Around the Hall is recommended reading from the Inside the Hall crew. So go ahead, get your read on.

· 2014 Ft. Wayne Luers guard and Indiana commitment James Blackmon Jr. is out for the season after suffering a torn ACL in his right knee over the weekend in a loss to Indianapolis Tech. Blackmon Jr. was averaging 25.1 points per game.

· Indiana is a No. 4 seed in the East bracket in the latest edition of Bracketology on ESPN.com. The Hoosiers are a No. 5 seed in the Bracket Matrix, which compiles every projection available.

· UMHoops looks at Big Ten efficiency margins in their weekly roundup from around the conference.

· John Stovall of ESPN.com delivers high praise (premium link) for Trey Lyles after Saturday’s recruit classic at Lawrence Central.

· Scout.com updated their 2012 class rankings and the Hoosiers come in at No. 3 nationally.

· The Big Ten Network has audio from Tom Crean’s weekly appearance on the conference’s coaches teleconference.

· Don Fischer joined Dan Dakich for his weekly appearance and talked about the Hoosiers’ big win in West Lafayette.

It was Michigan’s 13-0 start in the first four-plus minutes that got the Hoosiers behind the eight ball before they knew what hit them in Wednesday’s 68-56 loss to Michigan at the Crisler Center. The deficit swelled to 20 at one point in the first half.

“The start of the game, we allowed a very good team to play like a great team, because our players came out like they’d seen a ghost,” Crean said. “You cannot come out and not have a physical presence right off the bat. You can’t come out and give that kind of space to a team that’s as good as Michigan. … We knew we were going to be in position to come back if we just settled in.”

The Hoosiers were able to cut it down to two points in the second half, but could never get over that hump. The start put them in a hole they were never able to climb out of.

Instead of calling a timeout to try to gather his team during the early run, Crean wanted his guys to play through it. He felt it was pretty simple what needed to be done.

“It wasn’t anything that a timeout was going to correct, in that sense, in the first couple minutes of the game,” Crean said. “It’s going out and doing what we practiced. You want to give guys a chance to get into the flow of the game, but (the
Wolverines) weren’t doing anything different. … I wasn’t concerned about they were doing, I was more concerned about what we were doing.”

ABELL TO MAKE THE MOST OF IT

In an attempt to get something going, freshman guard Remy Abell saw 16 minutes of action and chipped in four points and two rebounds on the night. All four points came in the first five minutes of the second half, as the Hoosiers made a
charge to get back into the game.

Abell had played 12 total minutes in the previous four games since his career-high 18 minutes against Minnesota on Jan. 12.

“He did an excellent job. He’s a fearless guy,” Crean said of Abell. “He’s an excellent athlete and he’s like Matt Roth with his shooting. Matt is going to be able to make them wherever he goes. … I think Remy can play in any environment. He’s got that kind of toughness. He’ll play more. There’s no doubt about that.”

JONES BRUISES SHOULDER

Late in the first half, Verdell Jones III injured his right shoulder when he was fouled while dribbling at the top of the key. He went straight to the bench and didn’t move his arm as the Hoosiers headed into the locker room. He did not return to the game.

“Verdell has got a bruised shoulder right now,” Crean said. “We’ll evaluate it more tomorrow. That’s where he stands.”

Chris Vannini is a freelance sports journalist in Michigan who has covered Michigan State athletics and the Detroit Tigers over the past four years. You can follow him on Twitter at @ChrisVannini and contact him at chrisvannini@gmail.com.

Derek Elston’s impact was felt almost immediately.

He entered the game Sunday night against Iowa and promptly knocked down a 3-pointer from the right corner. The next time down the floor, he hit another jumper from the right side. Then after blocking a shot, Elston raced down the court and nailed a transition 3 from the left wing.

Eight points and a block in 68 seconds, and the Hoosiers were well on their way to a 103-89 win.

“Once I saw that first one kind of go down, that’s how it kind of goes for me shooting-wise,” Elston said. “If I make my first couple ones, I have the potential to have a good game.”

Elston, like Tom Pritchard, had a big game off the bench for Indiana. But Elston and Pritchard aren’t always such key contributors. Their success is usually determined by their confidence on a given day, and they seem to play with more confidence in the comforts of Assembly Hall.

In the No. 20 Hoosiers’ five Big Ten road games, Elston and Pritchard have combined for only 16 points and 16 rebounds. That’s an average of less than two points and two rebounds per contest for each player.

