Indiana Basketball: Lineup Report | Illinois — Mar 1, 2020

Indiana competed in arguably the most back-and-forth game of the season. On the road in Champaign, the Hoosiers and Fighting Illini traded bucket for bucket all afternoon; however the domination of Illinois’ Kofi Cockburn was too much for the Hoosiers to handle in the second half.

Here are the top lineups for Indiana’s last true road game for the 2019-2020 season.

Notes from the Lineup Report

The lineup that by far got the most playing time for IU on Sunday was the group of Phinisee, Durham, Smith, Thompson, and TJD. In other words, it’s the starting unit, except with Thompson in for Joey Brunk. This group outscored Illinois by 5 points in 8:08. Expect to see more of them in the games to come.
For the first time this season, the Hoosiers started with a different group in the second half than the first half. Specifically, Race Thompson replaced Joey Brunk in the starting lineup for the second half.
If you take that group of five, take out Thompson, and insert Jerome Hunter, you get Indiana’s worst performing lineup from Sunday. The unit of Phinisee, Durham, Hunter, Smith, and TJD was outscored by 7 in 5:03. They have usually been productive for Archie Miller, so perhaps it was a bad matchup with the size and physicality of the Illini inside.
Justin Smith made some impact plays in Sunday’s contest, but IU’s offense slumped with him in the game. The Hoosiers scored 39 points in the 28 minutes (1.4 points per minute) that Smith played, but 27 points in the 12 minutes he was on the bench (2.25 PPM).

Featured Photo: IndianaHQ