Indiana basketball's late surge prevents Morehead State from stunning upset in Bloomington

BLOOMINGTON — Indiana basketball came roaring back to life down the stretch on Tuesday night against a Morehead State team that looked primed to pull off an upset.

The Eagles led by as many 15 points in the second half until a late run helped IU claw its way back into the game and look more like the team that nearly upended No. 2 Kansas on the floor less than 72 hours earlier.

It was Trey Galloway, who missed the key 3-point shot in the loss to the Jayhawks, that buried a 3-pointer with 3:14 left to give his team its first lead since the game’s early minutes.

Indiana went on to win 69-68 after Morehead State's Jordan Lathon had a potential game-winning shot blocked by Malik Reneau.

Forward Anthony Walker also made some key plays down the stretch. He hit a pair of free throws when the game was tied 66-66 and dropped in a lay up high off the glass to cut the lead to one before Galloway’s 3-pointer. He finished the game with a career-high 18 points (7 off 11) and nine rebounds.

Indiana's defensive effort down the stretch was just important.

Lathon torched the Hoosiers for much of the game and looked like he delivered a knockout blow when he had a four-point play with 9:29 to go. He hit a 3-pointer while falling backwards from the top of the key despite the contact from Reneau.

It was his sixth 3-pointer of the night to tie his career-high.

When Indiana made a run coming out of halftime, it was Lathon who drained back-to-back 3-pointers to push his team’s lead back to double-digits.

After knocking down the second one over Galloway’s outstretched arm, he shook his head at the Assembly Hall crowd while bouncing his way back down the floor. Lathon finished just shy of his career-high with 30 points, but he didn’t have a field goal in the game’s final nine minutes and struggled to even get his hands on the ball.

Indiana opened up a 17-0 run while holding Morehead State without any points for nearly seven minutes. It was a far different picture than the one at the end of the half when the Hoosiers got booed of the court for their lethargic start.

They opened the game 0 for 4 with a couple of forced shots from Mackenzie Mgbako. Woodson pulled Mgbako from the floor with 14:42 left in the half after the freshman missed the rim for a second time.

Indiana’s bench provided some scoring punch to briefly get the team back on track — Walker hit his first four shots in just three minutes on the court and Kaleb Banks had an athletic put back — but the scoring burst was short lived.

The Hoosiers went five-plus minutes without a field goal at one point.

Morehead State managed to take a 36-25 lead into the half on the back of its 3-point shooting. The Eagles didn’t shoot it particularly well (28%), but they made up for that by sheer volume of attempts (18) including one that was just inside the half court circle. They outscored Indiana 15-0 in the first half with the Hoosiers missing all six of their attempts.

Coming into the game, Morehead State was averaging 9.2 made 3-pointers per game on 37% shooting.

The half came to a fitting end when Ricks stole the ball from Trey Galloway and threw down a thunderous dunk after running the length of the court. Morehead State’s bench went nuts as the buzzer rang out.

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: Recap: Indiana basketball holds off Morehead State in 69-68 win