Lamar Wilkerson on Indiana basketball comeback win vs Mega Superbet, leadership
The Hoosiers trailed by 20 at halftime of a trip finale against Serbian club Mega Superbet. Emerging leader Lamar Wilkerson highlighted why that happened.
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Indiana basketball clinches win over Mega Superbet with defensive spot in last minute
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The good, the bad and the future: What Darian DeVries learned about IU in Puerto Rico
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Darian DeVries' Indiana basketball team departed the island Monday a winner in all three games it played here, but not without hardship. Twice, the Hoosiers had to claw back deficits of 20-plus points against Serbian club team Mega Superbet, and twice, they proved capable. DeVries said those games will leave his staff with plenty to chew on, as they shift now from tour-allowed summer practices to preseason planning and preparation. While no one will want to draw dramatic conclusions from the last seven days, the Hoosiers' week in Puerto Rico certainly began sorting out answers to important questions, ahead of DeVries' first season in Bloomington. Here are four things we learned this week, and three that still need resolved. That was the word, 'alphas,' that Lamar Wilkerson used before the Hoosiers left for Puerto Rico. By the time they returned, just who that label applied to was fairly clear. Wilkerson and Tucker DeVries demonstrated both when they played well and when they didn't that they will be the primary engines for this team. Alongside them, Tayton Conerway will be the Hoosiers' chief playmaker, either for himself — as was the case when he scored 18 first-half points in Game 3 — or for others. Monday perhaps illustrated these assessments better than either of IU's first two games. Indiana trailed by 20 points at halftime, in significant part because Wilkerson and DeVries each remained scoreless. Mega afforded them meaningful defensive attention, and IU struggled for other ideas. Conerway's 18 points kept his team afloat, and though he didn't score in the second half, that performance in the first 20 minutes gave Indiana a platform to adjust, get Wilkerson and DeVries involved, and build a comeback in the next 20. Right now, the Hoosiers start with those three, and work forward. There are a few different options here, some tested on the island and some not. Certainly, between them Reed Bailey and Sam Alexis — the two players IU will rotate at the five most often — fit here. Bailey finished 24 points and 20 rebounds across three games, and looked more capable of finding his own offense with his outside-in skillset. Alexis tallied 38 points and 23 boards off the bench, operating as a more traditional big man who fed off post-ups and screen actions, as well as second chances. Both players relied on others (or second chances) to create a lot of their points. As did promising bench players like Jasai Miles and Trent Sisley. Point is, Indiana won with more than just those three at the top of the food chain. But it did not always look prepared to adjust when one or more of them was removed from the game by a defense. The answer to this question could eventually be Nick Dorn or Jason Drake, both of whom missed the tour through injury. But until either proves himself capable, it remains a question mark. Finding new entry points offensively will make Indiana more difficult to defend. Whether it was demonstrated literally — like Conor Enright standing up to the player who shouldered him to the ground despite giving several inches in the confrontation during Game 2 — or by actions and outcomes, IU showed a resilience here this week. Darian DeVries kept returning to that word, resilience, in describing both wins over Mega Superbet. He clearly felt encouraged by the ways his team responded to significant adversity over those two games. 'We learned a lot.' Attacking fear of sharks, deficits, Indiana basketball finds value in Puerto Rico trip Given the tonnage of experience on Indiana's roster, it shouldn't be surprising the Hoosiers showed the capacity to problem solve on the fly and in less-than-ideal circumstances in both games against Mega Superbet. Still, given this roster won't have accomplished virtually anything together, at least not publicly, before this trip, watching his team navigate those difficulties and find success should (and appears to have) encouraged DeVries. It will, as things stand, be this team's biggest weakness defensively. In that way, the actual player-to-player matchup problems Mega posed served IU well. In both games — albeit in different ways — Superbet leveraged clear positional advantages in both size and length. Game 1 saw the Serbian side simply outreach Indiana across the course of a first half that got much worse before it got better. And in Game 2, Mega was more creative, particularly in getting Milwaukee Bucks draft pick Bogoljub Markovic involved and in rhythm. Each in their own way, Alexis, Bailey, Sisley, Tucker DeVries and even Miles helped mitigate the problems posed by that disadvantage. And in defending both Markovic and 6-foot-11 stretch big Lazar Gacic, Indiana also got the experience of managing specific, individual mismatches the Hoosiers might see somewhere else down the road. Still, this will never be either the tallest or the longest roster in the Big Ten. The same matchup issues Indiana saw here it will see again, and the Hoosiers must keep improving in that area. Sisley and Aleksa Ristic leave Puerto Rico at different stages of freshman development, and will probably remain that way for a while. Each offered reasons to believe he can be a long-term pillar for Darian DeVries' program. Sisley continued what has by all accounts been a promising summer from the Santa Claus native. He scored 34 points across three games, including a team-high 21 in the tour-opening win against Universidad de Bayamon, and 10 more in the victory Saturday against Mega. Beyond just his raw output, the way Sisley got his points was encouraging: The 6-8 wing/forward shot 6 of 10 from behind the 3-point line, further reinforcing summer suggestions he can expand his offense beyond the arc in college the way he did in high school. Ristic only joined the Hoosiers in the days leading up to their departure for Puerto Rico, and DeVries admitted Saturday he sometimes had to stop himself mid-play call, remembering Ristic doesn't know all of IU's terminology yet. But Ristic also played three years at a senior level in his native Serbia, and he'll turn 20 next month, old for a true freshman. Like Sisley, Ristic flashed encouraging shooting range in Puerto Rico and, despite his lack of practice time with his new team, he did not look out of his depth when foul trouble forced DeVries to play him for extended stretches of both games against Mega. 'We haven't told him that yet.' New Indiana basketball player Aleksa Ristic learning quickly The pair should soon be joined by Bosnian center Andrej Acimovic, to round out DeVries' first freshman class. But the two young faces he worked into Indiana's rotation in Puerto Rico each left him reasons to be optimistic about their futures from their performances here. As expected, Dorn sat out these three games because of an undisclosed injury, while Drake did not even make the trip because of what DeVries would only describe as a 'lower-body' issue. Dorn could be the kind of multi-level scorer who helps solve that problem of where IU gets offensive impact if others are quiet. He's expected back on the floor some time in the autumn. Drake looks on paper like an important part of the ball-handling rotation, given his usage and assist rates last season at Drexel. It's not clear when he might return. Ristic's age and experience suggest he might be able to handle some of the load running point if Drake's absence is extended. And were Dorn able to crack the starting lineup, it could push a player like Enright to the bench and provide DeVries more lineup balance. Insider: Darian DeVries' offensive shift for IU is obvious and a complete 180 from Mike Woodson's These are problems for fall practice, not a summer tour, but that tour is over now. Thoughts should turn to the preseason, and DeVries will know he needs more depth — scoring depth, defensive depth and, crucially, guard depth — to turn these promising summer months into wins come winter. Indiana enjoyed a good, productive tour of Puerto Rico this week. It could have gone better. It could have gone worse. The Hoosiers got long looks at some of their most fundamental shortcomings, and issues in need of addressing. They also got the invaluable experience, both on and away from the court, of learning how much better they function together, as one unit, than separately. Nothing IU achieved here in Puerto Rico will mean much if it's not built upon. But DeVries will go home with more than just, as he put it, 'some great film and some great data to work with.' He knows now how his new-look roster will react to difficulty and success, how to manage both, and where to build forward from here.
