Indiana Basketball: 3 keys to a deep Big Ten Tournament run

The regular season of Indiana basketball has officially wrapped up and the Hoosiers now turn their sole focus on the Big Ten Tournament where they will look to make a deep run in hopes of making the NCAA Tournament. Indiana is currently riding a four-game winning streak and are one of the hottest teams in the country at the moment.

“We’re playing as good as any team in the country right now based on the last four games,” said Mike Woodson after the Michigan State win. “We got to take it a game at a time, man. I’ll never jump ahead.”

The Hoosiers had a very up-and-down season overall where they fought injuries, problems with the youth of this roster, lack of consistent shooting, and many other factors. All-in-all, Mike Woodson was able to lead Indiana basketball to a 18-13 overall record as well as finishing with a 10-10 record in the Big Ten Conference. With a 10-10 record in the conference, the Hoosiers earned the No.6 overall seed which led them to avoid the opening round of the Big Ten Tournament.

Indiana basketball will play the winner of Michigan and Penn State on Thursday night at roughly 9:00 PM ET. They defeated Michigan once very early in the season but were swept by Penn State this year in their two meetings.

Below are three keys for Indiana basketball to make a deep run in the Big Ten Tournament.

Don’t go away from your strength: The Frontcourt

By this point in the year, we all know what the strength of this Indiana basketball team is…the frontcourt for obvious reasons. The unit of sophomore forwards Malik Reneau and Kel’el Ware have been the rock of this team all season long. They even make a strong case as the best frontcourt unit in the entire conference.

Yes, Mike Woodson is still using the controversial ‘inside-out’ style of the play this season, but for the majority of the year, it has worked. With that said, the Hoosiers absolutely should not shy away from what they know works.

“Well, when we won, we won with both of our bigs on the floor. You know, that’s what I look at,” Woodson said over zoom a few weeks ago. “You look at analytics based on we haven’t played a lot (of minutes) where we played four around one this year. So you’re looking at short stats basically.”

The unit of Reneau and Ware have averaged 31.8 points of the 72.9 points Indiana basketball averaged in 31 game this year so far. While Mike Woodson has at times experimented with running Mackenzie Mgbako at the four in the latest four-game win streak, it is clear that he does not want to completely shy from the two big lineup that he has opted to use for most of the year.

When it comes to postseason play, you have to play to your strengths. The guard play is not something Indiana basketball can rely on at this point as it has been too rocky all season long. While the guard and wing play has to step up for Indiana to make a deep run in the Big Ten Tournament, don’t forget to let Malik Reneau and Kel’el Ware go to work.

“We basically have played with two bigs on the floor most of the season,” Woodson said in the past. “The games that we have won and played well, they’ve been in and out of the game. So I don’t look at — I look what the we’ve done as whole.”

Defense needs to lead to offense

A big part of the reason that Indiana basketball has seemingly hit it’s stride in the last four games is due to that they have bought back in on the defensive side of the ball. In the current 4-game winning streak that the Hoosiers are on at the moment, they have held teams to an average of just 67.8 points a game which is a big reason as to why Indiana has turned their season around a slight bit.

As of right now, Indiana basketball ranks No. 11 in the Big Ten Standings when it comes to defense and points allowed. We all are aware by now that Mike Woodson takes a lot of pride on the defensive side of the floor and being in the bottom four when it comes to defending is something that is certainly not sitting well with him. What he can be proud of however, is that his team as of late has realized that they were not going to win games unless changes were made on defense. Having Xavier Johnson back to provide more on-ball pressure as well as Kel’el Ware being an elite rim protector has only helped the improvements.

“I mean, I think this is a different team going down the stretch,” said senior guard Xavier Johnson after the Michigan State win. “The old team of a couple games ago would’ve probably quit. I don’t think we take punches well. But now I think we really do take the punches well. We want to hit back and win games.”

The best thing about Indiana’s improvements on the defensive end? The defense has turned into offense. That has to stay that way come the Big Ten Tournament. When Indiana basketball can get stops, get out, and run, that is when the offense of the Hoosiers is at it’s best. It avoids stagnation on offense that we often see from the Hoosiers.

It is well-known that you win games on the defensive side of the floor. Defense turning into shot-making can help this team make a big run starting on Thursday. It starts on the defensive end for this Indiana basketball team.

Senior backcourt needs to play like a senior backcourt

In all honesty, this is probably the biggest key for the Hoosiers to make a deep run in the Big Ten Tournament. With how unstable the backcourt has been for Indiana basketball this year, they need everything they can get out of the starting backcourt of Xavier Johnson and Trey Galloway.

The good news, Xavier Johnson looks to be healthy enough to play what is expected to be his final few games in an Indiana basketball uniform. The bad news is, there looks to be a slight injury to fellow senior guard Trey Galloway, who missed most of last game with a knee issue.

“I don’t know what his status is right now,” Indiana basketball head coach Mike Woodson said postgame. “He’s being evaluated, so we’ll have a better feel of where he is tomorrow.”

While there has not be an official word on the status of Galloway, it is assumed he will remain a game-time decision. During his senior speech, Galloway hinted at being fine for the Big Ten Tournament.

If both are healthy, Indiana basketball will have their senior backcourt available for only the 11th time this season. That is huge in itself, but you also need to hope you are getting a more controlled senior backcourt that is not going to make silly mistakes that we see way to often, especially from Xavier Johnson and his fast style.

Trey Galloway has done a fantastic job of stepping up and doing so much that is asked of him. Having to be the senior leader while trying to rely on freshman guard Gabe Cupps to step up can be a such a difficult task.

“He’s grown and he’s helped us a lot this year in so many ways because we haven’t had Xavier Johnson, the other senior,” Mike Woodson said.

The play of the senior backcourt of Trey Galloway, Xavier Johnson, and even Anthony Leal is going to be crucial for this team to put together a big run in the Big Ten Tournament. These guys have to play like seniors and lead the young group to the best of their ability.

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