Now-football school Indiana tries to tackle Washington
With their top-ranked football program having reached the College Football Playoff semifinals, folks in Bloomington, Ind., might have forgotten about the Hoosiers' basketball team.
Especially since the hardwood Hoosiers have had a nearly two-week break between games.
That ends Sunday, when Indiana (10-3, 1-1 Big Ten) resumes conference play by hosting Washington (9-4, 1-1) at Assembly Hall.
"I think as a coaching staff and as a team, we've learned a lot," first-year Hoosiers coach Darian DeVries said in assessing the season thus far. "We felt like there's an opportunity or two that we let get away, but hopefully it was something that we understand why and it's things that are within our control, and we can correct it."
Lamar Wilkerson, a transfer from Sam Houston State, leads Indiana with 19.0 points per game and is shooting 42.9% from 3-point range. He scored 44 points against Penn State, making a school-record 10 treys, in a 113-72 victory. That came after the Hoosiers dropped their conference opener at Minnesota.
Tucker DeVries, who has followed his father from Drake and West Virginia in the previous two seasons, is averaging 16.2 points and 5.4 rebounds for the Hoosiers.
Washington is led by freshman forward Hannes Steinbach, considered a potential NBA first-round pick. Steinbach, who has been dealing with an ankle injury, averages 18.1 points, 12.0 rebounds and shoots 46.2% from distance.
The Huskies' second-leading scorer, Wesley Yates III, is out indefinitely after undergoing surgery on a broken wrist.
The Huskies have won three of four games since splitting their first two conference games with UCLA and Southern California.
"I'm really happy we're 9-4," Washington coach Danny Sprinkle said. "Yeah, I'd love to be 11-2, 13-0 or whatever it is. But if you look at the games that we lost, we had a chance to win every single one of those games in the last two minutes.
"It's going to be fun to see this team because it's going to get harder. You look at the schedule and it's just like last year. It's brutal. You can still play really good basketball and not win."