Thoughts on an 84-83 overtime loss to Michigan State:

There were two schools of thought heading into this one:

A) Indiana, riding an emotional high after Thursday night’s big win, would carry it over and give a reeling Michigan State all it could handle.

B) Michigan State, losers of three straight, would finally get it together and hold strong at home for a victory.

What I think we got tonight was a cosmic collision of both these schools of thought.

This was a fun, tightly-contested, up-and-down game from start to finish — even if both teams got a little tired in the waning minutes of regulation and into overtime.

And even though it ended in a loss for Indiana, I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that it was an encouraging performance, as a lot of the good things Indiana brought against the Illini — heart, execution, intensity and effort — were more than apparent in the Breslin Center tonight.

Indiana just ran out of gas in overtime. The Hoosiers went 2-of-10 in the extra frame, and couldn’t get anything going on the offensive end at all. Still, it was there for the taking, as Michigan State didn’t do anything to blow this one open in OT, either.

Lastly, there’s a lot of nitpicking that can be done — judging by the #iubb tag on Twitter, the refs are chief among them for some of you guys  – but if there’s one I can’t get behind, it’s the focus on Jeremiah Rivers’ two missed free throws in the final 42 seconds which helped send this one into OT.

Not only was Rivers a stellar 22-of-25 on the season from the line before tonight (and a good enough 3-of-5 on the evening), Indiana as a team shot below its Big Ten season average of 79.3 percent, hitting 63.6 percent from the line (14-of-22) tonight. Had Tom Pritchard — 0-3 from the line, now just 3-of-15 from the season — hit one of his, it’s a point of contention that wouldn’t even be part of the discussion at this juncture.

Additionally, Indiana went 11-of-11 from the line in its win against Illinois on Thursday, so tonight’s performance at the line was a regression to the mean.

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