Indiana coach Darian DeVries has helped plenty of players navigate their way through slumps.
This time, the player happens to be his son.
Tucker DeVries will try to break out of a recent funk when Indiana (12-5, 3-3 Big Ten Conference) tips off against Iowa (12-5, 2-4) on Saturday afternoon in Bloomington, Ind.
DeVries ranks second on the team with 14.6 points per game, but he has scored in single digits four times in his past six contests. He is coming off a tough performance against No. 12 Michigan State in which he shot 3 of 10 from the field and 1 of 7 from beyond the arc.
“I mean, he’s obviously going through a little bit of a shooting slump right now,” Darian DeVries said. “For him, it’s a longer one than he’s had. …
“He’s got to find his way back out of it.”
DeVries and the Hoosiers will try to do so against Iowa, which is also desperate to play better.
The Hawkeyes have lost three games in a row against Minnesota, then-No. 16 Illinois and No. 5 Purdue. Iowa led by as many as nine on Tuesday at Purdue, and both sides shot 52.9% from the field, but the Boilermakers pulled out a 79-72 victory.
Iowa coach Ben McCollum saw signs of development in that game, but said players needed to make even more progress to snap the losing streak.
“The message is just to continue to get better, continue to stay process-focused,” McCollum said. “But (we told them), ‘Here’s some of the things that we didn’t do, and had we done, we could have won probably any of the three (games).’
“They were all right there, but we just weren’t ready to do those as a team. We weren’t ready to make those plays down the stretch. We continue to show them those clips.”
Bennett Stirtz leads Iowa with 17.7 points per game. Tavion Banks ranks second with 9.6 points per game, and Alvaro Folgueiras is third with 8.7 points per game.
Lamar Wilkerson powers the Hoosiers with 20.2 ppg and 42.4% shooting from 3-point land.
Indiana is 10-1 at home this season. Iowa is 0-4 on the road.
