By Craig Smith
BLOOMINGTON — It's a small step, but a necessary one.
Indiana cruised past Howard 83-60 on Friday at Assembly Hall to kickoff the regular season.
Howard never seriously threatened the Hoosiers, who never trailed and pushed the lead as high as 31 points in the second half. Beating an inferior opponent — Howard is coming off an 8-23 season and lost its two leading scorers — hardly seems notable. But coming off a 6-25 campaign where the Hoosiers (1-0) often played the role of the inferior opponent, almost any kind of improvement needs to be noted.
Indiana pushed the ball up the floor and scored 23 fast break points. “They came in with the mindset that they wanted to limit possessions and we didn’t want to do that,” Indiana coach Tom Crean said. “We had enough fresh bodies that were active that it was a matter of time that we would be getting things done.”
Three freshmen — Maurice Creek (17), Derek Elston (14) and Christian Watford (14) — combined for 45 of Indiana’s 83 points. Watford showed why he was considered a four-star recruit coming out of high school. The Birmingham, Ala. native had 11 rebounds and was one of the most active defenders.
“We need him to be a force on the glass and be an inside-outside scorer. We need to get him isolated in the game because he is a good foul shooter,” Crean said.
After going five minutes without scoring, the Hoosiers broke the game open by outscoring the Bison 25-9 over the last eight minutes of the first half. Creek, Elston and Watford combined for 19 of those points, including two consecutive 3s for Creek.
“We’ve never been treated as freshmen here,” Watford said. “If we want to win, we can’t be treated just as freshmen.” Elston said that from the first day in practice, Crean told the players that they were
freshmen, but he wouldn’t treat them that way.
“We need to keep the fact that they are freshman in perspective, but we cannot treat them like that,” Crean said.
The Hoosiers had eight players with double digits in minutes and no player had more than 26 minutes. Crean said he wants the players to focus on “the quality of minutes and not the quantity,” and that he will keep putting players in so they know that if they aren’t playing well, he’ll put someone in who will. Tom Pritchard added 10 points and Jordan Hulls led all players with five assists.
Even in an easy victory, there was some cause for concern. Howard’s tallest starter is 6-foot-9, yet Indiana only out-rebounded the Bison 36-34. The Hoosiers only shot 13 free-throws as opposed to 30 for Howard.
“I thought we really, really shared the ball well tonight,” Crean said. “Twenty assists is a good benchmark that the offense is moving well and is crisp. We still want to be a hard driving team that wants to get to the rim and we did not do a good job of that. “We still have a lot to improve on. We hope this is the start to a productive and improvement-filled season.”
HOWARD (0-1) — Phillips 2-5 4-6 8, Kirkpatrick 1-3 2-5 4, White 3-7 2-2 10, Thompson 5-9 3-4 13, Riley 3-10 1-3 8, Mukole 0-3 1-2 1, Dickerson 2-5 0-0 5, Walker 2-4 3-4 7, Braimbridge 0-1 0-0 0, Johnson 0-3 2-4 2, Collins 0-1 0-0 0, Lawrence 1-2 0-0 2. Totals 19-53 18-30 60.
INDIANA (1-0) — Watford 4-6 5-5 14, Pritchard 5-6 0-0 10, Creek 7-11 1-2 17, Rivers 2-8 2-2 6, Jones III 4-12 0-0 9, Barnett 0-0 0-0 0, Hulls 1-2 0-0 2, Finkelmeier 0-0 0-0 0, Moore 0-0 0-0 0, Muniru 1-1 0-2 2, Capobianco 0-2 0-0 0, Gambles 0-0 0-0 0, Roth 1-1 0-0 2, Elston 6-7 0-0 14, Dumes 3-5 0-2 7, Jobe 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 34-61 8-13 83.
Halftime—Indiana 40-23. 3-Point Goals—Howard 4-22 (White 2-6, Dickerson 1-2, Riley 1-7, Collins 0-1, Thompson 0-1, Mukole 0-1, Braimbridge 0-1, Lawrence 0-1, Johnson 0-2), Indiana 7-14 (Elston 2-2, Creek 2-4, Watford 1-1, Dumes 1-3, Jones III 1-3, Capobianco 0-1). Fouled Out—Riley. Rebounds—Howard 34 (Phillips 9), Indiana 36 (Watford 11). Assists—Howard 8 (Thompson 2), Indiana 20 (Hulls 5). Total Fouls—Howard 16, Indiana 22. A—17,383. . A—17,383.
