The Indiana Hoosiers might be a problem for college basketball this season. Just ask the teams residing in the 414. 

Three days after the Hoosiers laid a beating on Marquette, they turned their sights to its neighbors on the east side and beat the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 101-70, at Assembly Hall on Nov. 12. 

The Panthers managed to hang with the new-look, high-octane Hoosiers most of the first half and even a bit into the final 20 minutes before first-year head coach Darian DeVries’ crew ran their visitors out of the gym and into their next difficult non-conference challenge down the stretch. 

BOX SCORE: Indiana 101, UWM 70

Indiana became the first team to hang 100 points on Milwaukee since Oakland hit that mark on Jan. 4, 2024, doing so with four players scoring in double digits, led by Lamar Wilkerson’s 24. The Hoosiers have now put up 100 points or more in back-to-back games after doing so in a 23-point win over Marquette Nov. 9. They shot 56.7% from the field against the Panthers, who struggled to keep them from clean looks from deep early and in the paint late.

“To come here someone’s going to have to score 90 to have a chance to win,” Panthers head coach Bart Lundy said.

Despite being outmanned, Milwaukee still shot 46.8% from the field with Danilo Jovanovich (18 points) and Seth Hubbard (17 points) leading the charge. 

“A lot of positives to take out of the game,” Lundy sai. “I thought the atmosphere and some of the adversity we handled pretty well. We absorbed the scouting report. We had some chances to make it a much closer game. They’re a really good team. They can really score. They made us pay for every mistake that we made. They hurt us with some things we knew we were going to have to give up.”

Three-point defense lacks in first half

If there was one thing the Panthers couldn’t do against the Hoosiers, it was allowing open looks from three. It turned out to be a far too common sight in the first half. 

Indiana hit 9 of its 14 attempts from deep in the first half, with Wilkerson, a certified marksman who hit 10 threes in the Hoosiers’ first two games, left with space to operate too many times on his way to sinking five. Those looks came in a variety of ways, with being untagged in transition to too much space with the shot clock winding down, but Lundy thought the Panthers otherwise did a good job of following the scouting report against him.

“We were keyed in on him and (Tucker) DeVries,” Lundy said. “Wilkerson got us on a couple of turnovers. Both those guys are NBA shooters.”

While the Panthers buckled down on Indiana’s perimeter attack in the second half – keeping Wilkerson without a triple over the final 20 minutes – their defensive issue became attempting to contain the Hoosiers in the paint. Indiana made 11 of 16 two-point field goals in the period while going to the free throw line 17 times thanks to 12 Milwaukee fouls.

The team defense left something to be desired, but it wasn’t all bad.

Jovanovich showcased some stopper potential on DeVries, who torched Marquette for 27 points and is a potential all-American, in the first half and Tate Mackenzie stepped forward to give the Panthers some rim protection that was absent the first three games of the year. The reserve big man and former Michigan football recruit showcased his athleticism with three blocks in 10 minutes. 

“He and Faizon (Fields) at the rim were phenomenal. Both of them were walls,” Lundy said. “You want to learn from these types of games, and we’re learning that Tate’s really pretty good.”

Indiana is going to give plenty of opponents fits with its scoring prowess in the months to come, but nevertheless the total effort wasn’t one that Lundy walked away from feeling good about – and that’s the third time that has happened through four games. 

Danilo Jovanovich shines

On his way to leading Milwaukee in scoring, Jovanovich put together a sequence on offense that displayed his top-end ability.

The Panthers had been within six points at 31-25 before the Hoosiers rattled off rapid 11-2 run in less than two minutes. With the arena rocking on the heels of an off-the-glass alley-oop to Reed Bailey to put Milwaukee in a 15-point hole, the ball went to Jovanovich at the top of the key. He slowly backed down DeVries and as the shot clock neared zero calmly hit a fadeaway off one leg in slow motion. 

That bucket slowed the roll of the Hoosiers momentarily, sparking a 9-2 run to draw the Panthers within 43-36 with two minutes to go in the first half.

Defensively, Jovanovich was tasked with guarding DeVries and held him to just two points in the first half by presenting him with a physical challenge off the dribble and not allowing his shifty back cuts to work. DeVries hit a pair of threes in the second half to finish with 12 points but was, on the whole, outdueled by Jovanovich.

“I thought D-Lo did an unreal job on DeVries,” Lundy said. “This was D-Lo’s best college game on both sides of the ball, to play like that against an all-American.”