By STEVE HERMAN
AP Sports Writer

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) - Indiana bristled at the notion that Ball State's No. 15 ranking should somehow make the Cardinals the favorites, in Assembly Hall no less.

"It really blew my mind that people picked them to beat us," Indiana coach Mike Davis said after the Hoosiers' 74-61 victory Saturday. "If I wasn't a head coach, I would have put everything on this game, everything. It's like we get no respect in our own gym."

The Hoosiers made the Cardinals pay for the insult.

Jared Jeffries scored 22 points and Tom Coverdale added 19, and the Indiana defense held Ball State 31 points under its season average.

"I don't know if it's respect, but it's tough to have somebody pick a team, especially from Indiana, to come into Assembly Hall and beat us," Jeffries said. "They were favored to beat us. We took a lot of pride in today's game, as far as coming out and really beating these guys.

"It's Assembly Hall, and we don't want to lose here."

Indiana has lost only 11 nonconference games in 31 years in Assembly Hall. Ball State has never beaten the Hoosiers in Bloomington.

"We still proved to any of those doubters out there that we are a real competitive team," Ball State's Patrick Jackson said. "This is a hard place to play. Many teams don't come in here and beat IU on their home floor. I think we played them pretty tough."

Ball State (5-2), whose only other loss was to top-ranked Duke, erased a 10-point first-half deficit and took the lead at 44-43 after three straight 3-pointers, two of them by Jackson, early in the second half.

But Indiana (6-2) regained the lead on a basket by George Leach, then took control with a 16-6 run over the next seven minutes.

A basket and a 3-pointer by Coverdale, plus a layup and another 3-pointer by Dane Fife pushed the Hoosiers' lead to 61-50 with just over nine minutes to go.

Two straight baskets by Jeffries gave Indiana its biggest lead at 68-54 with three minutes left. After a basket by Ball State's Lonnie Jones and 3-pointer by Theron Smith, the Hoosiers scored their final six points on free throws, including two by Coverdale, who has not missed in 21 attempts all season.

"It's just confidence when you get up there, thinking about the mechanics," Coverdale said. "That's what I'm doing, trying to do the same thing on every free throw."

Chris Williams led Ball State with 18 points and Smith added 13 for the Cardinals.

"We're probably the first team that really guarded them, played them hard," Davis said of Indiana's defense, which has not allowed an opponent to shoot 50 percent from the field this season.

"I knew we could win if we stopped them in transition," Davis said.

Ball State, which has attempted no fewer than 20 3-pointers in any game this season, continued firing from long range almost at will. Three of the Cardinals' first four baskets were 3-pointers, keeping them close despite the early control by Indiana under the basket.

For the game, the Hoosiers outscored Ball State 40-12 in the paint.

"They did a good job getting position," Ball State coach Tim Buckley said. "They hurried us with our shot selection."

The Hoosiers led only 14-12 before Coverdale came off the bench and scored all of Indiana's points, including two 3-pointers, during a 10-2 run that pushed the lead to 26-16. But Ball State went back to its outside shooting, getting 3-pointers by Smith, Robert Owens and Williams during a 17-8 streak that pulled the Cardinals to 34-33.

Jeffries scored for the Hoosiers before the first basket of the game by Jackson, who came in as Ball State's leading scorer with a 21-point average. The Cardinals then had a chance to take the lead, but a shot-clock violation with three seconds to go kept Indiana's lead at 36-35 at halftime.

"They beat us to all the loose balls," Buckley said. "They made it difficult to do what we wanted to do.

"We had a stretch where we didn't take care of the basketball, and when they got it up to 10 points in the second half, it was really tough to overcome that."