Wake had a monster first half, shooting 57.9 percent, going 5-for-9 from 3-point range and scoring 28 points in the paint to hold a five-point advantage at halftime.
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Tom Crean didn’t care what the box score said, his 13th-ranked Indiana Hoosiers didn’t play 40 minutes against Wake Forest. “For myself and everybody else we’ve got to continue to build a defensive mindset that we’re going to go out there and stop you”.
Williams led the Hoosiers with 16 points and Robert Johnson added 14.
With three wins in their first three games of the season, the Hoosiers began building to this point less than seven hours after leaving Assembly Hall following Thursday’s 86-65 win over the Blue Jays.
Wake will play Vanderbilt in the semifinals on Tuesday while in will take on St. John’s in the consolation round of the tournament.
Thomas led Wake Forest with 21 points while Dinos Mitoglou scored all 18 of his points in the first half.
Crean said the final play for the Hoosiers was supposed to be a long pass that would have allowed Max Bielfeldt to find a cutter.
The team pulled out of Bloomington around 4:30 a.m. Friday, bussing to Indianapolis for a connecting flight to San Francisco before hopping on another plane to Maui. Teams will force him to defend ball screens until IN goes zone or he shows he can do it. The Hoosiers don’t have the option of pulling him off the floor because he’s a weapon on offense and he’s the team’s top rebounder too.
Beyond the challenge of potentially facing three top 25 teams, IN – like the rest of the tournament field – will also have to fight fatigue while playing three games IN as many days. They squeaked by UMBC and Bucknell in their first two games by a combined 13 points before losing to Richmond last Wednesday, 91-82.
Freshman Bryant Crawford led the way down the stretch for the Demon Deacons, making two late lay-ups to give them the lead, including this one that put them ahead for good with 3.2 seconds remaining.
IU was also beaten on the glass as Wake Forest grabbed 18 offensive rebounds. The Demon Deacons had three of the offensive rebounds in the final 2:32.
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“They are very similar to the way they played at Kansas when Danny Manning was there and then when he was a head coach at Tulsa”, Crean said.
