Ann Arbor, Mich. — To be fair to Indiana, the final score was not reflective of the closeness of the game through the first 35 minutes. To be fair to Michigan, it still wasn’t that far off after the last five.
On this night, it was the familiar blend of turnovers, poor shot selection and an overall lack of offensive rhythm that doomed Indiana in a 69-45 loss. The Hoosiers were just 1-of-15 from behind the arc, shot 36.5 percent from the floor for the game and committed 19 turnovers, leading to 21 Michigan points.
“We got a lot of good looks, but they just wouldn’t fall,” Verdell Jones said afterward, referring in particular to the 3-point shooting.
Indiana fans can take heart in the Hoosiers’ defensive effort, which the final score probably doesn’t do justice. The visitors forced 16 turnovers and never let Michigan find its 3-point shot, one of the Wolverines’ preferred scoring methods. And it wasn’t until late in the second half that Michigan truly pulled away — cued, unsurprisingly, by Manny Harris’ 17 second-half points, most of which came in the final minutes.
“Credit Indiana, they did a wonderful job,” Michigan coach John Beilein said after the game. “I was really impressed with how they played defense today.”
BAD AND UGLY: YEAH, WE’RE STARTING IN REVERSE TONIGHT.
Do you know what we learned tonight? Because I’ll tell you what we learned tonight. This Hoosiers team is trending as such: good performances buttressed by bad ones. Really, really bad ones.
Where one could take pride in games like IU’s victory over Michigan, or Pittsburgh or even their work against Kentucky in a loss, they’ve underachieved in Puerto Rico, looked woeful at home in a loss to Loyola (Md.) and looked equally bad against Ohio State in Columbus this evening.
We wanted to look to the Michigan game as a sign this team has turned the corner, that they were going to be OK without Mo Creek. But they are young. Young teams will do that to you. They will emblazon your heart one moment with the promise of better things on the horizon, only to regress to a middle-school turnover fest the next.
If you watched the game this evening — IU’s first real road test of the season in a stadium that wasn’t even full and was pretty lifeless — you know what happened here. Turnovers were the story. Unforced, dribbled-off-the-leg turnovers. Fourteen in the first half, coupled with the length and athleticism of Ohio State’s man defense that left IU stagnant on the offensive end, and there was just no turning back. Christian Watford had six of those 14 turnovers in the first half. (IU finished with 24 for the game, by the way.) And where Devan Dumes came in and saved the day against Michigan last week, he instead air-balled a three upon his arrival.
For 31 minutes, Indiana and Maryland were engaged in a back-and-forth battle in Assembly Hall.
But after a Christian Watford free throw tied the game at 54 with 8:49 remaining, the more experienced Terrapins went on a 16-4 run on their way to a comfortable 80-68 win in the Big-Ten ACC Challenge.
The loss was the fourth in five games for Indiana.
Greivis Vasquez scored 23 points to lead Maryland (5-2), which shot 47 percent from the field. Vasquez hit 13 of 14 free throws. Three other Terrapins scored in double figures, led by 19 from Landon Millbourne.
“It was a winnable game and we did not pressure the ball well enough,” Indiana head coach Tom Crean said. “We did not play physical enough, we did not play tough enough on the defensive end.”
The Hoosiers, on the other hand, shot just 33 percent and despite pulling down 20 offensive rebounds, scored just 16 second chance points. Maurice Creek scored 19 points to lead IU and Christian Watford added 16.
Indiana led by seven with 5:29 remaining in the first half on a pair of free throws by Creek, but Maryland closed the half on a 14-5 run to grab a 35-33 halftime lead.
The Terps took the lead for good at the 8:36 mark on a free throw by Adrian Bowie and IU’s final lead was 53-52 with 9:44 on a jump shot by Verdell Jones.
Besides Creek and Watford, Indiana struggled to find offense. Jones shot just 3-of-15 and Derek Elston and Devan Dumes each shot 2-of-10 from the floor. The Hoosiers hit just 7-of-26 three-point attempts.
Crean unhappy with student chants towards Vasquez: “We can be obnoxious, we can be nasty, we can cheer against the other team, but we never use vulgarity. We never use vulgarities against an opponent. That’s not what happened at Indiana in the past and it’s certainly not going to happen under my watch. But I love our fans. I love the energy they brought us tonight. We did not match the energy of our fans. But at no point in time are vulgarities in that crowd going to be accepted. And that cannot happy at Indiana. We have too much pride. We have too many great students, great memories, too many tradition based things here for anything to ever turn it the other way. And nobody deserves that. We’ve got to find a way to be obnoxious without being vulgar because we’re too good for that.”
Maryland turns it over: The Terrapins committed a season-high 18 turnovers. They came into the game averaging just 10.7 per game.
Jeremiah Rivers injury: After a reverse layup with 18:56 remaining in the first half, Rivers left the game with back spasms. He returned later in the first half and finished with five points, six rebounds, two assists, a block and a steal in 19 minutes.
Up next: Pittsburgh on Tuesday, Dec. 8 at Madison Square Garden at 9:00 EST. The game will be broadcast on ESPN.
Crean discusses fan behavior, courtesy of Ronan O’Shea on YouTube:
Player postgame interviews, courtesy of IU Athletics on YouTube:
Yes, Indiana lost, and ended up 0-3 in Puerto Rico. But the Hoosiers looked much better against George Mason this morning than they did against Ole Miss and Boston University.
