IU basketball is team of Mike Woodson's dreams for half against Maryland, and it's enough
Another game, another glimmer of hope for the IU basketball team. Let’s say that with an asterisk, because that was Maryland the Hoosiers beat 65-53 Friday night at Assembly Hall, and it’s possible Maryland is so bad it skews everything. It’s possible Maryland will go winless in the Big Ten. Its RPI coming into the game was No. 257, four spots behind something called South Carolina Upstate, and two spots behind Louisville.
Yeah, that bad.
But IU? IU was good. For 19 minutes anyway, and against Maryland, 19 good minutes was more than enough.
For 19 minutes we saw the IU basketball team of coach Mike Woodson’s dreams, a team that played with toughness and pace, passing and hitting shots and defending and rebounding and taking care of the basketball. After 19 minutes the Hoosiers had zero turnovers. They led 39-24. Kel’el Ware was the best player on the court, Malik Reneau was the second-best player, and freshman Mackenzie Mgbako was No. 3.
That’s the IU starting frontcourt.
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IU vs. Maryland player ratings: Trey Galloway steps up, Mackenzie Mgbako shows up
Then the final minute of the first half happened, and the entirety of the second half, and it was a downer. Certainly compared to what had happened earlier, when Assembly Hall was buzzing in the first half as the 7-0 Ware was hitting a 3-pointer in transition and Reneau was hitting a 3-pointer and Mgbako was hitting a 3-pointer.
Again, that’s the IU starting frontcourt.
Then came … well, let’s not talk about the second half, beyond these postgame comments from Woodson, who was stopped on his way to the locker room by LaPhonso Ellis of the Big Ten Network and tossed some softball questions about his team’s win.
God love him, Mike Woodson doesn’t play softball.
He said, “I thought the last seven or eight minutes of this ball game we were awful tonight.”
And he said: “Offensively I’ve got to help them. We were terrible coming down the stretch.”
Let’s get back to happier times, to the first half.
And let’s talk about the IU, um, football coach.
Curt Cignetti was here, and said ... something
Curt Cignetti is going to fit in just fine on this campus.
Someone gave the Assembly Hall microphone to Cignetti — who’d been introduced 4½ hours before tipoff as the Hoosiers’ new football coach — and he maximized the moment. This was during a timeout early in the first half, and after saying he was excited about the opportunity, he got to the meat of his message.
"I’ve never taken a back seat to anybody,” he said, “and don’t plan on starting now.”
Pause.
“Purdue sucks!” he shouted. Assembly Hall erupted. Cignetti wasn’t done. “But so does Michigan and Ohio State! Go IU!"
Yeah, that’s how it went.
Doyel, earlier in the day: New IU football coach Curt Cignetti has swagger for days
On social media, Purdue fans were losing their (stuff). Cignetti had a heck of a first day on the job, starting with his visit with the Big Ten Network at Lucas Oil Stadium earlier in the day. BTN is in town for the 2023 Big Ten title game Saturday. Cignetti, already a master of the mic, left the BTN crew with this nugget:
“I figured I had to make this trip up here, since we’ll be playing in this game next year."
Does it seem like I’m writing an awful lot about the IU football coach, in a story about the IU basketball team’s win against Maryland? Point for you. But Cignetti did appear at Assembly Hall, and he did draw the biggest ovation of the night.
Also, it beats the alternative. Unless you really want to read more about this game.
Mackenzie Mgbako, Kel'el Ware and Malik Reneau? That works
Fine. Let’s start with Xavier Johnson’s absence. The sixth-year IU senior point guard has a lower body injury, so Woodson gave the start to Gabe Cupps. It wasn’t pretty, but it was instructive — because it turns out, Cupps isn’t ready to defend a quality Big Ten guard. Maryland fifth-year senior Jahmir Young, who is 6-2, 185 pounds — not huge — punished Cupps all game and scored a game-high 20 points.
Bright side of this: Woodson was able to see for himself that Cupps isn’t ready. He’ll get there — he’s a freshman — but Woodson was able to see the limitations of giving major minutes to Cupps without having to see it in a loss.
Senior Trey Galloway handled the ball for the bulk of the game and finished with 12 points, six rebounds and six assists. Anthony Leal and CJ Gunn went 0-for-5 from the floor with two assists and two turnovers, but Gunn showed considerable fight on the defensive end with three steals. That included one particularly rude rip-off of Young in traffic, starting a fastbreak where he passed ahead to Galloway for a layup and the Hoosiers' biggest lead, 58-35.
Maryland outscored IU 18-7 the rest of the way, and not because IU emptied its bench.
Woodson has a team without an elite backcourt, but he has a good frontcourt bordering on excellent if Mgbako is coming around. Last time out, Mgbako had season highs of 18 points and eight rebounds in the Hoosiers’ romp against Harvard. He followed that with 13-and-7 on Friday — his second-best totals of the season in both categories — and added three assists, a steal and zero turnovers. The 6-8 Mgbako doesn’t look like an NBA lottery pick (yet?), but at this rate he’s going to give IU a three-man frontcourt that can rival almost any in the Big Ten.
I said almost. Not saying which Big Ten team has a better frontcourt, but Cignetti may have mentioned the school. No, not Michigan. Not Ohio State either.
The backcourt needs Xavier Johnson back, and fast. The schedule ramps up steeply over the next 11 days, with games against Michigan, Auburn and No. 6 Kansas. The Hoosiers are shooting 24.1% on 3’s, which ranks 357th in the country, and there are only 351 teams in Division I. How is that possible? Well, there are 10 teams transitioning from Division II, and one from Division III. Apparently they count in the national stats, so IU isn’t 357 out of 351 — that’s impossible! — but 357th out of 362 in shooting the long ball.
Woodson was asked about that this week, told that teams generally don’t make it into the NCAA tournament if they can’t make 3's.
“Maybe we might be that team that makes the tournament not making 3’s,” he said. “You ever thought about that?”
Hey, it’s what he said. Followed by something about he’s rubber and you’re glue and … OK, I made up that last part.
On Friday, when IU made just three 3-pointers all game — 41 players in Division I average that many per game — Woodson didn’t seem concerned about it. He was happy with his defense, which held Maryland (asterisk, etc.) to 53 points on 35.7% shooting, and he was happy with the new football coach in town, the guy who supplied most of the juice on a night that went dry after halftime.
“I want to send a shoutout to our new coach,” Woodson said of Cignetti in his opening remarks. “Just want to say: Welcome to Bloomington.”
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IU's first half, Curt Cignetti's first words steal show vs. Maryland