In Indiana’s five conference home games, however, the bench duo has combined for 34 points and 24 rebounds.

The difference? It seems simple enough.

“We want Derek to play with confidence,” Indiana coach Tom Crean said after the win against Iowa. “We want him to shoot the ball. He’s one of our absolute best shooters.  Sometimes he gets away from that and needs a reminder that he’s that good. The last thing we want Derek to do is to play where’s he got to be thinking too much. … He just needs to play.”

On Sunday, Elston and Pritchard provided the spark necessary to help the Hoosiers put Iowa away. Elston knocked down big shots, Pritchard took charges and got rebounds.

When the Hoosiers (17-5, 5-5) travel to Ann Arbor to play Michigan at 6:30 p.m. tonight, they’ll need that spark that has been missing in some road games this season. Indiana didn’t have enough of a push to put either Michigan State or Nebraska away when it go them down late.

Crean and the Hoosiers simply have to look at the tape from Sunday to see the impact a guy like Pritchard is capable of having.

“Very active, a lot of energy,” Crean said of Pritchard. “When he’s confident going up and making baskets, boy that energizes our entire team. That’s like a Matt Roth 3 or a Victor (Oladipo) or Will (Sheehey) dunk for us because our players love him. … When he’s aggressive like that, it makes a huge difference in our team.”

IU’s freshman center was scoreless in the first half and finished the game with only seven points and three rebounds in 19 minutes.

He was the subject of some borderline foul calls that changed the game for the Hoosiers. Zeller picked up his second foul on what appeared to be a charge after a long defensive possession for Indiana.

Instead, Zeller was called for a blocking foul and was forced to go to the bench for the remainder of the half.

“We spend a lot of time making sure we understand that block-charge line,” said Indiana coach Tom Crean. “We’re rarely gonna try to draw a charge where we’re anywhere near the lane, and we’re gonna be set. So the other day when Cody gets called for a blocking foul, and you can show him, ‘that’s not what happened. You took a charge. Let’s keep doing it.’”

Late in the second half, Wisconsin’s Mike Brusewitz appeared to shove Zeller to the ground to get an offensive rebound, but no foul was called.

“There’s nothing you can tell a guy when he get thrown to the ground on how to block out better,” Crean said. “You’re not going to do that.

“When you teach the right things, you expect to be rewarded for it in a game. You expect the game to be called in the last two minutes the same way it is in the first two minutes. Those are the expectations you have as a coach and a program going into a game. It doesn’t always turn out that way.”

Frustration hasn’t come often for Zeller this season. The last time he didn’t score in double figures was in the conference opener at Michigan State on Dec. 28. In the six games between the Michigan State and Wisconsin contests, Zeller averaged 19.5 points per game and made 67 percent of his shots from the field.

Crean said Zeller has remained level-headed through both the good performances and the bad ones.

“There’s none of us that want him to do anything more than play,” Crean said, “because he was so well schooled when he got here, so we want to make sure we’re continuing to school those aspects on the speed of this game.

“If I was frustrated with Cody or if I was upset, then he should have something to thing about. I’m not. I’m just challenging him to be better.”

But Zeller, who entered Thursday night’s game averaging 15.1 points per game, went scoreless in the first half and finished with just seven points in 19 minutes.

The 6-foot-11 freshman picked up his second foul that forced him to the bench for the final 4:30 of the first half and as a result, he never established much of a rhythm.

“There were a couple times we tried to feed him the ball, they three-quartered, and we didn’t give him a chance to set up and post up the way that he needed to,” coach Tom Crean said. “We tried to force the ball in rather than allow him to get set.”

Christian Watford — who helped compensate for Zeller’s absence with 12 points — admitted that Zeller’s time on the bench made things difficult for the Hoosiers.

“It hurt us a lot, having an inside presence like Cody, he’s been there for us all year,” Watford said. “He was in foul trouble, but there’s still no excuse. Other guys got to step up.”

HOOSIERS SHOOT WELL ENOUGH TO WIN

Indiana had no trouble finding the bottom of the net Thursday night, but posted a season-low 50 points in large part because of Wisconsin’s deliberate pace.

The Hoosiers hit 50 percent of their first half shots, finished at 45.7 percent for the game and put together an 11-0 scoring run midway through the first half.

