BLOOMINGTON — Indiana basketball center Kel'el Ware is back in the starting lineup for Tuesday night's game against Iowa.

Ware missed the previous two games with a foot injury he suffered in practice.

The Hoosiers (12-8; 4-5 Big Ten) have lost three straight games and five of seven since entering conference play at the start of January.

Ware is averaging 14.2 points per game this season with a 54.5% field goal percentage that ranks 68th nationally going into Tuesday's games. He's also leading the team with 9.4 rebounds and 1.6 blocks per game this season.

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The sophomore has averaged 30.8 minutes (17 games started) for coach Mike Woodson. Ware spent his freshman season with Oregon where he only made four starts and fell out of the team's rotation in the backhalf of the year playing less than 10 minutes seven times.

His former coach Dana Altman openly questioned his effort, but Ware hasn't had the same issues in Bloomington.

“It's like night and day from the time we got him to where he is today in terms of going hard and understanding that you just can't take possessions off,” Woodson said of Ware. “From where he was, man, he's come a long way, and it's kind of nice to see because a lot of people just didn't expect that because he hadn't played.”

Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Indiana starting center Kel'el Ware back from injury against Iowa