The Minute After: Minnesota

Tayton Conerway handles the ball at Minnesota.

Thoughts on a 73-64 loss to the Golden Gophers:

A sparse Barn crowd. A Minnesota team dealing with injuries, losers of three straight.

Didn’t matter.

Welcome to the Big Ten, new-look Hoosiers.

Niko Medved and the Golden Gophers had the game plan to slow down Indiana’s offense. On the perimeter, deny Lamar Wilkerson and Tucker DeVries in-rhythm 3-point looks and make sure they don’t kill you on back cuts. Live with others, like Tayton Conerway, shooting them.

Live, too, with Indiana’s bigs getting opportunities against your depleted frontcourt 1-on-1. Keep the score down, the pace slow. Play hard, give max effort and see how it goes.

While Indiana scored on its first six possessions and countered Minnesota’s defensive strategy effectively, the Hoosiers scored on just eight of their final 23 possessions in the first half. Indiana has looked fluid, comfortable and in control offensively for much of the season. But as this game wore on, the Hoosiers appeared anything but. Possessions stalled. Little came easily. The Minnesota crowd got into it and Indiana seemed to wilt under the spotlight of its first true road game of the season.

The Hoosiers responded early in the second half to Minnesota’s physical style, going hard to the rim and looking for fouls. The problem was that the free-throw shooting just wasn’t there. Reed Bailey got fouled early, making 1-of-2. Not much later, Wilkerson was fouled and went 1-of-2. Conerway then missed two in a row. Next up was Bailey again, making 1-of-2. Then Sam Alexis missed two straight on a trip. These all came in the first seven and a half minutes of the second half, Indiana going just 3-of-10 from the line. The Hoosiers finished the contest 12-of-20 (60 percent) from the charity stripe.

After those Alexis missed free throws, Minnesota went on a run. Isaac Asuma hit a 3-pointer to tie the game at 43. Cade Tyson followed with a 3-pointer of his own. A third 3-pointer during this stretch at the 9:25 mark by Jaylen Crocker-Johnson put the Golden Gophers up eight points, 53-45. The Hoosiers cut it to two points on a DeVries 3-pointer in transition after a Wilkerson steal at the 7:49 mark, but that was as close as they’d get the rest of the way. Minnesota bumped the lead out to 10 with 4:08 to go. Indiana did make a run at it by going to a full-court press that flummoxed the Golden Gophers a bit. And Wilkerson did find some success on back cuts on his way to 15 points. But the Hoosiers couldn’t get enough shots to fall to pull out the comeback, getting the deficit down to three points with 2:00 to play before settling on a nine-point loss.

The Hoosiers scored just .97 points per possession in this one, a season-low. Their effective field goal percentage of 47.3 was the second-lowest of the season thus far. After hiking up some 3s late to try and get back into it, Indiana also finished just 8-of-27 (29.6 percent) from 3-point range. Minnesota turned the ball over on 24.2 percent of its possessions, which helped Indiana to 22 points off turnovers.

Bailey mustered just a 1-of-5 performance with four rebounds in 20 minutes of action. Aside from his performance at Kansas State, he’s struggled against physical frontcourt play this season. Sam Alexis fared better off the bench with 10 points on 5-of-7 shooting, pulling in three boards in 19 minutes.

This won’t be the last time Big Ten opponents dare Indiana’s frontcourt and supporting cast to beat them.

For a night, it worked.

For the season? Indiana’s got to figure it out.

(Photo credit: IU Athletics)

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