Though Crean felt his team adjusted nicely to Bo Ryan’s pass-heavy swing offense, he noted that key rebounds down the stretch may have been the difference.

“We answered the bell on the pace of play,” Crean said. “They’re going to play at a snail’s pace, it’s what they do, and you’ve got to steal possessions. We rebounded the ball very well for most of the game. They got a couple of big rebounds at the end. We struggled getting those balls.”

JONES SAYS HOOSIERS MUST WORK ON PLAYING 40

Verdell Jones III had no trouble scoring against the Wisconsin’s stingy defense in the first half. The senior guard finished the game’s first 20 minutes with 12 points on 6-of-7 shooting.

But Jones went scoreless the rest of the way, and expressed his frustration with never bringing down the Badgers at the Kohl Center.

“This is my last go around here in Madison, and that’s the most frustrating thing about it, not getting a chance to beat them,” he said.

After dropping four of their last five games — three of them by seven points or less — the Hoosiers believe that nothing more than a few offensive boards or an untimely turnover is keeping them from victory.

“It’s very frustrating, especially when we preach in practice 40 minutes, 40 minutes, then we only play 38,” Jones said. “It’s tough and it’s something we got to work on.”

Ian McCue is a junior studying journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. As the associate sports editor for the student newspaper, The Badger Herald, he has covered sports ranging from football to cross country.

(Photo credit: Andy Manis/Associated Press)

Full transcript after the jump.

Opening statement:

“We did a lot of really good things tonight. It’s our third straight game holding a team under 40 percent from the field. They got a couple of big rebounds at the end of the game at crucial times. But we put ourselves in position to win, we just didn’t finish it off.”

On the foul situation:

“I’m not going anywhere with that. Don’t even … please. Watch the tape. I’m not going to get into any of that stuff.”

On Cody Zeller’s minutes being limited due to foul trouble:

“He got a foul called on him the second possession of the game. Cody did some really good things. He really did. He was one of our two guys to get to the foul line tonight. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that. Cody does a lot. He did a lot of good things tonight. There were a couple of times we tried to feed him the ball, we three-quartered and we didn’t give him a chance to set up, post up the way that he needed to. We tried to force the ball in rather than allow him to get set. We settled down, we did a better job with that. Cody’s fine. Cody does a lot of really, really good things. A lot that shows up in the box score and some things that don’t.”

On the performance of Verdell Jones:

“He did a good job. We knew where we could attack tonight. For the most part we did that.”

On the difficultly in deciding when to bring a player with foul fouls back into the game:

“Very tough. We had to buy our time as much as possible because there was no real reason to believe that he was ever going to be able to really get into a flow where he could play significant minutes at the end. So we just played it by feel as much as we could.”

On Wisconsin holding Indiana to a season-low 50 points:

“We shot 50 percent in the first half. We shot 45 for the game. I think we shot the ball pretty well. They’re a good team.”

On how Indiana responded to Wisconsin’s style of play:

“We answered the bell on the pace of the play. They’re going to play at a snail’s pace. That’s what they do. You’ve gotta steal possessions. We rebounded the ball very well for most of the game. They got a couple of big rebounds at the end. Contact sport at the end. We struggled getting those balls. They did and when a game is that tight and is that competitive between two teams it comes down a lot of times to just a couple of things. And their offensive rebounds were those things.”

On the job Will Sheehey and Victor Oladipo did on Jordan Taylor:

“We play team defense as much as we can at Indiana. We know who their best players are, but they’ve got a team full of guys and I thought our team defense for the most part was very good.”

On whether you have to accept the pace of the game when you’re playing a team like Wisconsin:

“We didn’t have a problem with it. The game was nip and tuck really the whole way. We come out of a timeout, I believe it was down 3, and we make a shot and we’re right where we need to be. And we missed a shot and they take 30 some odd seconds off the clock. I don’t remember the exact number of seconds they took off the clock and they get an offensive rebound. That’s the one you gotta get. I mean you gotta get it. Things played out the way, we did the best job we could inside of that. I thought our guys were locked in, they were attentive, they were excellent, they were ready to play. I cut 40 minutes off of practice yesterday they were so locked in and ready to play. It’s just a couple of things literally didn’t bounce our way at the end when you look at the rebounding. And we’ve just gotta keep figuring out a way that we just keep getting better at every area. That’s the third straight game we’ve held a team under 40 percent and we’ve only got one win to show for it but we’re getting better in a lot of areas and that’s what I want to focus on.”

