Author: Dustin Dopirak

Indiana had a breakthrough last week with its double-overtime comeback win over Northwestern, which gave the Hoosiers back-to-back wins for just the fourth time this season, the second time in conference play and the first time since Jan. 4. But the Hoosiers have at no point this season won three games in a row and that didn’t change Saturday in Columbus when they lost to No. 4 Ohio State. Therefore, their relationship to the NCAA Tournament bubble didn’t change much in a week. The Hoosiers are still on the right side of it, but not by much. The Hoosiers were…

Mike Saunders doesn’t remember what exactly it was his son did wrong. Maybe there was a turnover, or a missed free throw or a botched defensive assignment. Maybe a collection of mistakes. Mike Saunders Jr. was, after all, in fourth or fifth grade at the time, so it could have been anything. But the elder Saunders was the coach and the younger the point guard on a high-level grade school AAU team — George Hill Rising Stars. And as tends to happen from time to time when fathers coach their sons, Mike Sr. chewed Mike Jr. out during a timeout…

Archie Miller spoke like he knew it was coming, which makes sense because anyone who has followed this Indiana program this season probably should have. Miller coaches a deeply flawed team. It struggles on both ends at the start of games. It spends significant periods of each game in scoring deserts. If it has an offensive identity, it’s difficult to discern. It is good but not great on the defensive end, with a team full of players with desire and capability to make an impact on that end, but no one for whom the phrase “lock-down defender” would necessarily apply.…

Indiana will head into the 2021 season in a position it hasn’t been in since 1968, the year after the Hoosiers reached their only Rose Bowl and won their last Big Ten title. After finishing 8-5 with a loss in the Gator Bowl in 2019 and 6-2 with a loss in the Outback Bowl in 2020, they will be a preseason top 25 team for sure and likely be at least in the top 15 if not the top 10 of the preseason polls. They bring back most of the top players from a team that went 6-1 in the…

Indiana sophomore center Trayce Jackson-Davis was one of 30 players named to the Naismith Trophy Mid-Season team on Thursday afternoon after earning similar mention for the Wooden Award earlier this month. Jackson-Davis is averaging 19.4 points and 9.4 rebounds per game this season. ranking fourth in the Big Ten in scoring and third in rebounding. He is fourth in the conference in field goal percentage, making 52 percent of his shots, and he has hit more free throws this season (106) than any other player in the Big Ten. He’s also third in the league in blocks with 1.7 per…

EVANSTON, Ill — Trey Galloway came for Aljami Durham first, wrapping his arms around the Indiana senior guard as he drifted off the floor, having expended every bit of energy he had trying to win a game Indiana couldn’t afford to lose. Sophomore big man Trayce Jackson-Davis followed, hugging him around the shoulders from behind and using Durham’s 185-pound body to carry himself off the floor after the 245-pound Jackson-Davis had played the last few minutes with a banged-up knee. Even with Jackson-Davis on his back, every other Hoosier got to Durham, just to find a way to show their…

By Dustin Dopirak — Among the people who was most surprised that Tom Allen was able to lure Deland McCullough from a Super Bowl coaching staff back to Indiana was Tom Allen himself. Mostly because he didn’t actually have to do any luring. Not long after it became public in mid-January that former Indiana running backs coach Mike Hart had taken the same job at his alma mater, Michigan, McCullough sent Allen a text message wanting to know if it was still open and letting him know he was interested if it was. “That was a text that I wasn’t…

By Dustin Dopirak — Indiana’s four freshmen missed nine of the 16 shots and eight of the 12 3-point shots they took in Sunday’s win over Iowa. They committed four turnovers and made plenty of mistakes on the defensive end. But they didn’t let any of those mistakes knock them off course, which was why Indiana coach Archie Miller gave double-figure minutes to each of them in the Hoosiers’ 67-65 win over the then No. 8 Hawkeyes and why he believes Indiana gets better as a team as their roles expand. “That’s the beauty of the young guys coming in,”…

By Dustin Dopirak — Indiana started to fall out of the fields of NCAA Tournament bracket experts at the end of last week following the Hoosiers’ disappointing overtime loss at home to Illinois, but their win over Iowa appears to have put them safely back in the field for the moment. The Hoosiers didn’t move much in the NET rankings and are still No. 48, but they now have three Quad 1 wins with two of them coming against Iowa and the other being a home win against No. 28 Penn State in late December. The wins over the Hawkeyes…

UPDATE:  Indiana confirmed earlier reports that Deland McCullough would be their next associate head coach and running backs coach in a release on Monday afternoon.  McCullough commented on his return to Bloomington. “The opportunity to return to IU in this role is very special to me and my family for a host of reasons,” McCullough said in the release. “Coach Allen has done an amazing job of galvanizing and advancing the program’s culture, which has been displayed by success on the field. I welcome the challenges and glory of being a part of helping Indiana Football win championships. I have…