Indiana is off to a promising start under first-year coach Darian DeVries. Now comes the hard part.
Over the next three weeks, five of the next seven games for the Hoosiers (11-3, 2-1 Big Ten) are against teams that are currently ranked, while the other two are on the road against conference foes.
While the first test — against Maryland (7-7, 0-3) on Wednesday at College Park — is against a team tied for last place in the conference, it still presents a trap-game challenge as Indiana can’t afford to look ahead to a clash Saturday with No. 10 Nebraska.
DeVries addressed the difficult stretch ahead Sunday night after the Hoosiers’ 90-80 victory over Washington.
“You just focus on that next one and now our focus is on Maryland,” DeVries said. “Every night it’s a rock fight. We know that. We have to be ready for that. I think the guys understand that.”
After a 12-day layoff, the Hoosiers were sharp against the Huskies, who employed a triangle-and-two defense in an attempt to contain Indiana’s top two scorers — Lamar Wilkerson (19.2 points per game) and Tucker DeVries (15.5 ppg).
The strategy opened the floor for Conor Enright (12 points, nine assists) and Tayton Conerway (20 points), who made all four of his 3-point attempts.
Maryland, meanwhile, enters having lost six of its last eight. In a 64-54 defeat Friday at home to Oregon, the Terrapins scored their season low. The last time they started 7-7 was in 1991-92.
The loss of top scorer and rebounder Pharrel Payne has left Maryland with little inside presence. Much uncertainty surrounds Payne’s return as coach Buzz Williams does not reveal the status of injured players.
Against Oregon, Solomon Washington provided 17 points and 12 rebounds, but he didn’t get much help as the Terrapins made just 27.7% of their shots, including 7 of 35 (20%) from 3-point range.
“I thought we shot a lot of green-light shots. We just didn’t make them,” Williams said. “We didn’t shoot the percentage that you need to shoot to win a Big Ten game.”
Maryland’s Myles Rice, a starter last year at Indiana, won’t see many familiar faces. DeVries retained just two players from last year’s team, both walk-ons.
