After an opening round loss in the Maui Invitational to the Wake Forest Demon Deacons, the Indiana Hoosiers find themselves on the losers side of the bracket playing a second round game against the St. John's Red Storm.

The Hoosiers let one get away in the first round, but now need to take care of business and finish the tournament with two wins and that starts with St. John's on Tuesday morning at the Lahaina Civic Center in Maui.

St. John's on the other hand comes into their matchup with the Hoosiers coming off of a pretty embarrassing 37-point loss at the hands of Vanderbilt in their first round matchup.

These two teams come into this game with different mindsets. The Red Storm are in a rebuilding stage with first year head coach Chris Mullin and are getting good experience on this Maui trip, while Tom Crean and the Hoosiers find themselves in a position they didn't want to be in on the losers side of the bracket.

Indiana had a tough time down the stretch scoring the ball and getting stops as Wake Forest ended the game on a 17-6 run. Tuesday is a chance for the Hoosiers to come right back out and show that Monday was just a bad outing and they will get a chance to turn the page in under 24 hours.

If the Hoosiers want to be more successful, rebounding is one area they will need to improve. They were outrebounded by the Demon Deacons 43-30 on Monday and that turned into 17 second chance points which was four more than the Hoosiers, and oh by the way, the Hoosiers lost by four.

As for St. John's, they will be outmatched in this game against the Hoosiers, but if they want to be successful, Wake Forest had a good game plan against Indiana by pounding it down low. If the Red Storm are able to do that they could keep it close.

What St. John's will need to change is their shooting percentage. They shot the ball just 30 percent from the field and against an Indiana team that can fill it up and light up a scoreboard. The Red Storm will need to either lock down on defense or start to shoot the lights out of the ball.

Indiana coach Tom Crean will no doubt be looking for his team to come out and play a full 40-minute game, as Monday they weren't quite at their best the for the entire game.

"Wake Forest deserved to win because they played a better game for a longer period of time," Crean said. "It's hard to beat anybody when you play 15, 16 solid minutes, and that's what we did."

This game against St. John's will give Indiana a good chance at redemption and a chance to put a bad loss behind them right away.

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About the author
Josh Eastern
I live in Seattle, Washington and attend Indiana University as a journalism major. You can follow me on Twitter (@JoshEastern) and feel free to email me at [email protected] with any questions/thoughts.