BLOOMINGTON — Apologies to exhibition opponents Hope and Bellarmine, but Wednesday night marked the actual dawn of a new Indiana basketball season.

Moreover, it was the first regular-season game at the newly renovated and renamed Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.

Playing games in Bloomington brings a certain expectation, and the win over Kansas in the opener last Friday in Hawaii certainly gave Hoosier fans everywhere a sunnier disposition for this new day.

The ensuing 100-78 win over UMass Lowell was never in doubt, even if the score was tied midway through the first half.

The Hoosiers had no trouble securing a victory in their 32nd consecutive home opener and winning their 18th straight home game overall, the last loss coming to Michigan State in the 2014-15 regular-season finale.

The original Assembly Hall set a pretty high bar in its own right, as IU went 10-1 in that inaugural season of 1971-72.

On Wednesday, the visiting River Hawks weren't the real opposition anyway.

The Hoosiers were playing against their own standard, a lofty one set by the win over the Jayhawks, by last year's Big Ten championship and by the progress each team member knows is needed to reach new heights this season.

“(We're) just not playing the team, (but) playing to dominate,” IU sophomore OG Anunoby said. “Get multiple stops on defense, rebound and just move the ball on offense.”

So just how did the Hoosiers fare on those counts?

“We felt like we did it decently,” Anunoby said. “We know we can do it better, though.”

He's right about that, as an attempt to put together a flow chart of the pluses and minuses mostly closely resembles a roller coaster.

There were the five turnovers in the first 11 minutes of the first half, but just one in the final nine minutes.

There was a dearth of post touches for Thomas Bryant, and then there were three in a span of two minutes in the first half that produced four points and an assist on a James Blackmon Jr. 3-pointer for the sophomore big man.

There was the start of the second half, where UMass Lowell scored on its first five possessions, before a raging Thomas Bryant inspired the necessary defensive commitment to get 10 stops in a row.

Fixing those occasional ailments was never a serious concern, however.

“I think, again, it's always, 'What's correctable?'” IU coach Tom Crean said.

Chalk some of it up to the Hawaii hangover, jet lag and a sense of accomplishment, something Crean acknowledged was a factor.

“The one thing we haven't done very much of since we've been back from Hawaii is play fullcourt,” he said. “I probably overthought the whole legs thing and five-hour time zone thing and all that stuff. It hits everybody differently. It hit some guys probably tonight a little bit.

“The most important thing is we understand that getting the ball posted or driven through the paint was going to be the most important thing to settle us in. That's usually how we play our best.”

The Hoosiers only played their best in spurts on Wednesday, won by 22 points and still scored 100, the latter courtesy of a Tim Priller putback with 1:07 remaining in regulation.

The fan favorite reserve providing a fitting final ray of light as the sun set on the dawn of a new season, one where the outlook seems brighter and the potential for finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow more believable.