Hoosiers Handle Huskies Without Much Trouble

It was going to be Hoosiers, the movie sequel, but the underdog barely made it out of the first half.

The University of Washington basketball team put up a decent fight for the game's first 15 minutes at Indiana before getting into foul trouble, getting tired and losing 90-80 at Assembly Hall in Bloomington.

On Sunday, Tayton Conerway, a 6-foot-3 guard from Texas and last year's Sun Belt Player of the Year for Troy, pulled on a real Hoosiers uniform and it was a good fit.

He came up 18 of his 20 points in the first half, by hitting all five of of his shots, including all four from 3-point range, and that was enough to put Indiana in a commanding position, up by 52-40 at the break.

His teammate Lamar Wilkerson, a 6-foot-6 swingman, led all scorers with 22 points, 18 in the second half, as Indiana (11-3 overall, 2-1 Big Ten), won its 11th consecutive game at home.

The Huskies (9-5, 1-2) were led by Hannes Steinbach's ninth double-double outing of 20 points and 10 rebounds, the home team had him double-teamed throughout this one.

The UW had five player in double figures with Desmond Claude's 18, Zoom Diallo's 16, Quimari Peterson's 13 and ex-Hoosier Bryson Tucker's 11 points.

Yet it wasn't nearly enough to make this Indiana team uncomfortable at all before a sellout crowd and a Big Ten Network audience.

Both teams came out and made it a 3-point shooting contest early on, with these teams combining to sink 8 of their first 10 attempts from behind the line. It was almost as if the fictional Jimmy Chitwood was playing for each side.

The Huskies even crept out to an early five-point lead when Peterson drained a 3 to make it 22-17 with just under six minutes played.

They led for the last time at 24-23 on Peterson's drive to the bucket but Indiana took the the lead for good with a 6-0 run.

Danny Sprinkle's guys still were down just 37-33 after Zoom Diallo hit a floater in the key, but Indiana went on a 9-2 run to take charge.

The UW trailed 52-40 at the break, with the officials waving off a late jumper by the Hoosiers.

After the break, the team in the dark purple shirts had one real run left in it and outscored its host 10-2, with Steinbach supplying 6 of them. With 16:04 left in the game, the Huskies trailed just 54-50.

Right on cue, Indiana responded with an 8-0 spurt and it was simply time to play this one out. The Huskies fell down by as many as 15 and pulled no closer than 86-80 with 41 seconds remaining.

The UW now has a pair of idle days before facing No. 5 Purdue (13-1, 3-0) in West Lafayette, Indiana, on Wednesday.