The Minute After: Northwestern

  • 03/11/2010 8:05 pm in

FINAL SCORE: Northwestern 73, Indiana 58 | Box Score

The ghost of Hoosier future.

Derek Elston (10 points, nine boards) and Christian Watford (nine points, six boards) playing close to the  double-double men they’re capable of being night in and night out. Verdell Jones and Jordan Hulls handling the perimeter. A strong start. Controlled, sensible decisions. Being in the driver’s seat for 32 minutes of this one. Using the same scheme — a zone that forced outside shots — against Northwestern twice in the same week, and it working. Respectable shooting from the field (43.5 percent) and (sort of) from three (33.3 percent).

The ghost of Hoosier past.

The scoring droughts. A few of ’em, but none more costly than the 9:29 without a field goal late in the second half — a stretch of time that essentially lost this team the game.

The turnovers. When the wheels fell of midway through the second half, Northwestern’s 1-3-1 zone forced the Hoosiers into plenty of them, and of course, there were a number of the unforced variety as well. In total, IU had 19. (13 of which came in the second half.)

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This one stings a bit, because IU had this game. The car was on cruise control. But they fell asleep at the wheel and veered off the road — never to recover.

It would have been nice to rack up an 11th win, nice to have a chance at a 12th win against Purdue in the next round of the tourney. But alas, what’s doomed the Hoosiers all season — their inability to take care of the ball and put the ball in the basket — doomed them again today.

Going to cut this one short instead of rambling on like usual. We’ll have plenty of end-of-the-year content starting next week for y’all, which should be fun.

Thanks for sticking with us this season, and don’t fret. Better days are ahead.

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