Something special is happening with Indiana State basketball, and Terre Haute is in love.
TERRE HAUTE – The game is over and nobody is leaving because something special has just happened here — because something special is happening here. Indiana State basketball just happened, all over Bradley. Indiana State basketball is happening all over the Missouri Valley Conference, and don’t be surprised if Indiana State basketball happens to somebody in the 2024 NCAA tournament.
Right now, Robbie Avila and Jayson Kent and Ryan Conwell are celebrating this 95-86 victory against Bradley on Saturday evening with a slow tour around the Hulman Center, slapping palms with fans on the front row and waving to fans higher up the recently remodeled basketball arena that was home to Larry Bird.
Nobody’s leaving because this is too much fun at the Hulman Center, where the Sycamores are running an NBA offense with speed, skill and explosion. The team has some imperfections, depth being one of them — the starting five played the entire second half, and would’ve played the entire overtime had one not fouled out — but Indiana State is the kind of team, all that shooting and guard play and coaching, you won’t want your favorite team to see at the NCAA tournament.
The Sycamores have to get there first. Understood. The Missouri Valley ain’t what it used to be, when it used to be an obviously multi-bid league, meaning the Sycamores had better win the conference tournament, just to be sure. They have a beautiful record (18-3), wonderful RPI (No. 29) and even better NCAA NET ranking (24). Maybe they get in, either way. Let’s see.
For now, let’s see why everybody in this joint seems to be wearing goggles, and nobody seems to be leaving, and it’s Saturday night and there’s fun to be had in a college town like Terre Haute. But they’re still here, waiting for coach Josh Schertz to get on the microphone and say a few words.
And here are a few of them.
“Thank you, Terre Haute!” he’s shouting, and everyone’s cheering, and whatever this is, whatever is happening, it feels like falling in love.
Terre Haute, students in love with Indiana State basketball
The kid with the “R” on his bare chest didn’t see any of this happening. Not three years ago when Schertz inherited a disaster. This was 2021 and Indiana State had just fired beloved coach Greg Lansing and most of the team left. Schertz started almost from scratch and won just 11 games that first season, including a 4-14 mark in league play. Last season the Sycamores went 23-13 (13-7 MVC), and look at them now:
Ranked No. 5 in the CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major poll, even receiving a vote for No. 1 in that poll — yes, ahead of Gonzaga — and now receiving votes in the media and USA Today coaches polls. That’s where Indiana State is today in the rankings. In the fabric of Terre Haute, the Sycamores are working their way back into the hearts of people like the kid with the “R” on his chest.
The kid’s name is Lane Woolwine, he’s a senior from Cayuga, Ind., and all he’s wanted since coming here is to support a team like he has now.
“Well, we sort of had it last year,” Woolwine’s telling me. “You know – baseball.”
Right. The Indiana State baseball team won 45 games last season and qualified for the Fort Worth Super Regional.
The Indiana State basketball team has it now, filling up the Hulman Center on Saturday for the first time since 2019, when the school celebrated the 40th anniversary of that 1979 team. The crowd includes a robust student cheering section, some of them shirtless with a single letter on their chest and another letter on their back. From the front, they’re spelling out ROLL TREES. From behind, it says SYCAMORES.
Woolwine’s got the first “R” on his chest and the second “S” on his back. He was pulled onto the floor for a halfcourt shot earlier this season against Southern Indiana, and drilled it for $800.
“And I was wearing a toga!” he says.
Next to him, the kid with the first “L” on his bare chest is leaning in.
“I made a layup, free throw and 3-pointer for AirPods,” said the kid, a senior from St. Louis named Nick Hayes. “That was against IUPUI.”
If the bare-chested kids at Indiana State are making buckets, you can only imagine how good the players on the team can shoot.
No, I’m thinking, you probably can’t.
