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Thoughts on an 81-69 win over the Hawkeyes:
It’s been a long week for Indiana basketball.
The home loss to Purdue last Thursday shocked fans, some cascading down to apathy for this season… and the schedule. The vacuum created by Sunday’s canceled game against Michigan State only added more time to wallow in it all.
But the season is not over yet. There are still games to play. No one on the ground seems to give up. And tonight was a reminder that for all of the Big Ten basketball paper homework, once the ball is tipped, you never really know what’s going to happen.
And what happened tonight is that the nation’s most effective attack cooled off in the final 30 minutes of the contest. Frozen ice in the second half. How much ice in the second half? Try a basket dryness of over 11 minutes and a mark of 1 in 10 from a distance, the only mark to come after the game is over. Iowa has only made nine baskets of 34 attempts (26.5%) in the last 20 minutes. Jordan Bohannon, an Indiana killer in previous games, missed all nine shots tonight. Eight of them came from far away. (It also hurt that CJ Fredrick didn’t play the entire second half due to injury.)
But credit to Indiana’s defensive performance as well. It was sloppy at the start, allowing Iowa to easily watch from 3 points. And his decision to let Luka Garza go one-on-one to start the contest really got him started. Yet as the game progressed Indiana stopped allowing Iowa all that space on the perimeter. And Race Thompson and Jordan Geronimo gave absolutely everything they had on Garza. Add to that the Indiana Guards attacking the alleged National Player of the Year time and time again and you can tell he’s been deranged. I could tell he really had to work for everything he had. Garza shot just 4 of 11 in the second half. His 28 points matched his season average. The Hoosiers didn’t let Garza go mad because they stood up for him.
Speaking of Geronimo, it was his best game as a Hoosier. Thurst in more playing time due to issues from Trayce Jackson-Davis and Thompson, Geronimo was unlikely the best individual defenseman Indiana threw at Garza all night. He also made his presence felt on offense, scoring seven points and making his three field goal attempts.
It was another mediocre free throw performance for the Hoosiers (21 of 35, 60 percent). And the Hawkeyes absolutely cleared the offensive boards, bouncing 43% of their misfires, helping them reach 17 second chance points. But Indiana was strong in other areas, which helped ensure those two factors didn’t ring a bell when another road win over one of the nation’s top teams was at hand. The Hoosiers returned him with just 11.7% of their property tonight, their third best performance in this category all season. That included just one second-half mistake before returning it twice late after Iowa pressured the field to try to get back into the game. Indiana also made 47.1 percent (8 of 17) from the 3-point range. It’s the best of the season. The low turnover rates and solid 3-point attacking shots were huge in this one.
With the conference being so good this year, the Hoosiers have plenty of opportunities to clinch victories against some of the best teams in the country, helping to bolster their considerations at NCAA tournaments. Against Wisconsin, Indiana failed in double overtime, missing a shot at the end of the settlement to win it.
But tonight against Iowa, the Hoosiers closed it with relative ease, and who would have said it?
(Photo credit: IU Athletics)
Filed at: Iowa Hawkeyes
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