On how Wisconsin’s defense affected the assists compared to turnovers:

“We shot 50 percent in the first half. We shot in the mid 40′s for the game. We got good looks. They’re a good defensive team. Look at the stats. Read their press notes. It’s right there on the front page. They’re a great defensive team. We got good shots. We just didn’t get a couple of rebounds at the end.”

Notes and quotes from Tom Crean’s Monday morning appearance on the Big Ten coaches teleconference. Prior to the call, the Big Ten announced Wisconsin guard Jordan Taylor as the league’s player of the week and Michigan’s Trey Burke as the league’s freshman of the week:

Opening Comment

“I think anytime you’re in a season, especially in conference play, and you can feel like you’re getting better and improving, then things are moving forward. I felt like this week we did. We definitely got better from our game at Nebraska Wednesday night to playing Penn State yesterday. I think it showed in the way that we played and getting better is physical, it’s mental, it’s every aspect of it. I think that’s what we’re focused on and our team did a nice job yesterday.”

On the overall strength of the Big Ten this season:

“Even the guys that are new to the league like Doc Sadler and Pat Chambers know exactly what they want to do and they’ve got very strong programs.”

“It’s an extremely well coached league. It’s got excellent continuity in it.”

“It’s not a league that has a lot of players jumping out early. There’s very good young players, certainly in the league, but there’s also an excellent amount of juniors and seniors on a lot of the teams that have been through so many different things and they understand the value of possession by possession.”

On whether the season to-date has surpassed his expectations:

“I don’t spend much time on expecations in the sense of where a program is at or where our program would be at.”

“If you feel like you’re getting better day-to-day, then the process is going to work itself out.”

“I like our chemistry. I like our team unity. I like our willingness to improve and the work ethic is tremendous.”

“Certainly Cody [Zeller] has brought a ton to the program and we anticipated that, but there’s no way to quantify or predict what a freshman is going to do in a program. You can be hopeful, but certainly Cody has done a lot of things with a lot of room to get better and a lot of room to make this team even better.”

On what stands out about Wisconsin:

“Their experience, they know how to play.”

“They have numerous guys that can play at a really high level.”

“I think when they’ve been at their best they’ve had really good balance.”

“Jared Berggren is really playing at a high level right now.”

“Their system is very strong and solid. They’re hard to score against. They pack the lane. But at the same time, they’ve got a lot of balance in their scoring and people that really space the court which puts a lot of pressure on not only your on the ball defense, but your help defense.”

On the importance of getting a win on Sunday:

“I think it validates the work. They put so much time into it and we certainly didn’t want this team to have the past, especially for the older guys, play into their minds because that’s somewhere you don’t want to go. We don’t spend a lot of time on the past but we also know it’s in the back of their minds.”

“It was very good for them mentally. The way they won it, the way we perservered throughout the game. The way we got better defensively throughout the game. The way the ball moved better, I think those are the things you hand your hat on and get ready for the next one with.”

The Nittany Lions went to the locker room leading 29-27 after limiting Indiana to just 9-of-22 from the field. Besides Cody Zeller, no other Hoosier scored more than one field goal before halftime.

But it didn’t take Indiana long to capture the momentum and control in the second half.

After Zeller tipped in a Verdell Jones miss to tie the game with 19:51 remaining, Jordan Hulls stole the ball from Jon Graham and found Jones for a layup to give the Hoosiers a 31-29 lead.

Penn State coach Pat Chambers quickly called for a timeout.

“I think the first two possessions kind of set the pace for us,” Zeller said. “We’re at our best when we’re out and running. I thought we had to match their intensity, they make a lot of hustle plays. I think in the second half we just turned it up defensively and it kind of led into our offense.”

Hulls, who finished with 14 points, four rebounds, three assists, three steals and no turnovers, said defense keyed Indiana’s success in the second half.

“It just starts with our defense,” he said. “When our offense isn’t going as good, we just have to rely on our defense to create offense off the bat. It definitely helped being at home was really good for us as well. The fans were great. But we’ve just got to have that mentality the whole game.”

ZELLER EFFICIENT ONCE AGAIN

With Penn State conceding a huge size disadvantage to Zeller in the paint, the Nittany Lions tried to push the IU freshman out of the paint for much of the afternoon.

