IU basketball embarrassed at Wisconsin: ‘Mentally we’re not tough’

The horrors of the Kohl Center continued for Indiana men’s basketball Tuesday night, and with it, any hope of improvement gleaned from the last two games was squashed.

With a 76-64 loss — a final score that underrepresented the lopsided nature of the contest — the Hoosiers’ losing streak in Madison, Wisconsin extended to 21 games. Their last win in the arena came on Jan. 25, 1998. For a team scraping to try and weasel its way back into NCAA tournament contention, Tuesday’s defeat felt like a massive gut punch in a season of struggles.

“We’re just not a tough team right now,” Mike Woodson said postgame. “We’re not. Mentally we’re not tough.”

One play painted a grim picture of Indiana’s loss. Wisconsin held a 21-4 lead roughly six minutes into the first half and pushed the ball in transition after Anthony Leal had a layup attempt blocked. Indiana was discombobulated on the other end of the floor and as Badger senior forward Carter Gilmore spotted up for a 3-point attempt, there was no resistance.

Oumar Ballo — who was supposed to step out and contest Gilmore’s shot — was planted at the free-throw line with his eyes fixed on the basket. Gilmore splashed his wide-open triple and Luke Goode gave Ballo an earful immediately.

Ballo and Malik Reneau were bottled up offensively, combining for just 10 points, and defensively, they were often a step slow guarding Wisconsin’s frontcourt. Badger sophomore forward Nolan Winter scored 12 points and Gilmore added 10 on a perfect 3-for-3 shooting from beyond the arc.

Woodson wasn’t shy about calling players out by name in the postgame press conference.

“I thought Malik and Ballo did an awful job in terms of guarding the bigs,” Woodson said. “We were terrible in transition early and they got a few there… the first half put us out of the game, basically.”

That shot marked Wisconsin’s sixth made 3-pointer on its first seven attempts, and trailing 24-4, the result was all but sealed.

“We’re pushing and pulling and scraping and just trying to get what we can get,” Woodson said. “Guys just didn’t step up again tonight.”

If the slow start seemed familiar, it’s because it’s become all too common amid the Hoosiers’ slew of blowout losses.

In Iowa City on Jan. 11, turnovers and a lethargic start doomed Indiana in an 85-60 thrashing. Three days later, in Indiana’s 94-69 loss to Illinois, the Hoosiers trailed 30-14 by the midpoint of the first half.

It’s difficult this late in the season to fully rationalize the team’s unpreparedness. Woodson himself had a tough time discussing it, too.

“It’s hard for me to explain it,” Woodson said.

It’s tough to explain given the fight Indiana’s displayed recently. In its 79-78 loss to Maryland on Jan. 26, Indiana clung to a two-point lead with less than 10 seconds remaining before a gaffe on the final possession cost the Hoosiers a victory.

Then there was Purdue. Most, rightfully so, expected a comfortable victory for the Boilermakers. A win wouldn’t have altered the trajectory of the season by any means, but Indiana stormed into Mackey Arena with a type of toughness that’s seldom been seen this year.

The Hoosiers led 76-75 with under 15 seconds left, but another questionable final sequence saw a winnable game slip away. Indiana’s primary issue this season has been its inability to build on these performances. After back-to-back losses to Iowa and Illinois, the Hoosiers responded with a gutsy road win over Ohio State.

But it’s clear now, with Indiana nursing a four-game losing streak since Jan. 17, that response was really a blip on the radar. The losses undoubtedly have taken their toll.

“None of these guys like to lose,” Woodson said. “I don’t like to lose. I don’t like the way we’re playing. I thought at Purdue we played great, Maryland game we played great, we played a great half at Northwestern. But we were awful tonight.”

Starting with the matchup with Iowa, Indiana faced 11 consecutive Quad 1 games. In seven chances during that stretch so far, the Hoosiers have tallied just one win. They dropped to 2-9 overall in Quad 1 contests this season, with five of those losses coming by at least 16 points.

When analyzing Indiana’s woes since the Iowa game, it’s important to recall the expectations this team garnered coming into the year. Ballo, Myles Rice and Kanaan Carlyle were viewed as consensus difference makers. CBS Sports’ preseason poll projected the Hoosiers to finish second in the conference.

With turnovers and inefficient shooting splits, Rice hasn’t been the engine of a high-flying offense Woodson envisioned. Carlyle has virtually been a non-factor, averaging 4.6 points on 29.2 percent shooting from the field. And while Ballo has been one of the team’s silver linings, his efforts haven’t been quite enough.

Dusty May and No. 24 Michigan will visit Bloomington on Saturday. After that, Indiana will face No. 9 Michigan State, UCLA and No. 7 Purdue. Indiana is reeling, and its road to the final stretch of the season doesn’t get much easier.

Woodson talked vaguely Tuesday night about needing to figure things out with eight regular season games left, and as the Hoosiers sit 5-7 in Big Ten play with an NCAA tournament bid inching further out of their grasp, those empty platitudes are nearly all that remain.

(Photo credit: IU Athletics)

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