It was an all around team effort last night for the Hoosiers to get the win at the Barn in Minneapolis, and the stat lines prove it.
Trey Galloway did what he does best for the Hoosiers– share the ball. He tallied up another 11 assists last night, adding to Indiana’s grand total of 28 assists. Off of those 28 assists, were 30 made shots, arguably one of the best stat lines Indiana has seen all season.
“Guys are committing themselves. We’re playing now like we should’ve been playing,” said Coach Woodson. “We’re playing faster. And guys are making shots behind the offense, and that helps. You go out on the road and you play defense like we played the last couple of games on the road, you give yourself a chance to win. And that’s what we’ve done.”
Kel’el Ware’s performance last night also helped. From the moment he hit the turnaround jumper in the first couple minutes of the game, he was unstoppable from there. He dropped 26 points, 11 rebounds, and Minnesota had no answer for him inside.
The two time Big 10 freshman of the week Mackenzie Mgbako hit 3 of 4 from behind the arc, and added another 15 points for the Hoosiers.
Indiana locked down defensively against the Gophers, holding them to just 38.6% from the field and 19.2% from behind the arc. Minnesota, a team that averages 79 points per game, could not get anything going, and Indiana’s consistent defense last night held them to only 58 points. Indiana also had 12 steals, 5 of them coming from Trey Galloway.
While most Indiana fans are looking to see what type of run this team can go on in the Big Ten tournament, Indiana still has to close out the regular season on Sunday against Michigan State.
“That’s all our focus right now,” said senior Trey Galloway. “We beat Minnesota and now we're onto Michigan State. We gotta focus on that and the rest will take care of itself. We can’t look too far ahead because we gotta take care of business one game at a time.”
One game at a time, so who knows what could happen? But for the way this team has played the past three games, it seems like giving up is no option.
