Upsets, comebacks highlight a wild men's basketball Saturday in Indiana – NCAA.com

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The No. 1 team in the nation lost. Only an hour down the road, No. 2 in the nation won. Larry Bird’s old school, yearning for national attention, also made noise across the same landscape, led partly by a kid in goggles.
Come along for a uniquely busy Saturday in Indiana, with ramifications for the very top of college basketball.
12:30 p.m. No. 2 Kansas 75, Indiana 71.
The afternoon begins with seating choreography in Bloomington. The Indiana fans are encouraged to either wear red or white, depending upon their section, to simulate the image of the candy cane warmup bottoms the Hoosiers have worn for ages. All this to host the Kansas Jayhawks, who have not played in Bloomington since 1994 and only once in the past half-century. These two met twice for the national championship, but we’re talking 70 and 83 years ago. Indiana won both those times, by the way.
Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall is a treacherous place for visitors, and this is Kansas’ first true road game of the season. Maybe that explains why the best-shooting college team in America clanks away at a 31.7 field goal percentage through the first 25 minutes and trails Indiana by 13 points.
But then the Jayhawks turn into Kansas. “Championship DNA,” Indiana guard Trey Galloway later calls it.
The Jayhawks hit 13 of their last 20 shots and all four free throws in the final 16 seconds to finally put away the Hoosiers. It has taken a full effort against an Indiana team that refuses to blink. Neither team makes a turnover in the final seven minutes. Both benches contribute only nine of the 146 points. This is the starting lineup against the starting lineup.
About Kansas. These veteran Jayhawks once again showed they understand how to win. Indiana goes on their victims’ wall for the season along with Kentucky, Tennessee and Connecticut. They have now come from 14 back to beat Kentucky and 13 down to defeat Indiana, their ninth victory in a row over a Big Ten opponent. The day hardens Kansas for the conference fight ahead. “Knowing what’s coming in the Big 12,” Kevin McCullar Jr. says after 21 points, “games like this, you’re going to need them.”
The moment feels good enough for coach Bill Self to inspire a full fist pump before he leaves the floor. “It was a hell of win,” he says later. “This place reminds me of KU, history tradition, people expect it. That’s two true bluebloods out there playing. I think you can kind of sense it’s different here than most places.”
“That’s one of the best wins we’ve had since I’ve been here.”#RockChalk pic.twitter.com/5uMdW2Lid7
About Indiana. The Hoosiers team, pummeled by Auburn by 28 points a week earlier, answered their coach’s challenge about how it would respond after such a whipping. “I didn’t know what way we would go,” Mike Woodson says. Galloway starts the day averaging nine points a game but his 28 carry the fight to Kansas. He played his high school ball at Indiana’s Culver Academies, where George Steinbrenner was an alum.
The afternoon is full of boos, as the Indiana crowd treats Hunter Dickinson with as much venom as a Kansas Jayhawk as it did when he was a Michigan Wolverine. That doesn’t stop him from going for 17 points and 14 rebounds. “I could probably save a baby out here,” he says afterward, “and they’d still boo me the next day. They’re never going to like me here.”
1:45 p.m. Indiana State 83, Ball State 72
Trivia question. As Saturday dawns, who is higher in the NCAA’s NET rankings: Kansas, Duke, Kentucky, North Carolina . . . or Indiana State? Yep, the 9-1 Sycamores, clocking it at No. 14. They have been a handful on offense – third in the nation in field goal percentage, fifth in 3-point shooting and 10th in scoring. No one has held Indiana State under 75 points yet, as third-year coach Josh Schertz’s rollicking offensive style of spreading the floor and having shots taken from everywhere and anyone has thrived.
What’s that NET rating mean? “It just means I wish it were an 11-game season,” Schertz jokes. He understands the Sycamores have so much more to prove.
Ryan Conwell scores 27 points for Indiana State in returning to his hometown of Indianapolis. But when Ball State edges closer in the late minutes, the dagger comes on a 3-pointer from Robbie Avila. Such is the Sycamores’ offensive thinking, that the 6-10 center can feel free to roam outside and fire away, even at such a critical stage.
The message is clear. Beware the goggles.
