With just under 13 minutes remaining Thursday, Trey Galloway drove down the lane with his eyes focused on the basket, gathered the ball to put up a floater from inside the paint, and pushed it to the left of the rim at the last second where a flying Kel’el Ware came in for the slam. It was their third alley-oop connection of the second half and gave the Hoosiers a 19-point lead.
Galloway finished with a career-high nine assists along with eight points and three rebounds as Indiana went on to defeat the North Alabama Lions 83-66 Thursday night in Assembly Hall. Galloway’s nine contributed to a season-high 25 assists for the Hoosiers — only six of their 31 made field goals went unassisted.
“You just got to stick the ball in the hole when you have the shots,” head coach Mike Woodson said. “I thought tonight, guys were comfortable — when they had the shot they took it and they made it.”
Indiana shot 31-for-58 (53%) from the field including 12-for-24 from beyond the arc. The last time the Hoosiers hit 12 or more 3s in a game was also against North Alabama, hitting 13 in a 87-52 victory in 2020. Five-star sophomore Malik Reneau went 4-for-4 from 3 en route to a career-high 25 points on 10-for-14 shooting and hauled in seven rebounds and two assists.
“I’ve been working out with (Director of Player Development Calbert) Cheaney a lot,” Reneau said. “Just understanding how he played the game, how he was able to work around the court, and be able to get his shot up wherever he wanted. Just getting reps up — being confident when you go out there, not being scared to shoot the ball.”
Reneau believes the double-teams from North Alabama allowed the Hoosiers to do a great job of setting harder screens and opening up more options from the post.
“We made the adjustment to either cut down to the short 3, the corner 3 or just to cut through the nail to make the layup,” Reneau said.
Indiana’s bench put together 25 points with Anthony Walker scoring 11 on 3-for-6 shooting. Coming off his best career game since joining the Hoosiers, Walker also contributed three rebounds and three assists. Woodson explained that the second-unit must stay ready to “play and produce” even without getting “big-time minutes.”
“We got to do some extra work with that group, which we have been doing,” Woodson said. “But we got to continue that because you never know. Somebody goes down, you’re going to have to depend on them for a stretch of minutes that can help you win a basketball game.”
Woodson went on to say they will continue working and he was pleased with the production he saw from his bench.
Indiana had its worst performance of the season Tuesday night against Morehead State and needed a confidence-boosting win heading into the final game of the calendar year. They never trailed for one second against North Alabama.
“Tonight I thought we came out ready,” Woodson said. “We consistently played well throughout the course of the game. The result was a win.”
This win brings Indiana to 9-3 on the season and they will have one week to prepare before tipping off with Kennesaw St., their final non-conference opponent of the year, at home next Friday.
