Thoughts on a 69-60 loss to Penn State:
Things have gone from bad to worse, my friends.
Another game Indiana was favored to win, another loss.
In the Big Ten, you need defense, and you need someone to step up and hit shots when it matters.
Indiana had neither tonight inside Assembly Hall.
In the first half, Indiana allowed Penn State too many wide-open looks from beyond the arc. Despite entering Big Ten play as the worst shooting team in the league, the Nittany Lions converted on those opportunities, knocking down 50 percent (5-of-10) of their threes in the first half.
The Hoosiers did a better job of defending the three in the second half, but Talor Battle (19 points, six boards) hit three difficult ones, anyway. For the night, the Nittany Lions knocked down 8-of-17 for 47 percent.
And on the strength of guys like David Jackson (15 points, eight boards) and Jeff Brooks (23 points, eight boards) Battle didn’t have to shoulder all the load for Penn State tonight — even with a shortened seven-man rotation with the absence of Taran Buie. Jackson and Brooks helped the Nittany Lions to 53.8 percent shooting from the floor (21-of-39). Add in a solid night at the line (19-of-26, 73.1 percent) and Penn State was a very efficient offensive unit this evening.
After a sluggish first half, Indiana, on the backs of the Assembly Hall faithful and a pumped-up Tom Crean, played with more energy and worked to get more looks in and around the basket area. After only six points in the paint in the first half, Indiana got 14 in the second half. There seemed to be a momentum shift — with the Hoosiers even taking a 48-47 lead on a Maurice Creek layup with 8:45 to go. It was as close as 56-54 with 2:28 remaining, but Indiana failed to finish.
Again.
So what comes next?
He oozed belief, while admitting that, at times, his team has lost it. He said “old scars” were still hurting Indiana, particularly in close games like this, but remained adamant that his team will eventually put them to rest forever. He said the things a man in his position must say, perhaps the only things he could say.
But there’s a disconnect in that reasoning.
Indiana’s problems are no longer individual. They are not problems with Verdell Jones, or problems with rebounding, or turnovers or 3-point shooting or perimeter defense or ball pressure.
Indiana is losing as a team, suffering from an epidemic lack of confidence. Against Penn State on Monday night, players looked the wrong kind of cautious — double-clutching under the rim when a straight put-back would have been fine, unwilling to move or move the ball, or any of a host of other signs of a team that no longer believes in its every move.
“The old wounds and the old scars of getting close and not being able to pull it off came back and got us,” Crean said, referring to his team’s near comeback Monday night. The Hoosiers were down as much as 14 in the first half, but cut slowly into the deficit in the second, taking a brief one-point lead that lasted 35 seconds.
But, as has happened too many times over the last 2 1/2 years, the game slipped away, lost on what Crean described essentially as the fundamentals — box outs, defense — and a lack of belief.
“I’m not looking to see a 2:28 timeout with a ‘We just can’t get over the hump’ look, because that was the past repeating itself,” he said. “We’ve got to learn to get over the hump, and we haven’t been able to do that.”
Continue reading this post »