Indiana forward Hanner Mosquera-Perea will be out indefinitely with a knee injury he suffered during practice Monday, the Hoosiers announced Tuesday.
Serving as the lone big man in an undermanned frontcourt, Mosquera-Perea has started in all 16 of Indiana's games this season, and is averaging 7.4 points, 5.0 rebounds and a team-high 1.6 blocks in 20.9 minutes per game.
Despite an inconsistent start to his career, the junior forward has been Indiana's most reliable frontcourt piece in 2014-15. In November, Indiana lost freshman forward Devin Davis after he jumped in front of a car driven by teammate Emmitt Holt. Davis was hospitalized until Nov. 19 with a traumatic brain injury. He has recovered and started individual workouts, but there is no timetable for his return.
An uptempo perimeter attack led by guards James Blackmon Jr., Yogi Ferrell and Robert Johnson has yielded one of this season's most efficient offenses, but the Hoosiers have been hamstrung by defensive woes. IU is averaging 82.0 points per game, highest in the Big Ten, while allowing 71.1, also a league-high.
Mosquera-Perea's absence will likely leave more minutes for Holt, as well as reserves Colin Hartman, Nick Zeisloft and Max Hoetzel, as Indiana coach Tom Crean shifts to even smaller lineups.
"With Hanner out, we will need everyone ready to do a little more," Crean said in a release. "We need to continue our focus on rebounding, defense and all the little things it takes to be successful. We are not a team where you define a player by his position. We will have five basketball players out there who understand that our court awareness has to be at an all-time high. I expect our players will be up for the challenge."
Indiana improved to 13-4 with a win over Penn State on Tuesday......