How Indiana Basketball Turned Past Road Woes into Maryland Win: 'Every L is a Lesson'

COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Darian DeVries had seen this Indiana men's basketball movie before.

This one isn't as well-liked as "Hoosiers," nor is it one DeVries desired to watch again. This one — marked by a lethargic start, a lack of movement and minimal offensive efficiency — is the recipe that led to Indiana's first Big Ten loss, a 73-64 defeat to Minnesota in the first road game of DeVries' coaching tenure.

But this time, DeVries and his team knew how to flip the script.

Indiana (12-3, 3-1 Big Ten) gave this movie a happy ending, surging to an 84-66 win over Maryland (7-8, 0-4 Big Ten) on Wednesday night inside the Xfinity Center in College Park, Maryland. It served as the Hoosiers' first true road win this season.

The Hoosiers trailed 8-5 at the under-16 media timeout and 14-9 at the under-12 stoppage. Only three days after a 90-point outburst against Washington, Indiana's offense fell silent.

"I think coming in, we was playing a little passive," Indiana sixth-year senior guard Lamar Wilkerson said postgame. "We was playing scared. We wasn't playing the way we were supposed to play offensively and defensively. We weren't aggressive in the gaps, aggressive on the ball handlers."

That's where the parallels to Minneapolis entered DeVries' mind.

"I thought the Minnesota game, our movement never really got going," DeVries said postgame. "We didn't get them to chase us around and we got really stagnant. We started the game this way again tonight."

Then, it flipped.

Indiana did a better job of making offensive adjustments Wednesday than it did against Minnesota, DeVries said. The Hoosiers took concepts and executed them at a higher level. Starting guards Conor Enright and Tayton Conerway found success getting downhill.

Maryland stayed tight to Wilkerson on the perimeter, which left the Terrapins susceptible to backdoor cuts. DeVries advised Wilkerson to give himself up and cut, and he did. At times, he scored. At others, he forced Terrapin defenders to help, which created cleaner passing windows and easier ball movement.

Defensively, DeVries felt Indiana let Maryland get to the rim at will during the game's early phases. The Hoosiers adjusted, staying in front of the Terrapins and forcing them into tougher shots.

Suddenly, the scoreboard — and Indiana's productivity — improved.

Indiana scored 27 points over the final 11-and-a-half minutes of the first half, driven by an increased focus to attack the rim, embrace contact and draw fouls. The Hoosiers shot only 9 of 26 from the floor and 2 of 12 from beyond the arc in the first half, but they were a perfect 16 for 16 at the free throw line and carried a 36-31 lead into the locker room.

At halftime, Wilkerson said Indiana regrouped, came out and flipped the switch. He embodied that better than anyone.

After Maryland redshirt freshman guard Aaron Mills made a layup with just over 17 minutes remaining to trim the Terrapins' deficit to 43-40, Wilkerson scored the Hoosiers' next 16 points, and he outscored Maryland, 16-4, in a five-minute stretch. Indiana's lead never dipped below double figures.

Energy, Wilkerson said, is "very contagious." When one person gets juiced, everyone else follows. For the Hoosiers, such momentum snowballed into an avalanche that buried the Terrapins on Wednesday night.

As Wilkerson drilled 3-pointers, energy built on Indiana's bench. The same happened each time senior forward Reed Bailey flushed a dunk, or Enright drew a charge, or Conerway made a shot.

DeVries said this summer the Hoosiers pride themselves on having a loud gym. The environment inside the Xfinity Center was anything but — on paper, an advantage for the road team, but a double-edged sword because it places greater emphasis on creating one's own energy.

Indiana flunked the test in Minneapolis as 10-point favorites. It aced the basketball version of a make-up exam in College Park.

"Every L is a lesson, man," Wilkerson said. "We talked about it. We had no energy in Minnesota, man. So, we were trying to come out here and create our own energy. That loss opened our eyes. We just came out here and tried to look at our mistakes we did with the Minnesota game and translate it to where we can come out successful tonight."

The Hoosiers produced four scorers above 15 points. Wilkerson led the way with 24, while Conerway followed suit with 19. Enright tallied a season-high 16 points and Bailey pitched in 15 points off the bench.

Indiana didn't give College Park its finest offensive performance. The Hoosiers were 8-for-25 shooting from distance, tied for their third-fewest triples and their fifth-worst clip this season. They shot 45% from the field, their ninth-best mark, and dished only 13 assists, which ties its third-worst effort.

Still, Indiana persevered — behind Wilkerson's explosive stretch, behind in-game adjustments, behind energy. And, perhaps most importantly, behind lessons learned from losses at Minnesota and Kentucky, two of the lowest points in DeVries' first season.

"We didn't have the success we wanted to have in our first two road games, but there were reasons for that," DeVries said. "I felt like there were reasons within our control and we played a little bit out of character in those two games in some different areas.

"I thought we were able to fix that for the most part tonight, even though we got off to a little bit of a slow start. But really at both ends of the floor, I thought the guys responded very well, because it's easy when you're on the road to maybe kind of give into it and just fall into that trap."

The Hoosiers didn't fall. Instead, they leapt — over the hurdle of winning a road game. Or, well, any other piece of obstruction.

"I don't know if it's a hurdle," DeVries said, "but you got to do it."

Maryland entered Wednesday ranked No. 162 in the NET, the second-lowest mark in the conference. The Terrapins lost each of their first three Big Ten games by double digits, and the Hoosiers entered as 8-point favorites.

But Indiana didn't want anything, or anyone, to dictate its mentality. The Hoosiers have already learned the dangers of that. They arrived in College Park with an introspective focus. They left with an 18-point, box-checking victory.

"No matter what it is, like I told the guys — nobody, full house, doesn't matter," DeVries said. "It's got to be our team connected and figuring out a way to come out of 40 minutes with a win."

Indiana, despite its slow start, despite being chased by the road horrors of Minneapolis and Lexington, ultimately found its way Wednesday night, and the Hoosiers had a loud, energized celebration in their locker room afterwards.

Now, that movie? Certainly worth the price of admission.