Indiana's Key Weakness Revealed by Baylor in Exhibition Matchup

“The area you saw today that we got to improve the most is the defensive rebounding,” said DeVries, following Indiana’s 76-74 win over Baylor in an exhibition outing on Sunday. “We are undersized, so we have to really be technical in hitting people. We can’t allow people to just run in there and jump. We’re not winning a lot of those jumping contests. So, that physicality is going to be important.”

To say Baylor dominated Indiana on the glass may be an understatement. The Bears, between their athleticism and sheer effort, controlled the boards to the fullest extent on both ends. They out rebounded the Hoosiers 44 to 25, including 16 on the offensive glass, which they parlayed into 18 second chance points.

“To give up 16 offensive rebounds, but we held them to 29 percent… our first shot defense was good enough to hold them to that. If we had just rebounded better, it could have been a really good second half defensively,” said DeVries. 

All in all, it still was an impressive defensive showing from Indiana in the second frame, as it held Baylor to just 33 points. But the lack of size and physicality from this Hoosiers squad – especially in the frontcourt of their starting lineup – is undoubtedly going to be an issue moving forward. 

At 6-foot-7, Tucker DeVries is undersized at power forward. And although he doesn’t shy away from physicality, DeVries isn’t quite strong enough to make up for his lack of height on the glass, especially considering he’s not exactly known as a jump-out-of-the-gym athlete. 

And, at least for now, Reed Bailey plays smaller than his listed height of 6-foot-10 may suggest (two rebounds against Baylor) – and it’s not as though his past performance leads one to believe that will change in the near future (4.9 rebounds per game in his career). 

Fortunately, DeVries and his staff have a solution – of sorts: forward Sam Alexis. The Florida transfer won’t exactly solve the rebounding conundrum entirely, but he can certainly aid the situation. He led Indiana with seven boards in 25 minutes on Sunday, and has the coveted combination of size, length, intensity and athleticism to be a game-altering presence on the glass. 

And based off his sophomore season at Chattanooga in which he averaged 9.1 rebounds per game, Alexis’ stellar rebounding performance in minimal minutes against Baylor clearly was no outlier. As the season gets underway, Alexis may find himself in the starting lineup sooner rather than later.