable of.

"When you're that size and you got that type of skill set, and he can drive it with the speed that he does, it gives us some opportunities to create some mismatches."

Conerway said when Bailey has performances like his 21-point, four-rebound, two-assist showing Tuesday, it makes basketball easy.

"He a big ol' guard, man," Conerway said. "He knows what he's doing down there. He plays the five, four, but he can dribble. He can shoot. He can pass. He's a Swiss Army knife. There's nothing he can't do."

Indiana put an early dagger in Kansas State, starting the second half on a 12-4 run while extending its lead from 12 to 20 points. Conerway and Bailey scored six points apiece during the span, accounting for the Hoosiers' entire offense.

DeVries said he felt Indiana was "anxious" from 3-point range early. Of the Hoosiers' first 19 shots, 15 came from beyond the arc. In the second half, DeVries wanted his team to get more paint touches, be it through getting the ball to Bailey or allowing Conerway to attack the rim. Offensive success followed.

Indiana didn't have its finest 3-point shooting night, as it finished 10 of 33 from distance. But the Hoosiers proved a few valuable lessons Tuesday night: They can score no matter if their triples are falling, and perhaps more importantly, they can create energy and defend at a high level on their off nights.

"We just got a bunch of dudes," Bailey said. "Everyone knows how to play basketball. They've been doing it their whole life."

DeVries walked off the floor to a fair ovation in Assembly Hall's northeast corner. Across five exhibition games and six regular season contests, Indiana's first-year coach still hasn't lost a game.

And if the Hoosiers carry ingredients from Tuesday — be it their energy, defensive rebounding or Bailey's heightened play — moving forward, the streak figures to keep on rolling.