COLUMBUS, Ohio – Down 13 points at halftime, Indiana players walked into the locker room completely demoralized. The Ohio State Buckeyes had started dominating the game and it seemed like they were ready to fold up and go back to Bloomington. I’ll give you one guess at how that second half went.
You guessed wrong.
Indiana dominated the second half of basketball which led to a 76-73 Hoosier victory inside Value City Arena.
“You don’t like being in those positions very often, but the focus was there,” Mike Woodson said in the postgame press conference. “We just, we didn’t quit. We just kept fighting and fighting until we finally made things bounce our way, and the result was a win.”
Senior guard Trey Galloway led the Cream and Crimson out of the locker room with a fire lit inside them. Combined with Galloway’s heart and 19 second-half points, Malik Reneau blew up for 26 points and 14 rebounds. Reneau’s second career double-double was crucial in Indiana’s win Tuesday night, with seven-footer Kel’el Ware dealing with foul trouble for most of the game.
The heart shown by the tandem of Galloway and Reneau showed on the court. Less than 30 seconds into the start of the second half, Reneau was given a technical foul for arguing with the official. What followed was an offensive onslaught that led Indiana back to the win column.
“We set goals throughout the media timeouts,” Reneau said postgame. “‘Alright, we want to cut it down to 10. Alright, let’s cut it down to six. Alright, let’s tie the game now. Alright, let’s give ourselves the chance to win the game now.’”
Much has been expected from both Reneau and Galloway coming into this season. A large void had to be filled with Trayce Jackson-Davis departing and Reneau has been the man looked upon as his replacement. After a full season watching Jackson-Davis and learning from the Indiana legend, Reneau has made a phenomenal sophomore year jump.
Last season, Reneau averaged just six points while never playing more than 25 minutes as a freshman. Flash forward to this season, the Miami native is up to 16 points a game and played a grand total of 38 minutes on Tuesday night.
The big man has turned into a true iron man.
“He’s [Reneau] such a dominant force and we kept telling him that it’s going to be alright, we’re going to be OK,” Galloway said postgame. “We just had to stick together and keep getting stops and our stops lead to offense. It shows and it showed tonight.”
After the crushing loss at home to Penn State on Saturday, everything seemed to be going downhill for Indiana quickly. Fans began to turn on the program through social media and the team looked mentally checked out.
But after one of the biggest comeback victories in recent memory, Indiana still has the potential to turn the tide of the season. Now, the NCAA Tournament is still a longshot and would take a miracle in itself to become reality. Moving forward will be a test of leadership, resiliency and heart to want to win and get better as a collective unit.
“We definitely acknowledged it today, the fact that we were clawing back, getting closer and closer,” Anthony Leal said postgame. “We were pretty confident that they would fold. Staying resilient and fighting through that, we were able to figure it out.”
Indiana will look to avenge a recent loss as it travels up to West Lafayette to take on archrival Purdue from Mackey Arena. The Boilermakers bested the Hoosiers in Assembly Hall on Jan. 16 by a score of 87-66. The Cream and Crimson will need to muster a whole new sense of fight in order to defeat the No. 2 team in the nation on Saturday.
