[Postgame 3-2-1] What We Learned From Indiana's Win at Michigan

We break down three key stats, two observations, and one lingering question from Indiana's win at Michigan on Tuesday night.

Good Morning Hoosier fans!

Hope you got a good night’s rest after that whirlwind of a finish in Ann Arbor late last night.

Indiana picked up their second conference win of the season in their first true road game against the Michigan Wolverines last night. The Hoosiers are now 2-0 in conference play for the first time since 2018.

This game was everything a 9:00 p.m. tip on Peacock should have been. There were 27 combined turnovers, a plethora of missed opportunities, and a few hectic sequences of bad basketball.

Indiana played a relatively bad first half, yet found themselves only trailing by two at the break. Kel’el Ware once again carried the freight for the Hoosiers throughout the first half despite only playing eight minutes due to foul trouble. He tallied nine points on 4-6 shooting from the floor.

The Hoosiers shot 14-28 from the field in the opening frame, but they had 10 turnovers in those 20 minutes. That is concerning, though it’s not surprising given that it was Indiana’s first true road test of the young season and Xavier Johnson was once again unavailable.

The first ten minutes of the second half looked like the Louisville game was happening all over again. Indiana was sluggish with bad possessions on both ends of the ball. They were deservedly down by five points with less than 10 minutes to go.

Then Mike Woodson called a timeout with 9:31 left in the half — and suddenly Indiana was a completely different team. The intensity picked up on defense and the ball movement was better, leading to easy buckets.

Indiana fans say this a lot, but it’s true: this is a game that Hoosier squads of the past would probably have lost. Yet these Hoosiers found a way to earn a 78-75 victory in the Crisler Center.

Here are three key stats, two observations, and one lingering question from Indiana’s win at Michigan.

Did you miss yesterday's edition of the postgame show?

3 Meaningful Stats

1. Indiana only had three second half turnovers.

Indiana had 10 first-half turnovers. Some of these turnovers were due to lazy passes and poor handling. Others were the result of a lack of movement off the ball from the Indiana guards. There was no cutting away after making a post-entry pass, which allowed their defenders to double down.

There were also live ball turnovers that allowed the Wolverines to get out on the break and score eight points. That cannot happen, especially on the road. Those are momentum-turning plays that can get a crowd (we’ll get to that later) going.

In the second half, it was MUCH different.

The off-ball movement looked much cleaner, which helped Indiana find more easy twos for Reneau and Ware. The Hoosiers ended with just a bakers dozen turnovers.

One thing that is clear after eight games is that Indiana will not beat teams from beyond the arc. Mike Woodson wants to win games inside the paint, and off-ball cutting from the guards will help Indiana lower their turnover number and get easy buckets in the lane — plus potentially the opportunity to hit open threes.

Three turnovers in a half from a team in their first road game of the season is really good, but it cannot be proceeded by ten turnovers in the future. Teams better than Michigan will be able to build a bigger halftime lead.

2. CJ Gunn doubled his career three-point total tonight

How do you do, CJ Gunn!

Gunn came into last night’s game with just two career three pointers made — both last season. It’s now four thanks to an eight-point outing that included two huge threes, one in each half.

This is the type of game Indiana fans have been dying to see from the sophomore. He has struggled in his two seasons to do what he was brought into to do: hit threes.

Indiana’s CJ Gunn (11) celebrates a three that he made in the second half. (KAL GRAYBILL / The Hoosier Network)

Tonight was the breakout performance for Gunn. He was incredibly confident from the minute he stepped out on the floor midway through the first half.

Gunn missed his first shot of the night, a midrange jumper that clanged badly off the rim. But he looked like he was feeling himself during the warmups before the game.

Here was Gunn’s response to a question about shooting after the game:

“You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don’t take.”

Whether you think that comes from Wayne Gretzky, Michael Scott, or both, you know that this is really good for CJ’s confidence as a shooter.

These are also the types of performances that give Mike Woodson confidence that he has three solid options at guard for his squad while Xavier Johnson is out with a left foot injury.

3. Indiana scored on 55.1% of their possessions

This is an incredible stat for a young team playing in their first conference road game of the season.

There were times where Indiana’s offense stalled and went on scoring droughts, but there were a ton of moments when Indiana scored on three straight possessions.

There were a lot of positives that came from last night’s game, but chief among them is that Indiana proved they can score in tougher environments away from Assembly Hall (albeit against a poor defensive team). The three-point numbers are lagging behind, but Mike Woodson has continued to remind us that they are winning games without shooting or scoring at a high volume from beyond the arc.

At the end of the day, Indiana won last night’s game because they made their high percentage looks from two. It’s hard to be mad about three-point shooting when the team is shooting nearly 52% from the field and scoring 1.130 points per possession.

Like Woodson, I will continue to remind folks that the team who wins is the team that scores the most points — not the one who makes the most threes.

Efficiency wins basketball games and that is what we saw last night.