Could this be a turning point for IU? Amid piling injuries, Hoosiers dig deep, find a way.

BLOOMINGTON – Anthony Leal, Indiana’s man of the moment Tuesday night, raised his voice in one of the Hoosiers’ final huddles late in what turned into a 74-68 win against Iowa.

“We were just here,” he told his teammates, referring to having Illinois tied inside the final 90 seconds Saturday in Champaign.

Not here physically, of course. IU (13-8, 5-5) had traded the hostility of the State Farm Center for the friendly confines of what was by this point a raucous Assembly Hall. Home wins have been far easier for this young group of Hoosiers than anything else, which tells its own story.

But so too does the toughness — individual and collective — of a team on a three-game losing streak, watching two important players leave for the locker room with potentially serious injuries, struggling to hit free throws while Payton Sandfort fired daggers … and fighting its way past all that.

Indiana had plenty of reasons to pack in Tuesday night and turned them all down. The Hoosiers faced their share of hurdles and challenges and shied from none of them. After an ugly January, a coach calling out leadership, a team struggling for meaningful results and a relentless injury list, Tuesday acted at least as a backstop.

If it turns out to be more than that, the Hoosiers might just have time to use February to make March matter.

“We were just here against Illinois,” Leal said, recounting the huddle, “tie game or tie or down two, up two, that sort of situation and we weren't able to figure out how to win.

DOYEL: Anthony Leal's IU dream had already come true. Then came Tuesday night and this was better.

“It's something about this team and how we have a lot of new guys but we're figuring out how to win. And this was a good step in that direction.”

There were winning performances up and down the box score.

The Hoosiers showed their strength, at one point building a 17-point first-half lead against a defensively hapless Iowa team. And they showed their weakness, letting the high-octane Hawkeyes (12-9, 4-6) claw it all back and even lead for bursts in the last eight minutes.

“This was a game that could have gone either way, but we made defensive stops,” IU coach Mike Woodson said. “I thought the shot that we gave up with two seconds or so on the clock was huge for them. But we responded back when Gabe (Cupps) hit the 3, and we never looked back from that point on, which was kind of nice.”

Woodson referred to Sandfort’s buzzer-beating corner jumper, which came from a cross-court inbounds pass thrown with fewer than three seconds left on the shot clock.

That shot, with Cupps’ hand in Sandfort’s face, came one possession after Xavier Johnson had to be helped from the floor holding his left arm so as to immobilize it, following a hard fall from a Ladji Dembele foul.

Johnson walked off with 2:12 left, roughly the same amount of time remaining in the second half as had ticked off in the first, when Malik Reneau collided with Iowa’s Ben Krikke and went to the floor in pain.

IU only Tuesday restored Kel’el Ware to the starting lineup after a two-game, two-week injury absence. The Hoosiers didn’t get three minutes into the game before watching his frontcourt mate — the Hoosiers’ leading scorer — limp off the floor and eventually head for the locker room on crutches, in obvious pain.

“You've got to move on,” Woodson said. “I don't like seeing any player hurt, especially my own players. But the game is still going on. And you've got to get these guys refocused and deal with what they're facing, what's in front of them.”

Woodson added he had no meaningful update immediately postgame Tuesday on Reneau or Johnson.

What he did have was a locker room full of players who stood up to be counted when the moment got tough.

Despite apparently suffering a minor injury to his previously uninjured leg, Ware gritted his way through a 23-point, 10-rebound performance that set the course for Indiana’s win.

Ware came to Bloomington from Oregon shouldering suggestions he was not tough enough, did not work hard enough and therefore could not maximize his obvious talent. After, as Woodson put it, “a lot of coach Woodson screaming from the very beginning,” IU began to pull more of that potential out of the 7-2 sophomore from Arkansas.

On Tuesday night, the Hoosiers saw something more — a player driven by toughness, emotion and a stubborn refusal to lose a game his team simply could not afford to.

“The last couple of games, whenever he was out, it really took a toll on him, mentally, emotionally,” Leal said. “Obviously physically he was out. But he loves us as teammates, and he wants to win more than anything, so it was good to see him show some emotion and fight through some nicks and bruises and whatnot. Especially with Malik going down, he stepped up big time for us.”

No one would have been better place to talk about stepping up than the senior from Bloomington South.

Leal arrived at Indiana a Mr. Basketball, his high school’s all-time leading scorer and only robbed by COVID of a chance to cap his prep career with an undefeated state-championship season. He’s spent the years since riding a coaching change and waiting for minutes. They’ve gone up recently, but still, before Tuesday night, he’d scored just 14 points all year.

He finished the Iowa win with 13, plus seven rebounds. His three 3-pointers were as clutch as his late free throws, and as crucial as his defense on Iowa guard Tony Perkins.

Perkins starred on the Lawrence North team expected to challenge South for that 2020 4A state title. He came alive in the second half Tuesday, and finished with 22 points, four rebounds and three assists. On critical late possessions, though, Bloomington South locked up Lawrence North, and Indiana shut down Iowa’s furious rally, that player who’d waited so patiently for his chance to make this kind of impact seizing the opportunity when it came.

“Where I come from in the NBA, you call that a true pro,” Woodson said. “Anthony is the ultimate teammate, man, in terms of just hanging in there with me. And I've coached him and he's come to practice every day and has done what's asked of him and never complained, not once.

“He's been a true, true teammate. And guys like that, it's easy to coach. It's easy to throw them in the game and feel good about it because you know what you're going to get based on how he performs in practice. And he's earned the right to play, and that's why I'm playing him.”

On a night when Woodson needed them, he got winning moments and performances across his shrinking bench. Trey Galloway’s free throws. Cupps’ 3 just after Sandfort’s corner 3. Leal. Ware.

In the moments when this team looked like fading as recently as Saturday, it stood tall and soldiered through.

There’s precious little margin for error left in this season. At this point, the Hoosiers just need to stack some wins, build momentum and see where they land around Valentine’s Day.

And they might have to (keep) do(ing) it shorthanded, depending upon the outcome of Tuesday night’s rest and Wednesday morning’s tests. Beating Iowa didn’t solve all this team’s problems by itself. It only provided enough evidence to believe that while they’re young and flawed and limited in ways that might eventually undo them, the Hoosiers aren’t ready to quit on this season.

Their adversity might actually pull them closer together.

Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana basketball overcomes injuries to Ware, Johnson, beats Iowa