How IU basketball beat FGCU in season opener: Kel'el Ware, Gabe Cupps step up

BLOOMINGTON – IU needed every ounce of effort it could muster Tuesday, to stave off a furious upset bid from Pat Chambers’ Florida Gulf Coast, in a 69-63 season-opening win that’s Mike Woodson’s third in as many tries as Indiana’s coach.

Here are three reasons why:

IU vs. FGCU player ratings:Kel'el Ware, Gabe Cupps step up in Hoosiers debuts

Offensive offense

Indiana’s work-in-progress offense won’t (or shouldn’t) have been a surprise. We knew these Hoosiers would be limited in some ways, and badly needing polish in even more.

Still, 8-of-20 from the floor felt like a jarring number to pick out of the halftime box score. So did the overall points-per-possession number (0.933), and disparities in points off 3s and second-chance points, as the game wore on.

Woodson’s team will have come into these season knowing they needed to build their success first on defense. But as a tighter-than-anticipated opener wore on Tuesday, Assembly Hall sounded unprepared for just how raw IU would turn out to be in the face of stiffer competition.

It was an eye-opening evening at that end of the floor.

Buy Bob Knight on the Record:The story of a complex character and hall of fame coach

Kel'el Ware impressive

Oregon transfer Kel’el Ware was one of the harder individuals to judge through a preseason in which his length was always going to make him a tremendous mismatch.

Division I competition got its first look at him in an Indiana uniform Tuesday and still didn’t know what to do with him.

The 7-2 center covered remarkable ground with a reach as wide as his body was long. He blocked, viciously, shots none of his teammates would even consider it possible to reach. He was far and away IU’s best mismatch and the Hoosiers’ best rebounder, clocking a first-career double-double (14 points, 13 rebounds) in his debut, adding three blocks and four assists for the trouble.

It’s one game, against a buy-game opponent, but Ware looked every bit the NBA-level center he believes Woodson can make him.

Gabe Cupps shows up

Badly needing a spark, Woodson found it in one of his freshman — if perhaps not the one you’d expect.

It was Gabe Cupps, the freshman guard from Dayton, whose no-back-down defense and timely 3-point shooting helped turn around a six-point deficit midway through the second half.

Cupps’ late steal helped stave off upset-minded Florida Gulf Coast, the Hoosiers (1-0) surviving their own opening-night scare in a week when not everyone in the Big Ten did.

No one will walk out of Assembly Hall on Tuesday night under any illusions of the work still to be done, though.

Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.