Yasir Rosemond Recaps Indiana's Win Over Purdue, Previews Penn State On Radio Show

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Indiana associate head coach Yasir Rosemond filled in for head coach Mike Woodson on Monday's episode of the Inside Indiana Basketball radio show with Don Fischer.

There was plenty to discuss, including the Hoosiers picking up one of their biggest wins of the season Sunday against No. 13 Purdue. Rosemond and Fischer also previewed Wednesday's home game against Penn State and the upcoming trip to Washington and Oregon, where Rosemond played from 1997-99. To watch the full episode, CLICK HERE.

Here are some highlights from the radio show.

On Indiana's 73-58 win over Purdue...

Rosemond had the scout in both games against Purdue this season, the first being an 81-76 loss at Mackey Arena.

He thought things were a little shaky for Indiana in the first half because it went away from what they talked about doing in practice leading up to the game. Indiana trailed Purdue 37-25 at halftime.

Despite the first-half deficit, Rosemond said in the halftime locker room that he thought the players were more confident than the coaches were in Indiana's ability to turn the game around. "We were like, man, here we go again."

Rosemond said Indiana went into the game thinking they could win. He thought Indiana figured out Purdue's base offense, which was important because they run so many different plays.

"They came together and we had a big win yesterday."

Rosemond knew going into the game that Braden Smith had been playing a lot of minutes – he's averaging 36.5 per game – so Indiana wanted to try to put the pressure on him. “You could tell he’s wearing down a little bit."

Rosemond said Myles Rice had his best defensive game all season against Purdue. Rosemond has known Rice for several years and teased Rice that he used to be known as a defender before he started scoring a lot of points at Washington State. Rosemond credited Rice and Anthony Leal for their strong defense on Smith, who finished with eight points on 2-for-8 shooting and six turnovers.

Fischer noted that fellow radio broadcaster Errek Suhr, who played at Indiana from 2003-07 and attended Bloomington North High School, said Indiana's second half performance against Purdue might have been the best half of basketball he’s seen at Indiana in his life.

Rosemond thought Indiana got after Purdue defensively, which led to some fast-break baskets and got the crowd back into the game. He said the guys played well and it was fun.

Rosemond said the crowd was great against Purdue, and that every fan base has Debbie Downers, but fans are always going to appreciate if you play hard.

On the starting lineup changes...

Indiana started Myles Rice and Malik Reneau in place of Mackenzie Mgbako and Oumar Ballo, who started the previous game against UCLA. Trey Galloway, Anthony Leal and Luke Goode remained in the starting lineup.

Rosemond said Indiana has thrown out some different starting lineup combinations to try to create stronger starts to games. Against Wisconsin, he had the reaction of, “Oh god, before you knew it, it was 20-4."

Rosemond thinks better starts will be important as they try to get back into the NCAA Tournament.

He considers Trey Galloway and Myles Rice both to be point guards. He said Galloway knows Woodson’s offense very well from their four years together, and Rice has been willing to play off the ball at times because of that.

On Anthony Leal...

In 35 minutes, including all 20 minutes of the second half, Leal finished with eight points, five rebounds, four assists, three steals and two blocks, and he made numerous key defensive plays.

"You can’t say enough about him, I love Anthony.” Rosemond said they always put him Leal on the other team’s best player, and Sunday he spent a lot of time on Braden Smith.

“He’ll probably become the mayor of Bloomington and sell all the houses here,” Rosemond said, laughing. He noted that the team calls Leal the mayor of Bloomington. He attended Bloomington South High School and was the 2020 Indiana Mr. Basketball.

Rosemond said Leal won Indiana a couple games last year and was a big reason they’ve won against some tough opponents. He called Leal Indiana's "glue guy."

On Malik Reneau and Oumar Ballo...

Rosemond said Reneau is getting more comfortable playing with the knee brace after his injury against Rutgers on Jan. 2, which caused him to miss five full games before returning against Northwestern on Jan. 22. Rosemond said Reneau is starting to round into the player everyone knows he can be. The injury was hard on Reneau from a psychological standpoint in terms of trusting that he could plant hard and jump. He's starting to trust it more now.

Indiana started the season with Reneau and Oumar Ballo in the starting lineup together, but more recently it has played smaller lineups with just one of them on the court. Rosemond said Indiana has been going with the flow of the game in terms of how much they play together.

Rosemond said Indiana also looks at the analytics to determine Reneau and Ballo's playing time together, and that sometimes they need to play bigger lineups against bigger teams. They're playing smaller a lot now, but noted that Luke Goode is not the biggest guy to play at power forward. "In the back of our mind, it’s the rebounding part."

Rosemond said Calbert Cheaney helped Ballo switch to shooting free throws lefty, and he has shot the second-best percentage of his career at 58%. But against Purdue he went 2 for 6.

On Luke Goode...

He noted that Goode has been a strong leader vocally, and that he's not afraid to say anything to anybody. Goode wanted to play at IU out of high school, so he didn’t come here to not go to the tournament. Rosemond called Goode an everyday guy.

Goode played 33 minutes and scored 11 points against Purdue.

On Wednesday's game against Penn State...

Rosemond said Indiana played really well in its 77-71 win over Penn State on Jan. 5 at the Palestra in Philadelphia. Penn State has won two games in a row before coming to Indiana.

He said Indiana was worried about Penn State center Yanic Konan Niederhauser going into first game, but he thought Ballo did a good job that day, scoring 25 points and grabbing 13 rebounds. Rosemond said Ballo's ability to draw fouls is important.

Rosemond pointed out that Penn State has a really good point guard in Ace Baldwin, who's the key to their team. He said if he gets going, they’re hard to stop, and they'll probably have Leal guard Baldwin.

Rosemond said he and Cheaney might hand out donuts to the students waiting outside Assembly Hall before the Penn State game.

Indiana went 1-2 against Penn State last year, and Rosemond said Indiana hasn't played well against Penn State over the last four years, even when they had Trayce Jackson-Davis. He thought Penn State gave them problems with smaller lineups in the past, but countered that Indiana can pose a problem for them with Ballo. Indiana also didn’t have Reneau in the first game due to injury, so Indiana will be able to have an inside and outside scoring presence in Wednesday's game.

On the upcoming road games...

Indiana plays at Washington on Saturday and at Oregon on March 4.

Rosemond is excited for the trip because he played and coached at Oregon, and he coached at Seattle University. “I hate the [Washington] Huskies. I hate the [Oregon State] Beavers just as much as we hate Purdue here.”

Rosemond said Oregon executive director and assistant coach Josh Jamieson is still on staff from the time he was there. He also joked that he's going to get some new shoes while they're at the Nike headquarters. “I’m looking forward to going out there, but I wanna beat them."

He said it’s important to play hard all the time, and Indiana is starting to collectively understand that. Rosemond said that's part of what defines this program. "It’s Indiana basketball, It is what it is."

"They've been locked in the whole year. We've had some bumps in the road. I think some of the stuff that went on with the crowd and all that type of stuff, man, I mean, those are the things that I think people that didn't grew up in Indiana or guys that when your in the portal, they don't really understand about Indiana, that it's a place where they're big on basketball. And that's not to say that the other sports are not – because our football team did really well this year and we got soccer and we got tennis and we got all these other sports – but basketball is king in Indiana. And if you don't really understand it, sometimes that stuff can get to you. I think that happened to a couple of our guys."

Rosemond said Indiana is determined to get into the NCAA Tournament. A recent tournament projection from the Field of 68 tabbed Indiana as a No. 11 seed in one of the First Four play-in games.