But Zeller made the most of his limited opportunities by turning in another efficient offensive performance.

He finished with 18 points on 7-of-8 shooting from the field and made all four of his free throw attempts.

“He is very talented and very gifted,” Penn State coach Pat Chambers said. “He plays hard. He plays physical. He makes difficult shots. He is going to be very tough to deal with in the next however many years he is going to be here.”

Zeller said he wasn’t surprised at the physical approach Penn State took in an attempt to limited his opportunities.

“The Big Ten’s a physical league,” he said. “I think that’s just how they play. It’s not anything where they’re game planning for me. It’s just how they play.”

ELSTON A FACTOR OFF THE BENCH

It’s been a while since Tom Crean has referred to Derek Elston as Indiana’s “seventh starter,” but the junior forward played a pivotal role in Sunday’s win.

Playing without a mask for the first time since returning on Dec. 28 from a nose fracture, Elston chipped in four points and six rebounds in 11 minutes.

Five of his six rebounds came in the second half.

“Derek, he played huge for us with rebounding,” Hulls said.

OTHER NOTES

2013 verbal commitments Collin Hartman and Devin Davis Jr. were both in attendance behind the Indiana bench. … Sunday’s win gave the Hoosiers their first season sweep of Penn State in the Crean era. … Indiana outscored Penn State 30-16 in the paint. … Jones passed Tom Bolyard and moved into 25th place on IU’s all-time scoring list with his four points. The senior guard had three assists and no turnovers in 31 minutes. … Indiana held Penn State without a field goal for more than eight minutes in the second half (from the 17:01 mark to the 9:01 mark).

Only this time the Hoosiers weren’t trailing by two in the final seconds. Indiana had a 17-point lead against Penn State with just over five seconds remaining. The Hoosiers needed to take a shot or accept a turnover for a shot-clock violation.

Watford rose up and was fouled hard by Penn State’s Matt Glover, starting a small scrum near the Indiana bench. Will Sheehey, who wasn’t even in the game at the time of the foul, appeared to be jawing with a Penn State player, and had to be restrained by Calbert Cheaney, the Hoosiers’ Director of Basketball Operations.

Sheehey was given a technical foul for his involvement and was ejected from the game because he was part of a double technical assessed earlier in the game.

“You hate to end the game like that,” said Penn State coach Patrick Chambers. “Both teams competed, both played hard and you want to leave it on the floor, but there’s no need for that. And I’ve talked to my team about that. We have a great reputation of playing hard and competing, but I don’t want to be a cheap-shot artist or any team that’s going to start fights. That’s not who we’re gonna be.”

Even though Sheehey was ejected, Indiana coach Tom Crean said he doesn’t expect Sheehey to be suspended for Thursday night’s game at Wisconsin.

“To my knowledge, nothing different with Will’s status,” Crean said. “There were no punches thrown or anything like that, it wasn’t considered a fight. It was more verbal than anything else. We’ve already talked about that internally. It”s just a maturity thing.”

OLADIPO’S D SLOWS FRAZIER

Penn State guard Tim Frazier got his points Sunday afternoon against the Hoosiers — he scored 21 — but he had to work extremely hard to get any room in the second half. Victor Oladipo and Sheehey each guarded Frazier for long stretches, and were responsible for holding him to 7-of-18 shooting.

“This became about ‘we cannot let Tim Frazier control this game,’” Crean said. “He is one of the most underrated guards in America.”

The Hoosiers picked Frazier up all over the court and did everything they could to keep him from getting the ball back once he gave it up.

“Coach Crean’s always got something new for me every time we play we these guys,” Frazier said. “He definitely tried to wear me down.”

Oladipo was responsible for guarding a similar player to Frazier in Nebraska guard Bo Spencer last Wednesday night. Crean said Oladipo learned from some of the mistakes he made against Spencer to better defend Frazier.

“Where we got hurt a couple times there is he helped off [Spencer],” Crean said. ” The thing he’s got to continue to learn is great defenders can do different things at the time of need, and great defenders can do the hard things all the time. He had great resolve, as did Will, in trying to make it hard for Tim Frazier.”

REACTION TO PATERNO’S PASSING

Legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno passed away before the game at the age of 85. Reports surfaced about his declining health late Saturday night.

Paterno, who served as the Nittany Lions head coach for 46 years, was fired in November after a sex abuse scandal involving former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky surfaced.

