Nick Dorn’s breakout game is exactly what Indiana men’s basketball needed

Having lost four straight games, Darian DeVries found himself in a tough spot in his first season as Indiana’s head coach.

All four of the losses came against ranked opponents, two of them being on the road, so they weren’t necessarily bad on paper. But the Hoosiers didn’t look competitive for stretches (sometimes long ones) in each of the last four games. Barring an international or G-League addition, help was not on the way.

Making things worse was a minor injury for Tayton Conerway, limiting him to just two minutes against Michigan. As Indiana’s third leading scorer and most athletic guard, he was a player DeVries could not afford to be without, seemingly, before tonight.

In his absence, DeVries mixed up the starting lineup, bringing Nick Dorn in at the three spot for an added scoring punch and size on the wing. Over the last five games, Dorn had taken over a majority of the minutes – 60%, per KenPom – but being moved into a starting spot gave him the boost of confidence he needed to put on a show Friday at Rutgers.

Rewarding DeVries for the move, Dorn hit a career-high six threes on 11 attempts, taking just one 2-point shot while going a perfect five for five at the charity stripe.

With a third true shooting threat in the lineup, Tucker DeVries was able to get deeper into his scoring bag, finishing with 22 points on 9-20 shooting. Lamar Wilkerson also got back on track, finishing with 27 points after being held under 10 in each of the last two games.

Entering the season, Wilkerson and DeVries were two of the very few known-commodities on the roster, having produced at the highest level of the sport for four years, at least. Dorn was one of the question marks, a guy with the physical tools and potential, but less experience under his belt, especially at the power four level.

While Darian DeVries would have benefited from any of the various breakout candidates playing like Dorn did tonight, it’s especially important for the future of the program that it came from somebody who will have eligibility left next year.

Having Tucker DeVries play well will also be a key to Indiana finishing out the year strong, but he and Wilkerson are gone next year no matter what. Dorn is somebody you can build and recruit around, a modern wing with size and shooting ability to space out the floor for players around him.

We didn’t see too much of it tonight, but Dorn also has more upside as a cutter and driver off the wing than many of his teammates. Shooting like he did tonight will only make opposing defenders more likely to over extend to him, so look for that to potentially emerge in the coming games from him.

Facing a tougher challenge next game against Purdue, Dorn will probably have some kind of comedown, but that doesn’t diminish his performance tonight. His 23 points cemented him as a bonafide shooter alongside a couple of other sharpshooters in DeVries and Wilkerson that will be a matchup nightmare.