Indiana's Up-And-Down Season On Full Display In Dramatic Comeback Win Over Maryland
COLLEGE PARK, Md. — This has been a rough year for Indiana basketball, with a lot of bad basketball being played. They've had their moments, but just not enough of them the past four months.
All of that was clearly evident again on Sunday when the Hoosiers took on Maryland. They were awful early and were buried in a 16-point hole early in the second half.
Then the ''bad Hoosiers'' disappeared, and they were replaced like a team capable of beating anyone. They went from 16 down to 11 in the span of 14 minutes, stunning the Terrapins in an 83-78 win.
That second half? It was probably the best basketball they've played all year.
"We've played a lot of good basketball in spurts, man. I've said that all season long,'' Indiana coach Mike Woodson said. :"I would like to think things would have been a lot different if we had had (sixth-year point guard Xavier Johnson) a lot of those games that we let get away.
"But we can't look back. We've got to get ready for Minnesota and see where the next games leads us.''
The Hoosiers' second straight win — their first winning streak since December — raised their record to 16-13 and 8-10 in the Big Ten. They have two regular-season games remaining, at Minnesota on Wednesday and then at home next Sunday against Michigan State.
Finishing with a .500 record in the league and earning a better seed in the conference tournament is all still there for the taking. And what this rally showed is that this team isn't about to give up, despite their season-long struggles.
They feel like they still have a lot to play for, and it showed.
Freshman Mackenzie Mgbako was the catalyst of the comeback. He scored a career-high 24 points, including 18 in the second half. The Hoosiers were at their best offensively, scoring on 10 straight shots at one point and shooting 19-for-26 from the field — a whopping 73.1 percent — in the second half.
They were trailing 51-35 with 17:58 to go in the game, and then they started to put some things together. All five starters scored in a six-possession window, and an 11-2 run got them to with 53-46 in just two-plus minutes.
A 29-9 run over a 10-minute span flipped the game completely and blew it open for the Hoosiers. They were as good as they've been all year — on both sides of the floor.
For a team that's struggled to shoot, this was an outlier. They made 7-of-15 threes on the night — Mgbako had four of them — and they even made their free throws. They hit 10 straight in the first 38 minutes before Johnson missed a one-and-one and Galloway missed two with 11 seconds left. They were 14-for-17, good for 82.4 percent.
"It's something that we've lacked this season,'' Woodson said about making shots on Sunday. "We've struggled to put the ball in the hole. Tonight it all came together a little bit. I think X had a lot to do with it being out there and taking some of the pressure off of Gabe (Cupps). Gabe got off to a great start for us — (five points in the first two minutes) —but I just thought that X was Xavier Johnson.
"He did a lot of good things on the floor from a defensive standpoint and controlled the game out front with him and (Trey Galloway), our two seniors. I've missed that this season, I really have.''
Johnson's second game back after missing six games with an ankle injury was a homecoming of sorts. He grew up just down the road in Virginia and had nearly two dozen friends and family members at the game. He came off the bench, but played 31 minutes and scored 13 points with six assists — and just one turnover.
Malik Reneau had 14 points and Galloway had 12.
It was a rare off-night for 7-foot sophomore center. He was awful in the first half, not scoring at all and committing three turnovers. Woodson got all over him at halftime, and he was much better during the rally. He finished with nine points and 15 rebounds, but had six total turnovers.
"Well, we went in at halftime and we had made some adjustments,'' Woodson said. "You know, (Kel'el) Ware didn't give us much in the first half, so I kind of lit into him a little bit. I thought he picked it up in the second half, and everybody else who played in the second half was a big part in us winning.''
Indiana's defense had a lot to do with the win, too. After giving up 43 first-half points, they contested every shot during the run, with the Terrapins making just 4-of-15 shots from the field in Indiana's 40-13 run.
They were locked in — and refused to lose.
“We’ve got to get the dub,” Mgbako said, when asked about turning the game around. “That’s all it was. Just play within the team and my teammates got me some good shots and I just had to knock them down.”
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