“He treated everybody with respect,” Crean said. “For him and his family to go through everything they have gone through and yet for him to love a school so much … that’s why you always live your life with integrity and respect. Obviously, he did.

“I think the players that played for him and the coaches that coached with him and the people that worked with him and the fans that followed him — they’ll be so much better off.”

But No. 11 Indiana failed to step on the throats of the Cornhuskers down the stretch. The Hoosiers squandered their double-digit lead by missing shots, turning the ball over, and giving up dribble penetration on nearly every defensive possession.

Nebraska, which had scored more than 55 points in only one Big Ten game this season, poured in 18 points over the final 5:59 to hand the Hoosiers their third straight loss.

The Hoosiers (15-4, 3-4) will look to correct those mistakes when they welcome Penn State (10-10, 2-5) to Assembly Hall for a noon tip on Sunday.

“There’s just too many things that, in the heat of battle, we were not as conscious of that we were conscious of earlier,” said Indiana coach Tom Crean. “That’s where we’ve got to grow up. Is that a maturity thing? Is that an experience thing? It’s probably all that. But the bottom line is we gotta do a better job. It’s always about execution under pressure.”

The Hoosiers failed to execute under pressure against the Cornhuskers, and it cost them. Of particular concern for Crean was the dribble penetration his team allowed. The Cornhuskers repeatedly got in the lane and either scored or kicked the ball out to open 3-point shooters.

Crean said his players were also sometimes guilty of over helping, which left shooters free on the perimeter.

“We got away from certain things that are constants for us,” Crean said. “We did not follow through the game plan a couple times late. Do we have to simplify it? I hope not. It becomes a communication issue. … The dribble penetration will get better as our attention to detail and the game plan gets back to where it needs to be.”

Even with all of their struggles, the Hoosiers still likely would have won the game had they executed in the final minute. They were still ahead by three points when Victor Oladipo failed to box out his man and gave up a put back. And Jordan Hulls, one of the nation’s best free throw shooters at 88 percent, missed the front end of a 1-and-1 to keep the door open for Nebraska.

Hulls has been known as a player who’s extremely hard on himself when he makes mistakes, and it sometimes seems to affect him at later times. The junior guard said he is getting better in that area.

“It’s always been a problem of mine,” he said. “I’m getting better at trying not to let it affect me the next play down the court, whether it’s offense or defense. It’s just something I need to work at, but I do feel like I’m getting better at it. If I’m going to be one of the leaders of this team, I need to be able to do that.”

Around the Hall is recommended reading from the Inside the Hall crew. So go ahead, get your read on.

– Myron Medcalf of ESPN.com asks this question: Did Indiana’s bandwagon fill up too soon? Medcalf writes, “Look, there’s a certain attitude that perennial winners possess. And the Hoosiers don’t have that yet.”

– Dustin Dopirak has a game wrap from Lincoln and also postgame audio from Cody Zeller and Victor Oladipo over at The Hoosier Scoop.

– Indiana Daily Student columnist Avi Zaleon gives his perspective on what’s currently ailing the Hoosiers.

– Zach Osterman of Inside Indiana explains what happened to the Hoosiers after they led by 13 with 14 minutes remaining ($).

– Jeff Eisenberg of Yahoo! Sports writes that the Hoosiers are again nationally relevant, but the Hoosiers still seem to be a year away from reclaiming the elite status they once held under Bob Knight.

– Terry Hutchens of The Indianapolis Star looks at Cody Zeller’s presence late in last night’s loss.

– Chris Vannini of MLive.com digs in to the difficultly that Big Ten teams are having on the road.

– Four of Indiana’s class of 2012 signees are nominees for the McDonald’s All-American game.

(Photo credit: Nebraska Media Relations)

They cruised to a 15-1 record beating then-No. 1 Kentucky and then-No. 2 Ohio State, losing only a road game against a hot Michigan State team.

They were the surprise team that was taking the nation by storm. They soared into the top 10, had every major publication talking about Cody Zeller and every Indiana fan screaming the words ‘We’re Back!’ to anyone that would listen.

But in the matter of two games in only one week, some of that has changed. The Hoosiers lost back-to-back games to Minnesota and Ohio State, and now have their first losing streak of the season as they prepare to play at Nebraska Wednesday night.

