Ladies and gentlemen, introducing the point guard of IU basketball team: Trey Galloway
BLOOMINGTON – It turns out, IU basketball does have a point guard. No, not Xavier Johnson. Not freshman Gabe Cupps either. And no, it’s not 6-9 power forward Malik Reneau — but I see your point there.
Nope, IU’s point guard has been emerging in recent weeks, in part because Xavier Johnson has been injured and then erratic, in part because Cupps is a freshman whose main value to the team is on defense, and in part because Trey Galloway has just been that good with the ball in his hands. He did it again Friday night, playing a nearly flawless game — 10 points on 5-for-6 shooting, with seven assists, four steals and no turnovers — in the Hoosiers’ 74-62 domination of Minnesota at Assembly Hall.
Galloway, flawless … hasn’t always been that way, has it? Galloway feels like the last holdover from the Tom Crean era, maybe because watching him play used to accelerate the aging process for coaches, fans, and even sports writers. For years he was Robin to Xavier Johnson’s out-of-control Batman, the two of them dominating the ball and making magic or misery, depending on their attention span.
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But something has been happening in recent weeks, and if you’ve missed it, well, join the crowd. While most of us have been fixated on different parts of this IU basketball program — the emerging brilliance of Kel’el Ware, the blue-collar playmaking of Reneau, the rise of heralded freshman Mackenzie Mgbako and of course the main plot line — the soap opera that is Xavier Johnson — we’ve missed an important development in Bloomington.
Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce the point guard of the 2023-24 IU basketball team:
Trey Galloway.
Benching Xavier Johnson
What we saw from IU basketball a few days ago at Rutgers was so bad, it shook something loose within the program. The result was on the floor Friday night, and in some ways not on the floor, and for two hours the Hoosiers treated a nearly sold-out Assembly Hall to one of their finest efforts of the season. No, they didn’t shoot terribly well against Minnesota, but that was arguably as hard, connected and controlled as they’ve played all season.
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IU coach Mike Woodson benched Johnson three days after the sixth-year senior was ejected against Rutgers after 23 miserable minutes: two points, two assists, five turnovers. Woodson also dropped the charade of his NBA-style second unit, rarely having less than three of his best players on the floor at any time Friday night.
The Hoosiers jumped Minnesota from the start, getting 3-pointers from Galloway and Mgbako for a 6-0 lead and just building from there. With Johnson on the bench, Cupps spearheading the defense, Ware lurking near the rim and Galloway and Reneau directing the offense, the Hoosiers built a 25-8 lead before Woodson dipped into his bench.
Along the way we saw the scrappy side of this IU defense, the same effort the Hoosiers gave only in the final two minutes against Rutgers, when it was too late. From the beginning Friday night the Hoosiers were deflecting passes, ripping at the ball and blocking shots, then going the other way for easy points. Their finest moment was during that opening spurt, when Galloway stole a pass on the baseline, took off the other way and passed ahead to Mgbako. Galloway then bolted for the rim, where Mgbako floated a perfect pass he shoved through the basket even as he was roaring for the crowd.
This was arguably Mgbako’s finest game, by the way, as he led all scorers with 19 points, showcasing his superlative shooting stroke (2-for-4 on 3-pointers) while also attacking the rim emphatically. Ware had another double-double, 17 points and 14 rebounds, and Reneau put together one of his mini-Trayce Jackson-Davis lines, stuffing the stat box with 16 points, six rebounds and three assists.
But the story of this IU basketball team, dominated as it is by its frontcourt, remains the point guard.
The Xavier Johnson soap opera took another twist Friday night.
Roles becoming defined for Hoosiers
The plus-minus statistic is imperfect, bordering on unfair at times. You know the plus-minus, right? While any given player was on the court, how many points did his team score — and how many did it allow? The net result is the player’s plus-minus, and while it’s not the most accurate measure of a player’s impact, it can be instructive when something like this happens:
In a game IU never trailed and won by 12 points, Xavier Johnson’s plus-minus was a minus-13. If you’re wondering how that’s mathematically possible, well, you didn’t watch the game. Afterward, Woodson was either standing up for his sixth-year senior point guard, who is being mangled on social media, or maybe Woodson just doesn’t know what he’s watching. Whatever the case, this is what he said about Johnson’s 17 minutes Friday night:
“I thought the minutes X played were positive minutes to help us win,” Woodson said.
Nobody believes that, not even Xavier Johnson. His line Friday night: two points, one rebound, one assist, one steal and two turnovers. He made no field goals. Each of his turnovers was just Johnson being Johnson, dribbling into the lane, outnumbered and without any idea where he’s going, then losing the ball because that was the only possible outcome.
The second time he did that, with the crowd murmuring loudly, Woodson put Johnson on the bench between two assistant coaches who ignored him. Johnson sat there, staring at the floor between his feet. The game was continuing, the Hoosiers were pulling away again, and now Johnson is staring at the ceiling and pounding one fist into the other palm. Eventually he quit staring, just looking into the abyss until Woodson rescued him from himself by putting him back in the game for the final minutes.
That coincided neatly with Galloway spending the final 4:20 on the bench. He was moving stiffly when he left the game, and later Galloway was walking the halls of Assembly Hall with ice packs on his lower back. Assuming he’s OK going forward, Galloway gives the Hoosiers offense a playmaker on the perimeter to join Reneau from the high post. In the past six games Galloway has averaged nine points, six assists and just 1.6 turnovers.
It has taken half the season, but the roles are becoming clear for this team now. Mgbako is the team’s best shooter, and now is starting to attack the rim when the defense gets too close. Ware spaces the floor on offense and dominates near the rim at both ends. Reneau is the low-post banger, emerging as the stretch-four of some future NBA team’s dreams.
Galloway is crashing to the rim, with the ball or without it, and consistently walking the line between reckless and rewarding. Cupps is on the court to play hard on defense but lacks the confidence to take shots, and was urged to shoot by Galloway after passing up a corner 3-pointer created by another of Galloway’s dashing drives into the lane.
As for Johnson, his best plays Friday night came when he passed to Reneau and cut hard, giving the Minnesota defense something to think about while letting someone else make the decisions with the ball. It's unorthodox, this offense, but for now it's the Hoosiers' best chance to make a run for the 2024 NCAA tournament.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IU basketball tops Minnesota as Mike Woodson benches Xavier Johnson