SEND ‘EM BACK TO MUNCIE.#MarchOn | #Kaizen pic.twitter.com/wCeLnGlTmc
Avila has been wearing the things since fourth grade, mostly because his mother insisted after he kept breaking his regular glasses. He comes into the day shooting 56.6 percent with a 16.6 average and has become something of a folk hero in Terre Haute. Indiana State had a promotion last season for the Illinois State game where the first 2,500 fans were given goggles. They went faster than $2 gas. His teammates even warmed up in them.
“I’m looking left and right and I’m looking at a bunch of mes,” he says of that moment. “It weirded me out a little bit.”
Avila does not exactly match anyone’s vision of a college star, except maybe the star of the science club. But that’s the point with the goggles. “I’m able to use my platform to show people no matter what you’re wearing or what you look like, you can still play,” he says. “When I was in high school I was thinking about changing to contacts. My brother was like, you can’t do that. You’re Robbie. Without that, you’re not Robbie.’”
He’s Robbie, all right, and the Sycamores are rolling. The 10-1 start is the program’s best since 1977 when it was led by a sophomore named Larry Bird. “We’re definitely starting to get a little bit of our respect,” Avila says. “But we’re from the Missouri Valley, we’re not going to get all the attention, which we’re OK with. We’ll just do it game by game, do our thing.”
One of those games will certainly wake up a special echo; Indiana State visits Michigan State on Dec. 30. The last time they played was nearly 45 years ago for the national championship. Magic Johnson vs. Larry Bird.
4:30 p.m. No. 3 Purdue 92, No. 1 Arizona 84
A brief history lesson as the two teams approach each other for the tip Saturday in Indianapolis’ Gainbridge Fieldhouse. The Boilermakers are 2-19 all-time against top-ranked opponents, and their last win was 23 years ago. Against Arizona. In this same building.
That omen is as conspicuous as Zach Edey in an elevator, and Purdue makes it come true by torching the Wildcats with 54 percent shooting. Arizona’s defense keeps Edey’s numbers relatively sane — he scores 22 points with nine rebounds — but it is the Boilermaker sophomore guards who swing the day, with Fletcher Loyer and Braden Smith combining for 53 points and 9-for-16 from the 3-point arc.
This could be such an important sign of growth for Purdue. If the guards outside can consistently make defenses pay for devoting so many bodies and so much energy trying to slow down Edey inside, the offense will be very hard to stop.
🔥🔥🔥🔥 @FletcherLoyer is how we’re feeling. pic.twitter.com/CgDULjlxG6
“Just throw him the ball, just make your life easy,” coach Matt Painter says of his directions to his players about the 7-4 Edey. “You think you can prepare for him until you get with him, he just takes up so much damn space. And now it gives those guys space and it’s what both these guys need. They need space and once they do get space now they can manipulate the defense.”
Loyer and Smith have sometimes taken grumbling from the public sector for too many mistakes and not enough helping Edey. But Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd has been an admirer, and even more so now. “What they do well,” he says, “is win.”
Loyer says the competitive urge to atone runs through the entire team, put there by infamy. The catastrophic loss to No. 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson in the NCAA Tournament last March is never far from Purdue minds. “It’s something you don’t want to feel again, it’s something you had to sit with all summer,” Loyer says.
Smith mentions an exchange between the two fiery guards in the recent win over Alabama. “I kind of yelled at (Loyer), but he just looked at me and said, `I understand why you’re like that because you want to win.’ And he’s the same way,”
The probable imminent eviction from the top spot in the polls doesn’t seem to unduly bother Lloyd. “I’m not trying to be the No. 1 ranked team in December,” he says. The experience itself is what matters. Purdue in Indianapolis? Arizona won’t get many harder assignments this season. “I don’t know what’s going to happen in the tournament with Purdue this year, I don’t know what’s going to happen in the tournament with Arizona this year. But I think both programs have taken steps in the right direction to give themselves the best chance to be successful.”
It has been a stirring day for the Big Ten. Purdue over No. 1 Arizona, Michigan State big over No. 6 Baylor, Ohio State over UCLA, Michigan coach Juwan Howard back from heart surgery. Showdown Saturday in Indiana ends with only Houston, James Madison, Oklahoma and Ole Miss still unbeaten. And goggles never more popular in Terre Haute.
Mike Lopresti is a member of the US Basketball Writers Hall of Fame, Ball State journalism Hall of Fame and Indiana Sportswriters and Sportscasters Hall of Fame. He has covered college basketball for 43 years, including 39 Final Fours. He is so old he covered Bob Knight when he had dark hair and basketball shorts were actually short.
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