The shots haven’t been falling for No. 12 Indiana (15-3, 3-3) like they were earlier in the season, but the Hoosiers’ biggest struggles have come on the defensive end. They have allowed at least 77 points in each of their last three games.

“I don’t think it’s anything major,” Zeller said. “I think it’s kind of getting back to where we were at in the beginning of the season, getting back to the fundamentals, getting into people – getting back to what we’re really about.”

Perhaps the solution for a struggling Indiana defense is a Nebraska team that doesn’t score the ball well. The Cornhuskers (9-8, 1-5) average only 61.1 points per game, and they’ve scored more than 55 points only once in six conference games.

Nebraska has been better of late with the return of Jorge Brian Diaz and Dylan Talley from injury. Diaz and Talley each missed five games, including the first three games of the Big Ten season. Since their return, the Cornhuskers have gone just 1-2, but their two losses were by only five points each in tough road environments at Illinois and at Wisconsin. Nebraska opened the conference season with a 24-point home loss to Wisconsin without Diaz and Talley.

Diaz’s return has changed the Cornhuskers back into a post-oriented team. The 6-11, 245-pound Diaz is averaging 9.8 points and 4.7 rebounds per game this season, but he hasn’t scored as well since returning from injury.

“He catches the ball, usually with at least one foot in the paint,” said Indiana coach Tom Crean. “He’s not scoring a lot of points yet, but there’s a lot of touches. You’ve got to do a great job in trying to eliminate those touches in the post.”

The method Zeller and the Hoosiers use to stop those touches might depend on how the game is being called. Zeller has gotten in foul trouble twice already this season when trying to keep Ohio State’s Jared Sullinger from getting the ball.

“When he’s allowed to play, he’s pretty good,” Crean said of Zeller. “What I hate to see with somebody like him is that the game is called real nitpicky. He’s doing a good job with his positioning, with getting up, he’s getting his hands up. He’s doing a very good job adjusting to (Big Ten play).”

As important as Diaz is to Nebraska’s success, the Cornhuskers’ most dangerous player is guard Bo Spencer. He’s averaging 14.8 points per game and has been in double-figures in each of the last five conference games.

“Spencer is like [Tim] Frazier for Penn State,” Crean said. “He can create tremendous havoc in the break by getting to the basket, he’s a very good shooter.”

The comparison between Spencer and Frazier may be an easy one to make, but it’s hard to compare Nebraska to any other team in the conference. In many ways, the Cornhuskers still play like a Big 12 team.

But Indiana guard Victor Oladipo said that even though the Hoosiers haven’t visited Nebraska since 1942, it feels like just another conference game.

“It feels like a regular old game,” Oladipo said. “They’re in the Big Ten. So we have to go in there with the same edge, and that’s what we’re going to continue to do.”

Indiana freshman Cody Zeller is one of 25 finalists for the John R. Wooden Award, ESPN.com announced on Tuesday afternoon.

The 6-foot-11 big man is one of three freshman on the list, joining Kentucky’s Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.

Through 18 games, Zeller is averaging 14.8 points, 6.4 rebounds and 1.4 blocks per game.

Current Indiana Director of Basketball Operations Calbert Cheaney was the last Hoosier to win the Wooden Award in 1993. Former guard A.J. Guyton was the last finalist from Indiana back in the 1999-2000 season.

The complete list of finalists follows after the jump:

Harrison Barnes, 6-foot-8, So., F, North Carolina
Will Barton, 6-6, So., F, Memphis
William Buford, 6-6, Sr., G, Ohio State
Anthony Davis, 6-10, Fr., C, Kentucky
Marcus Denmon, 6-3, Sr., G, Missouri
Draymond Green, 6-7, Sr., F, Michigan State
John Henson, 6-11, Jr., C, North Carolina
John Jenkins, 6-4, Jr., G, Vanderbilt
Orlando Johnson, 6-5, Sr., G, UCSB
Darius Johnson-Odom, 6-2, Sr., G, Marquette
Kevin Jones, 6-8, Sr., F, West Virginia
Perry Jones III, 6-11, So., C, Baylor
Kris Joseph, 6-7, Sr., F, Syracuse
Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, 6-7, Fr., F, Kentucky
Jeremy Lamb, 6-5, So., G, Connecticut
Damian Lillard, 6-3, Jr., G, Weber State
Doug McDermott, 6-7, So., F, Creighton
Scott Machado, 6-1, Sr., G, Iona
Kendall Marshall, 6-4, So., G, North Carolina
Mike Moser, 6-8, So., F, UNLV
Arnett Moultrie, 6-11, Jr., C, Mississippi State
Thomas Robinson, 6-9, Jr., F, Kansas
Mike Scott, 6-8, Sr., F, Virginia
Jared Sullinger, 6-9, So., F, Ohio State
Cody Zeller, 6-11, Fr., C, Indiana

