Indiana held Eastern Illinois scoreless for more than nine minutes late in the first half to set the tone for a 91-57 season-opening victory on Monday night in Bloomington, Ind.
Notre Dame transfer Markus Burton scored three of his team-high 19 points and set up Trent Sisley and Sam Alexis for dunks during the Hoosiers’ 18-0 run that built a 42-21 lead in the final minutes of the first half.
Burton hit 7 of 8 shots from the field and handed out five assists for Indiana (1-0). Villanova transfer Bryce Lindsay scored 14 points off the bench and Trevor Manhertz added 11 as the Hoosiers shot 50% from the field and hit 9 of 24 3-point attempts.
Seven-foot-2 SMU transfer Samet Yigitoglu contributed eight points and a game-high seven rebounds in 18 minutes for the Hoosiers.
Demar Burton scored 10 points to pace Eastern Illinois (0-1), which committed 22 turnovers to offset its 50% shooting from the field.
The Panthers hung with the Hoosiers for the first 10 minutes as both teams started hot. Sparked by a jumper and a 3-pointer by Jayden Wright, EIU ripped off 10 points in a 1:39 stretch to pull within 21-19 at the 10:21 mark of the first half.
But after Devin Davenport’s pullup jumper cut Indiana’s lead to 24-21 with 9:45 left in the half, Eastern Illinois didn’t score again until Tanner Vogel sank two free throws with 30 seconds to go.
Burton got the crowd going when he penetrated into the lane and delivered a bounce pass to Sisley for a two-handed jam that made it 28-21 with 4:50 to go.
After Lindsay drove for a layup and Alexis sank two free throws, Burton flushed a jumper from the free-throw line and then fed Alexis on the secondary break for a dunk that pushed the lead to 36-21 and forced Eastern Illinois to take a timeout with 2:10 to go.
Indiana owned a 44-23 lead at halftime and expanded it to as many as 38 points when Manhertz hit a 3-pointer with 1:12 to go.