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Hoosiers stay hot in rout of UMBC

Dec 23, 2011 - 3:03 AM Bloomington, IN (Sports Network) - Christian Watford scored 22 points, Jordan Hulls had 16 and No. 17 Indiana continued its best start in 36 years Thursday night with an 89-47 win over UMBC.

Matt Roth added 14 points for Indiana (12-0), Cody Zeller had 13 and Watford led all players with 10 rebounds.

The Hoosiers, who went 9-for-13 from three-point range in the second half, are off to their best start to a season since the 1975-76 team went 32-0 on the way to winning the national title.

They have matched their win total from all of last season, when they were 12-20.

"To be 12-0, I don't think anyone could've seen that coming. I'm not going to sit up here and act like I saw it coming," said Indiana head coach Tom Crean, who picked up his 230th career win.

"You don't spend much time thinking about last season, but to have the same number of victories on December 22nd that we had all of last year, I think the players deserve a ton of credit for what they have done with that. We just want to keep getting better, we really do. We just want to keep improving."

Chase Plummer, Ryan Cook and Quentin Jones had 10 points apiece to lead UMBC (1-10).

The Retrievers have lost three games in a row since their only win of the season December 10 against Towson, the same day Indiana knocked off No. 1 Kentucky with a three-pointer at the buzzer.

UMBC was within two points inside the 13-minute mark of the first half, but a 25-4 burst by the Hoosiers gave them a 23-point lead while there was still almost four minutes left before the break.

It was a well-balanced run. Eight Indiana players scored at least two points during it and four had at least three.

Zeller led the way, collecting seven of his 13 points during the spurt, which ended on his fast break dunk to make it 37-14 with 3:40 remaining in the first half.

Indiana carried a 37-23 lead into the break after UMBC scored the final nine points of the half. The Retrievers were within 10 early in the second half, but the Hoosiers put the game away with another big run and led by as many as 45.

"I think the positive to take from [this game] is we haven't been starting off very well in second halves and I thought the second half of this game we came out with some energy and we did some good things," said UMBC head coach Randy Monroe. "So, that's something that we can take from the game."

Game Notes

It was the first-ever meeting between the teams...This week marked Indiana's 500th appearance in the Associated Press poll, seventh all-time among Division I programs.