Inside the Hall was in attendance for the contest and we’ve compiled over two minutes of highlights of Hollowell in the embedded media player below. A postgame video interview is also available after the jump:

Notes and quotes from Tom Crean’s Monday morning appearance on the Big Ten coaches teleconference. Prior to the call, the Big Ten announced Illinois guard Brandon Paul as the league’s player of the week and Minnesota’s Joe Coleman as the league’s freshman of the week:

OPENING REMARKS

- “Well we’ve had a tough week in the sense that we haven’t played, we feel, up to the standards that we had been playing with. And some of it is that we’re just not making shots the way that we had. I think when you shoot the ball at a pretty high rate, it brings a lot of energy. But the difference between a team that’s good and a team that’s trying to be a lot better than that is can your energy continue to be where it needs to be on the defensive end when the shots aren’t going in. We had some chances, especially early on yesterday in the Ohio State game when we watched the film that if a couple of things go different for us early, it’s a different story potentially. But it didn’t happen that way. And we’ve just got to continue to play through, if we have droughts, we’ve got to be able to play through them at a really good pace defensively. And that’s what we’re going to continue to make sure that we try to understand.”

ON INDIANA’S STRUGGLES DEFENSIVELY

- “I think the intensity is good. But I think the urgency and the awareness is not where it needs to be. And I think it’s sometimes a matter of getting through screens, getting out of rotations, being in position. There’s a lot of different things that go into it. Yesterday the game started out where we didn’t block out very well. It’s different things and it probably does come back to the point where it’s got to be that communication, everybody understands what the other person is doing on the defensive end of the floor and then it carries over to the second half where they’re not in front of the coaches. I think those are the biggest areas. It’s not one glaring area. There’s a lot of little areas that need to be shored up.”

ON NEBRASKA

- “They’re very hard-nosed. They’re very, very well-coached. They have a lot of energy. They do a very good job of playing inside-outside. They’ve got good guard play. They’ve got [Jorge Brian] Diaz back inside, which provides a lot for them that they didn’t have earlier. So we don’t have any qualms about how hard this game is going to be.”

ON HOW THE PLAYERS HAVE HANDLED SUCCESS

- “I think they’ve handled it well. I really do. I think they’ve done a really good job of understanding that we’re in a climb here. I think the moment that we let down our guard, especially with the urgency that it takes to win these games and the mindset that you have to have going in especially defensively that in this league we should never forget that everybody can beat anybody on any given night. It doesn’t matter if it was us in the past when we were coming up as a program or where we’ve gotten better to this year. It’s still gotta be the same sense of urgency, the same awareness on defense, the same ball movement on offense. You just try to keep them as focused on the process of why they’re winning and how to get better at the same time. Then when you hit a little drought like we have this week, you continue to show them how close you are but at the same time how far away it is if you don’t play with that urgency and that edge that you’ve been playing with.”

ON THE NCAA RECENTLY DECIDING TO ALLOW EIGHT HOURS OF PRACTICE TIME PER WEEK FOR INCOMING RECRUITS

- “I think anytime you can get more hands on work with your players year round, the better the program is going to be because they want to learn. They really do. Even the ones that come in thinking they know everything, they figure out pretty quick that they need to learn some things. And I think the bottom line is, when you’re running a program it’s like any other business, if you’re taking away from it or if you’re not allowed to work with your people, somewhere there’s going to be a void and that void’s going to be filled by something or someone. And when you can continue to teach year-round your players what it means for them to be successful, the tools that they have to have, that they can then take on their own and work and build towards, I think that only helps. But you want to build relationships year-round as well. You get to build them in recruiting.  In the summer time when they’re there, that’s the most vulnerable time. So you want to make sure that you’re continuing to build all facets of the relationship.”

Tom Crean

Christian Watford, Cody Zeller, Jordan Hulls

Thanks to our friends at The Hoosier Scoop for the audio.