Rutgers at IU, noon Sunday, BTN

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – As Rob Phinisee, IU’s cool-headed, sure-handed freshman point guard, exited the floor for the final time Thursday, Archie Miller almost forgot something.

Miller shook Phinisee’s hand, the least Phinisee deserved after perhaps the best performance of a better-than-expected freshman season. As Phinisee passed his coach, Miller jumped backward, adding a firm pat on the rear end for emphasis.

No player was more instrumental to Indiana’s heavy-handed 92-74 win at Illinois on Thursday night than Phinisee. No player deserved his coach’s wordless praise more than the 19-year-old who finished with a career-high 17 points, five assists and, remarkably, zero turnovers. Phinisee was the tinder that ignited a blowout when the Hoosiers needed one most.

“Rob Phinisee did a really good job early on controlling the tempo,” Miller said afterward, “he made some plays and then he made the game comfortable for us.”

For the first time in more than two months, Indiana entered a game shouldering just a little bit of pressure.

Losing might anger fans, but it’s also easier in a way. Winning makes them expect more.

And on the back of home wins against ranked squads in Wisconsin and Michigan State — with a weak NCAA tournament bubble and IU (16-14, 7-12 Big Ten) holding onto several quality wins — expectation has begun inching its way back into a season once left for dead.

A loss Thursday at Illinois wouldn’t have been the worst result, but it would’ve been one the Hoosiers couldn’t really afford. From the opening tip, they played like they knew that.

“I feel like our team right now is in a position that we've earned some confidence back,” Miller said. “We haven't got too high or too low in the last month, maybe the past three weeks.”

Not too high, not too low. For the first time in two months, IU is healthy, confident and just right.

No one has been more important to that than Phinisee. He was the revelation of an 11-2 start — so comfortable, so poised, so hard to rattle. Then came the concussion, a 3 ½-game layoff and another month spent getting back what was lost that’s harder to quantify.

That comfort. That poise. That calm.

“I think as the season's now finishing here, you're starting to see the guy that, at the beginning of the season, was making a lot of plays for us,” Miller said. “He's gotten himself back, which is a key for our late run here in our last however many games.

“It's a big deal for us.”

Illinois wants to pressure. The Illini will put up with fouls, offensive rebounds and — as Indiana proved Thursday — layups, but they want to pressure.

More broadly, they want to be a persistent pain. To play, to prepare for, to try and replicate in practice. With their relentless on-ball pressure and their 1-2-2 press and even some zone, they do things no one else in the Big Ten does.

It hasn’t worked well overall for Brad Underwood’s team, which went home Thursday night 11-19, 7-12 in the Big Ten. But the Illini had won six of their last 10 games before this one, and they’ve been a tough out at home.

Indiana would have none of it Thursday. The Hoosiers led at every media timeout save the first one, finished plus-26 on points in the paint, outrebounded Illinois and turned over the ball just seven times. That was less than half of their total (15) when these teams met in Bloomington in January.

“To only turn it over seven times in here was a surprise,” Miller said. “The fact that we were able to score the ball speaks volumes about our guys just being able to take care of it. Step one, and that's what they did a good job of. We rebounded the ball pretty well and then we had some guys really make some unselfish plays.

“A credit to 17 assists. You had 11-0 (assist-to-turnover ratio) with Devonte (Green) and Rob (Phinisee). That was really big.”

Green hit some big 3-pointers that countered an unusually strong night from Illinois behind the arc. And Juwan Morgan finished with 20 points and nine rebounds.

But nobody set the tone like Phinisee, who never looked bothered by Illinois’ pressure, which didn’t wane all night.

“He has a sort of herky-jerkiness to him where he can stop, start, then burst again,” Miller said. “He kept his dribble alive a lot in the possessions that saved us. He was able to even get a layup, or just bring something free.

“He keeps his dribble alive. He's very, very strong. You can't knock him off his ground.”

Not physically, and not mentally. Illinois threw everything it could think of at Phinisee and Indiana. None of it stopped an offensive performance as superlative, statistically and aesthetically, as anything the Hoosiers have done since Marquette.

Now, IU turns to Rutgers. Illinois looked like the kind of game made to trip up a streaky team. Instead, Indiana used it as a platform to announce its return to the NCAA tournament bubble, but the Hoosiers have to avoid a bad home loss on senior day Sunday.

Do that, then make some noise in the Big Ten tournament next week, and things get interesting.

At the center of it all, a freshman point guard IU fans didn’t know how much they needed, back at his best, and guiding his team toward a meaningful March that seemed impossible to imagine just two weeks ago.

Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.

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INDIANA 92, ILLINOIS 74

INDIANA (16-14): Smith 7-12 1-1 15, Morgan 9-14 2-3 20, Langford 4-8 1-2 10, Phinisee 7-12 2-3 17, Durham 1-5 3-4 6, Thompson 0-0 1-2 1, Davis 3-5 3-3 9, Anderson 0-0 0-0 0, Fitzner 1-2 0-0 3, Green 4-6 0-0 11, McRoberts 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 36-65 13-18 92.

ILLINOIS (11-19): Bezhanishvili 6-12 3-6 15, Dosunmu 5-10 3-6 16, Frazier 5-7 0-0 13, Williams 0-0 0-0 0, Jordan 4-10 0-0 11, Nichols 1-1 0-2 3, Kane 0-0 0-0 0, De La Rosa 1-2 1-1 3, Jones 0-1 0-0 0, Underwood 0-0 0-0 0, Cayce 0-1 0-0 0, Griffin 1-2 0-0 2, Feliz 3-6 5-7 11, Oladimeji 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 26-52 12-22 74.

Halftime—Indiana 52-42. 3-Point Goals—Indiana 7-20 (Green 3-5, Langford 1-2, Fitzner 1-2, Phinisee 1-4, Durham 1-4, McRoberts 0-1, Morgan 0-2), Illinois 10-21 (Frazier 3-4, Dosunmu 3-5, Jordan 3-7, Nichols 1-1, Jones 0-1, Cayce 0-1, Bezhanishvili 0-1, Griffin 0-1). Fouled Out—None. Rebounds—Indiana 31 (Morgan 9), Illinois 24 (Bezhanishvili 8). Assists—Indiana 17 (Green 6), Illinois 15 (Dosunmu, Griffin 3). Total Fouls—Indiana 18, Illinois 17. Technicals—Davis. A—14,033 (15,500).