BLOOMINGTON — Indiana basketball coach Mike Woodson described his team’s latest lackluster performance as “growing pains.”
The Hoosiers (7-2) beat Miami (OH) 76-57 on Friday night at Assembly Hall, but their play didn’t inspire much confidence. They didn’t pull away until the final eight minutes, and the energy in the building reflected that — the fans were waiting for a knockout punch that never really landed.
Here’s our overreactions to Friday night’s win:
Indiana basketball isn’t playing with enough urgency to turn its season around
Miami shot just 30.8% from the field on Friday night and were just 11-for-32 from 3-point range (34.4%), but Woodson wasn’t patting anyone on the back after the game.
The numbers make it look like the Hoosiers were locked in on defense, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
“We still got work to do, man,” Woodson said. “I mean, even though they went six minutes without scoring the ball, they still had good looks. The looks came on our inability to not switch correctly. You know what I mean? We screwed up so many switches tonight I thought.”
There were an alarming number of instances in which Miami had a free cut to the basket or open look from the corner because of those breakdowns, and those are the problems that have plagued IU for much of the season.
Woodson fell back on his popular refrain — ”got to keep working” — but with every game feeling like a repeat of the last, it’s fair to wonder: Where is the urgency? The Hoosiers only have two non-conference games left and start Big Ten play on Monday vs. Minnesota at Assembly Hall.
“We got to learn quick,” Indiana guard Trey Galloway said. “And we can’t have those breakdowns. There was a lot tonight. I think it’s just our attention to detail and really focusing and sticking to the game plan. There’s a lot of miscues that we had that we shouldn’t have.”
Galloway isn’t going to express any panic in a post-game press conference setting, but the veterans should be showing a little more fire on the court to get these things corrected.
Indiana basketball sophomore Mackenzie Mgbako is at a crossroads
It’s rare when Mgbako isn’t the most talented scorer on the floor.
He is a dynamic three-level scorer with the size and athleticism to be a matchup nightmare. He can shoot over smaller guards and bully them near the basket, but he’s not going to waste any time attacking the rim if he sees a big-bodied forward trying to step out and guard him at the perimeter.
The problems for Mgabko? He still has wild swings in offensive performance — his first points on Friday night with 3:41 left in the game — and he’s struggling to pick up Mike Woodson’s defensive rotations to the point where he spent long stretches of this game on the bench.
While Woodson didn’t want to single out Mgbako’s defensive struggles after the game — ”it wasn’t just Mackenzie” — he didn’t need to. Mgabko was never in foul trouble and only played 24 minutes. It came on the heels playing only 22 minutes against Sam Houston State.
Woodson used Mgbako’s miscues last year as teachable moments, but he’s not a freshman anymore.
Mgbako made his 41st career start and he can’t continue to take himself out of games by not living up to basic expectations on defense, especially when one of his goals this year was to put himself in position to be a lottery pick.
Let the Trey Galloway vs Kanaan Carlyle debate begin
Indiana is now 3-0 with Galloway in the starting lineup. His improved playmaking skills have carried over from last season and his shot is back to where it was two years ago when he was one of IU’s most dangerous 3-point shooters.
Galloway had 13 points and is now shooting 61.5% from 3-point range on the season after going 3-for-4 against the RedHawks. He hit a 3-pointer from the corner that kicked off a late 12-0 run to help IU put the game away.
With Carlyle expected to return sooner than later — he suffered an undisclosed injury during the Battle 4 Atlantis — Woodson is going to have a tough decision on his hands whether to keep Galloway in the starting lineup.
Carlyle might be the best on-ball defender the Hoosiers have, but he’s struggling offensively (4.5 points, 27% shooting) and hasn’t looked comfortable playing alongside Rice in crunch time.
It’s hard to come up with a strong argument based on the first nine games that Indiana is better off having a healthy Galloway in the starting lineup and averaging nearly 30 minutes per game.
Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Indiana basketball urgency is missing heading into Big Ten play
