'We learned a lot.' Attacking fear of sharks, deficits, Indiana basketball finds value in Puerto Rico trip

Indianapolis Star

5 hours ago

CAROLINA, Puerto Rico – During the off-court activities Darian DeVries prioritized just as much as the three games his Indiana team played here across the last week, IU's new coach made sure his players were challenged.
They kept a kayak trip early on despite difficult headwind, making players row into it instead. They played beach volleyball, even if, according to DeVries, his team doesn't have very good volleyball players. They even swam in ocean water aware of a risk of sharks.
'A lot of guys were afraid of sharks,' DeVries said. 'They still jumped in the water.'
Indiana made a quick exit from the Coliseo Guillermo Angulo on Monday afternoon, after an 81-80 win against Serbian side Mega Superbet to conclude this week's activities. With a flight to catch after a week away, it was understandable the Hoosiers might be in a hurry to get home.
What will they take with them when they board that flight back to Bloomington? By the time it lands, with arrival scheduled for a little before 7:30 p.m., what will DeVries and his staff have decided they learned about their team across the last seven days?
Preseason tours are curious things in the complexion of a college basketball season. They can mean everything and they can mean nothing, and most of the time they settle somewhere in between.
Perhaps the best Indiana has made of this trip is just what we expected all along. The Hoosiers leave here with a firmer sense of themselves, and the knowledge that while that alone won't win games that count, such understanding is the first step in that direction, even if sometimes the lesson is learned through difficulty.
That there's no way to find out if you're comfortable in that water, until you jump in.
'These last two games, we learned a lot,' DeVries said, referring to a pair of comeback wins against Mega Superbet. 'There's both positives and negatives, which is what these trips are for.'
Monday saw Mega, which had led Saturday's meeting between the two teams by as many as 23 before collapsing in a 93-71 Indiana win, hold firmer against the Hoosiers' advantages in depth and experience.
The Serbian team got Milwaukee Bucks draftee Bogoljub Markovic (15 points, four rebounds) more quickly and meaningfully involved. They adjusted well to Tucker DeVries and Lamar Wilkerson, IU's two most important players.
And for a lot of Monday's matinee, they looked like they would hold onto a well-earned win against a college team you'd imagine Superbet would happily claim as a scalp in their own preseason preparations.
But Indiana showed a different kind of resilience Monday. Where Saturday was all wild shifts in momentum and floods of failure followed by even more success, this game required 40 minutes of focus.
The Hoosiers trailed by as many as 22, and by 20 at halftime. Their comeback required persistence, as well as passion.
'They did a really good job of taking the day in between and preparing, getting themselves ready to make adjustments and prepare for us,' DeVries said. 'I thought the guys did a nice job of making some defensive adjustments, even with some things we hadn't worked on.'
Monday's tally: How each Indiana basketball player factored in another comeback win to cap a 3-0 Puerto Rico trip
Like kayaking into the wind, Indiana had to absorb those adjustments without the benefit of weeks to practice and perfect them. Things like five-way switching, with bigs defending guards and vice versa. Or leaning on different entry points offensively, to try and get Tucker DeVries and Wilkerson — both scoreless in the first half — more involved.
Still, Mega held its ground in ways it never could Saturday. As late as the last two minutes, the Serbian team held a multi-possession lead. Despite scoring just 30 points in the second half to 50 in the first, they looked like winners.
Until the best player on the floor asserted himself, and it turned out that player wore Indiana crimson.
Wilkerson, IU's leading scorer Saturday, finished just 5 of 15 from the floor in Game 2. He didn't dent the scoring column Monday until he reached the free-throw line early in the second half. He was outscored by both opponents and teammates alike.
But when the game was in the balance, no one was better. For all his important made buckets Monday, the final two of Wilkerson's four assists — a deft, driving dump-down to Sam Alexis in the dunker's pocket and a baseline handoff to Reed Bailey for a second two-hand flush that turned out to be the winner — turned the game.
After Indiana's first meeting with Mega, DeVries praised his team for its togetherness, and the collective problem solving that turned a 23-point deficit into a 22-point win. After Monday's comeback victory, he credited his team for a 40-minute brand of resilience that pushed the Hoosiers differently, but pushed them nonetheless.
'We responded,' Wilkerson said, 'the right way.'
'Me being me.' Lamar Wilkerson showed Indiana basketball why he was a high-profile transfer
Of course, Indiana still trailed in these games for reasons as valid as the ones that eventually prompted the Hoosiers' comebacks.
Their offense was stagnant through too much of the first half of both games. A pronounced size disadvantage never really went away. IU struggled to get to grips with the way the game was being officiated (these games were played on FIBA rules), even deep into Monday's win.
Indiana will need to ensure Wilkerson and DeVries cannot be so easily removed from the offense, just as the Hoosiers will need to find secondary scorers to carry that load when they're quiet. Credit Tayton Conerway's 18 first-half points as an example — his team would not even have been afloat at halftime without them.
'As a staff, we've got some great film and some great data to work with,' Darian DeVries said, 'as we begin fall workouts and begin to prepare, ultimately, for our season.'
DeVries brings his team back to the mainland Wednesday night far from the finished article.
Just as the Hoosiers put some of their greatest strengths to good use these past seven days, they saw some of their most basic weaknesses exploited as well. Some are fixable. Some will simply have to be mitigated as best as possible.
This trip was not so much about discovering those strengths and weaknesses. DeVries has been a head coach long enough to recognize them long before any opponent.
The most beneficial part of this weeklong swing through the island for DeVries will be watching his players come to terms with the same, to accept and attack them, to face them down and manage the consequences.
To jump in the water, even through the fear of sharks.
That will be the value of this tour, more than anything else.