Guys like Bobby Capobianco — seven points, 10 boards (five offensive) and Jordan Hulls — eight points — played the best games of their young careers. Bobby C. might not have a ton of polish, but he did the dirty work on the boards and finished around the rim. It’s exactly the kind of play Tom Crean is looking for from him off the bench. Hulls played with poise, and I think did a better job of orchestrating the offense today than Rivers had done in the previous two games in this tourney. Crean recognized that, and when both Hulls and Rivers were in the ball game, it was Hulls bringing the ball up.The box score only reads 13 minutes for Hulls, but he played so well when he was in there, it seemed like much more.
Hulls lacks athleticism and when you couple that with his size, it can create some matchup problems. But he’s solid, doesn’t make many mistakes and has great basketball IQ. And he flashed some range today with two threes. If the Hoosiers would have gotten a chance to get a three off to tie the game instead of Mason fouling so they had no chance to pop, Hulls was the guy I wanted shooting the ball.
IU seemed more under control, and their 15 turnovers came less off trying to do too much or getting out of control on the break, and more off some passing problems. On the offensive end, they looked more mature, looked more confident. But they just weren’t knocking down shots (20-of-57 for 35 percent shooting), and missed a lot of bunnies around the rim. It proved quite costly.
Perhaps most important in this loss was the way IU closed out the game. It wasn’t an implosion like we saw against Boston University. They didn’t wilt. They scored when they needed to. And with the game tied and Mason looking for a go-ahead bucket, IU played terrific defense and forced Cam Long into a desperation three with the shot clock winding down and a few Hoosier hands in his face. He just happened to hit that desperation three. On a bank shot. A bank he most certainly didn’t call. Tough way to lose, especially for a young team looking for confidence.
The Hoosiers also hit 21-of-28 from the line, good for 75 percent. Lets hope those early free-throw woes are a thing of the past.
Courtesy of the IU Athletics channel on YouTube, here is a bit of practice footage and also comments from Tom Crean to the media from earlier today (in this case media = Dustin Dopirak):
And also, interviews with Christian Watford and Bobby Capobianco:
Did anyone else get a minor chill seeing Doc Rivers in Assembly Hall? I can’t explain this at all. I don’t really like Rivers. I’m not sure he’s a great NBA coach so much as a decent NBA coach who happened to luck into Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen at the right time. And after the Bulls-Celtics series last spring, I’m kind of predisposed to hate everything to do with this current Celtics team.
And yet there I was, getting all goosebumpy as John Laskowski nervously interviewed Rivers at halftime. Rivers talked about his son, Jeremiah, his (Doc’s) excitement on his son’s announcement that he was considering Indiana as a destination, and his desire to just be a parent during IU games. He even had the IU hat on. It was pretty cool. And it was probably the most noteworthy thing about IU’s relatively lackluster win over USC-Upstate Monday night.
This year’s Hoosiers present a weird paradox. They’re not last year’s team, as much as Devan Dumes might wish they were. They’re definitely better — you can see the heightened level of play almost immediately, from Rivers to Christian Watford (man, is it nice to have an athletic big man with touch in an IU uniform again) to Derek Elston to Maurice Creek, who might just become my favorite player on this year’s team.
But this year’s Hoosiers are not a good team. There is a long way to go from “better than 6-25″ to “good.” And so while last year a win like Monday night’s might have been cause for minor excitement — IU led by 20! IU scored 69 points! — this year, it feels harder to process. So, am I supposed to be excited that IU seems borderline competent again? Or should I be depressed by the fact that an 18-turnover game at home against USC-Upstate has me considering excitement? See what I mean?
Watford continues to impress. He’s been billed as a guy that can do it all, and this game really highlighted that: he got boards, hit shots, created in the lane, got some steals, a block, and he even brought the ball up the court on one occasion. For the night he had 17 points, 10 boards, two steals and one block. He’s not a dominant player yet, but he has the tools to develop into one.
Elston was a lot of fun to watch tonight. He showed off his range with a 3-ball, and on another one that he missed in the second half, he did a good job of following his shot, which led to a board and a bucket for him. (This is something I don’t remember Matt Roth doing once last season.) Elston also had a nice tip-in follow on a miss from Verdell Jones. He’s got a nice nose for the ball, works hard and is a polished player for a freshman. I’m really liking his game thus far.
THE BAD: THE FIRST HALF, TURNOVERS AND FREE THROWS.
This game had shades of last season, as the Hoosiers racked up 18 turnovers, and only went 16-of-30 from the line. The beginning of the game was particularly rough; the Hoosiers never built any momentum or rhythm and let the Spartans hang around. It was a very sloppy affair. It’s clear Jeremiah Rivers is a terrific passer, but he was a little off this evening as he had four turnovers. It was almost as if he was trying to do too much. IU isn’t going to turn the ball over like this all season, but heading into their first real test of the year against Mississippi on Thursday, it’s a little worrisome.
THE UGLY: DEVAN DUMES.
I feel bad for Dumes. Last year, outside of Tom Pritchard, he was expected to be the man on offense. But this year, with an influx of talent around him, Dumes has to swallow his pride and assume a new role, and it’s not something I’m sure he’s going to handle particularly well, at least to start. With more size on this team, he looks smaller out on the court now, too. He’s still going to pop when he has the chance, but tonight was a particularly rough one for him: in 20 minutes, he had four turnovers — a few that were real ugly — and shot 1-of-6 from the field, 0-of-3 for behind the arc and 0-of-1 from the line. He did have five boards, however.
This is but one game, so it’s a small sample size. Dumes has plenty of time to find his mark.
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