So much speed, skill, shooting
The Sycamores lead the country in 3-point shooting (41.0%) and effective field goal percentage (61.4%). They’re third in field goal shooting overall at 51.2%, and from the foul line they’re 18th at 77.4%. Five of their top six players are shooting 81% or better, and the other one, Isaiah Swope, still shoots 71.7%.
This poses a team you cannot defend, especially when the central figure is a player some call “College Jokic,” because Robbie Avila stands 6-10, weighs 240 pounds, has hands soft like melted butter and is a triple-double waiting to happen. Avila averages 16.4 points, 7.3 rebounds and 4.1 assists, and on Saturday he had an off game — 7-for-17 from the floor, 1-for-3 on 3-pointers — and still scored 18 points.
With Avila and the Sycamores’ other big, 6-8 Jayson Kent, having legitimate guard skills — “hubs,” he calls them — Josh Schertz’s offense is nasty. He’s running NBA stuff, what you call “split” actions where players come together and head in different directions and dare the defense to keep track of everyone.
As explosive as these guards are, it’s not possible. Ryan Conwell, the muscular 6-4 USF transfer from Pike, drained two 4-point plays and got to the rim on command for his 22 points. He also made the play of the game in overtime. Indiana State was leading 91-86 when he outfought two larger Bradley players for a defensive rebound, tapping it away and jumping out of bounds to save it to Swope. And nobody was catching Swope, who scored at the other end for a 93-86 lead with a minute left.
The 5-10 Swope is a whole different kind of athlete — but then, so is senior 6-3 Julian Larry. They combined for another absurd play late in the second half, when Swope had the ball atop the key and split two defenders on his way to the rim. He ran into traffic in mid-air and spun 180 degrees to find Larry, who’d replaced him atop the key. Larry then splits two defenders, probably the same two poor saps Swope had just split, and goes to the rim, where he’s airborne and running into traffic and finding someone in the corner.
It was Swope out there, all by himself, probably because the Bradley defense is aware it’s not physically possible to be where he was. But he was, and he drained the 3-pointer.
Crowd any of these guards, and they’re blowing by you and strong enough to score at the rim. Give them space, give anyone in the starting five space, and … well, put it this way: All five starters are shooting at least 36% from 3-point attempts range, and the guy with the fewest attempts (Larry) is shooting 53.7% from distance (22-for-41).
Afterward I was asking Schertz about his offense, if he can appreciate the quandary he’s causing for opposing coaches. Schertz doesn’t touch that part of the question — he’s not that kind of guy, which means he’s my kind of guy, and I’ve got another #columncoming believe that — but he does talk about his philosophy.
“Getting guys that can shoot and can drive is paramount,” he says. “But the system is only as good as the players. … The system really values speed, values shooting, values a five that can operate as a hub and facilitate and distribute.”
Schertz is talking from the podium in goggles, same as all three Indiana State players who'd been at the podium earlier: Kent, Swope and Conwell. They’re doing like the crowd, paying homage to Robbie Avila, whose height is the only thing — and I mean, the only thing — that makes him look like a basketball player.
Avila’s been getting teased for his goggles his whole life — Avila’s mother, Katie, was telling me before the game it was worst in AAU ball, though Avila generally needed just one half to win over the crowd — but Indiana State and Terre Haute have leaned into it. They turned Saturday into Goggles Night, which is why fans and cheerleaders and student-managers were wearing goggles during the game, and teammates and even the coach wore them afterward.
More: Indiana State's goggles-wearing Robbie Avila an unexpected hoops star
Schertz was talking about the spirit of togetherness, the camaraderie happening in Terre Haute, and his voice was scratchy from coaching but the words were soft.
“To see that many people in Terre Haute come together, to see the joy after the game from the students to the crowd…” Schertz was saying, then trailing off and starting over. “To have a night like tonight, I told the team in the locker room this is a great moment — this is something they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. I also told them, and I believe this, our best moments are ahead of us. Indiana State’s best moments are ahead of it.”
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana State beats Bradley, continues MVC surge under Josh Schertz
