At halftime of Sunday’s game against Rutgers on the road in Piscataway, N.J., Indiana coach Tom Crean noticed his players were showing a tinge of disappointment.
The Hoosiers led by 10 points against the Scarlet Knights. But Crean gathered the players felt like they left points on the table — from their nine first half turnovers to missed rebounding opportunities in the closing seconds, on both offense and defense.
From the start of the second half, the Hoosiers didn’t look back. After a 9-0 Indiana run opened the scoring in the final 20 minutes, the Hoosiers eased their way to an 84-54 win — their largest margin of victory in more than two months.
“What I like about this team is they’re starting to hold each other accountable for the details of the game — two-hand rebounds, seeing the next pass, getting to the right spot,” Crean said. “That’s key. That’s really key. If we can continue to build on that, we’ll get better.”
Tom Crean met with the media following Indiana’s 84-54 win over Rutgers on Sunday night at the Rutgers Athletic Center in Piscataway, New Jersey.
Watch the full press conference below:
Video special to Inside the Hall via Greg Johnson.
Rutgers coach Eddie Jordan met with the media following his team’s 84-54 loss to Indiana on Sunday night at the Rutgers Athletic Center in Piscataway, New Jersey.
Watch the full press conference below:
Thoughts on a 84-54 win against the Scarlet Knights:
The mental makeup of this Indiana squad has proven to be pretty resilient this season. And so any lingering effects from the Purdue loss simply didn’t manifest at The RAC on Sunday evening. Indiana took care of business in a big way against a Rutgers squad coming in losers of 10 straight en route to a 30-point blowout.
The Hoosiers started the game shaky with four turnovers before the first media timeout. But they carried a 10-point lead (40-30) into the break. A 9-0 run to start the second half opened the floodgates and the rout was on. James Blackmon Jr. (17 points, seven rebounds) paced the Indiana offense in the first half on some nice scores at the bucket and behind the line. Hanner Mosquera-Perea was active from the onset and it helped him get to the line eight times this evening. He made seven of those attempts and went 3-of-3 from the floor — including a nice finish on a pick-and-roll with Yogi Ferrell — to end the contest with a career-high 13 points.
Ferrell played the role of distributor in the first half but exploded offensively after the break. He tied Blackmon Jr. with a team-high 17 points to go along with six rebounds and six assists. The Hoosiers didn’t shoot it particularly well from distance up through the beginning of the second half, but started dropping more as the lead ballooned up during the rest of the contest to shoot close to 40 percent from distance (10-of-27, 37 percent). Nick Zeisloft hit 3-of-4 from deep and added a 2-point jumper as the shot clock expired in the first half to finish with 13 points.
Indiana finished with 1.21 points per possession and a 62.1 eFG%. Not its best offensive performance of the season, but a strong one that propelled them to a lopsided victory.
It seems like it is now a distant memory — but just over a month ago on January 11, Rutgers defeated No. 5 Wisconsin at home by a 67-62 score.
Perhaps that is because since that upset win, the Scarlet Knights haven’t had a victory. They have lost 10 games in a row. They have dropped to last place in the Big Ten standings.
But while the Scarlet Knights have been struggling heading into this afternoon’s game against Indiana (5:15 p.m., BTN), the Hoosiers insist they are not overlooking this game.
“You don’t play their record, you don’t play their percentages, you play the players,” Indiana coach Tom Crean said. “We had a very tight game with them a couple weeks back. They’ve been in some very close games and they’ve also had some tough losses but they can score.”
The Hoosiers learned what trouble the Scarlet Knights pose just three weeks ago, when the two sides faced off in Bloomington. Indiana struggled to put its stamp on the game, as Rutgers dictated the pace in Assembly Hall and even had a seven-point lead midway through the second half.
Heading into today’s game, Crean said that is one thing the Hoosiers don’t want to allow in Piscataway. He said he wants his team dictating the pace — and with good reason. In games played at or faster than Indiana’s average tempo, the Hoosiers are 4-1 against Big Ten opponents. Rutgers, meanwhile, is 0-5 in games that are that quick.
In IU’s 67-63 loss to the Boilermakers on Thursday evening, A.J. Hammons was a force on both ends of the court. He disrupted Indiana’s shots at the rim and racked up 20 points on 8-of-9 shooting from the floor.
We’ll take a look at the Hammons effect in the latest edition of Film Session:
Stanford Robinson has Hammons on the left wing. Not a 3-point shooter, Hammons doesn’t come out all the way to guard him:
Robinson opts for the drive and gets into the lane with Hammons close:
Robinson tries a lay-up attempt, but Hammons erases the shot with authority:
Tom Crean, Hanner Mosquera-Perea and Robert Johnson met with the media at Cook Hall on Saturday afternoon to preview Sunday’s game at Rutgers.
Watch all three media sessions below:
