The Minute After: Northwestern

Darian DeVries on the sidelines.

Thoughts on a 74-61 loss to the Wildcats:

If this is the end — and it’s probably the end? — it finishes like so many other seasons for this program over the last decade.

Hoping for a Big Ten tournament run to make a last-minute dash to the NCAA tournament, only to get stopped before things even got started.

This one felt all too familiar to Indiana’s loss to Northwestern on February 24. The Hoosiers looked crisp offensively to start and were holding Nick Martinelli in check. The latter was in part due to Darian DeVries starting Sam Alexis and Reed Bailey together for the first time this season. They blitzed Martinelli on double teams to get the ball out of his hands. But for as much as the Hoosiers found ease scoring early, they were also giving it right back up on the other end.

Philadelphia product Jake West found his way to the basket for scores and also hit 2-of-3 from deep. His 14 points were crucial in keeping the Wildcats competitive with Indiana in the first half, as they trailed by just one (37-36) at halftime. Martinelli was able to get a little more daylight as the half wore along to chip in nine points of his own on 4-of-8 shooting. Northwestern scored 1.21 points per possession with an effective field goal percentage of 60. The Hoosiers posted 1.25 points per possession with an effective field goal percentage of 70.

But this time around, Indiana didn’t wait until the back stretch of the second half to go on an offensive drought as it did during its loss in Bloomington. It happened at the start instead. The Hoosiers made just two field goals over the first 10:45 of the second half. More accurately, those came from Lamar Wilkerson, who again had to carry Indiana on his back offensively when things went south, like he has so many times this season.

Northwestern just completely bottled up the Hoosiers, forcing them into several jumpers late in the shot clock that didn’t fall. That’s been another staple for this team this season when they can’t get anything going.

From there, IU never regained any real momentum. A loss felt like a foregone conclusion. The Wildcats got their lead out to 13 during Indiana’s two-field-goal stretch and bumped it up to as many as 18 later before settling on a 13-point victory.

DeVries gave Tayton Conerway more run (19 minutes) than he did in Indiana’s last three games. While Conerway certainly had some nice scoring drives and finished with 14 points — his most since the last Northwestern game — he also had two out-of-control turnovers in the lane in the second half, which drew the ire of DeVries on the sidelines.

Martinelli really got it going over the final 20 minutes, scoring 19 points to finish with a game-high 28 points. The Hoosiers again struggled to defend the 3-ball, leading to good looks for the Wildcats, even on a low volume. Northwestern hit 6-of-14 (42.9 percent) from deep.

Indiana ended up shooting just 5-of-20 (1-of-7 from 3-point range) in the second half, barely mustering an even 1.0 points per possession for the game.

And so this is probably it. The Hoosiers are now losers of seven straight to Northwestern and go out with a whimper.

It’s a bad loss to end a disappointing season, one in which you could feel apathy creeping into the fanbase.

It’s going to be another huge rebuild for DeVries via the transfer portal this offseason. What can he and Ryan Carr pull off? For his sake, for everybody’s sake, Indiana’s got to be in a better spot come this time next year.

(Photo credit: IU Athletics)

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