Thoughts on an 81-69 victory against the Hawkeyes:
It was a long week for Indiana basketball.
The home defeat to Purdue last Thursday left fans upset, some cascading toward apathy for this season … and the program. The vacuum created by canceling the Michigan State game on Sunday just added more time to sink into it all.
But the season is not over yet. There are still games to be played. Nobody on the court seems to be giving up. And tonight was a reminder that, for all Big Ten basketball duties on paper, once the ball is played, you never know what will happen.
And what happened tonight was that the country’s most efficient attack has cooled off in the final 30 minutes of the competition. Ice cream in the second half. How cold in the second half? Try another 11 minute drought in the field goal and a 1 in 10 distance mark, the only mark that will come after the game is almost over. Iowa made just nine baskets in 34 attempts (26.5 percent) in the final 20 minutes. Jordan Bohannon, an Indiana assassin in previous games, missed all nine shots tonight. Eight of them came from afar. (It also hurt that CJ Fredrick did not play the entire second half due to an injury.)
But credit also to Indiana’s defensive performance. It was sloppy at first, allowing Iowa easy looks from a 3-point stripe. And the decision to let Luka Garza play face to face to start the dispute really excited him. Still, as the game progressed, Indiana stopped allowing Iowa all that space on the perimeter. And Race Thompson and Jordan Geronimo gave absolutely everything they had about Garza. Join that effort with the Indiana guards attacking the alleged National Player of the Year time after time and you could tell he was upset. I could see that he really needed to work for everything he could. Garza hit just 4 of 11 in the second half. His 28 points were above his average of the season. The Hoosiers did not let Garza go crazy because they defended him too much.
Speaking of Geronimo, this was his best game as Hoosier. Thurst in more playing time due to Trayce Jackson-Davis and Thompson problems, Geronimo was unlikely to be the best individual defender Indiana played in Garza all night. He also made his presence felt in the attack, scoring seven points and hitting three goal attempts.
This was another below-average free-throw performance for the Hoosiers (21 out of 35, 60 percent). And the Hawkeyes absolutely cleaned offensive plates, recovering 43 percent of their failures, helping them to 17 points for a second chance. But Indiana was strong in other areas, which helped to ensure that these two factors did not mean ruin when another victory on the road against one of the best teams in the country was within reach. The Hoosiers delivered just 11.7 percent of their possessions tonight, their third best performance in that category in the entire season. That included just one mistake in the second half, before turning twice in the end, after Iowa took the field to try to get back in the game. Indiana also made 47.1 percent (8 of 17) in the 3-point range. This is the best of the season. Low spins and a strong 3-point shot in the attack were huge in this one.
With the conference being so good this year, Hoosiers have many opportunities to win against some of the best teams in the country, helping to boost their considerations about the NCAA tournament. Against Wisconsin, Indiana failed in the double overtime, missing a chance at the end of the regulation to win it.
But tonight against Iowa, the Hoosiers closed relatively easily, and who would think of that?
(Photo credit: IU Athletics)
Filed Under: Iowa Hawkeyes