Hoosiers Not Desperate Enough, Lose to Louisville

By Matt St. Charles

On Wednesday, both Indiana and Louisville lost uncharacteristic games. The Hoosiers lost 73-64 at Minnesota, and the Cardinals fell to Arkansas, 89-80. 

Saturday, they met at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, and one team clearly had a fire lit under it right off the bat. 

“Kenny Rogers used to say, ‘You’ve got to know when to hold them, and know when to fold them,’” Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey said. “There are times you have to ramp it up a little bit. Coming out of that deal the other night, the politically correct way [to say it], is that we had some aggressive counseling. Guys responded.”

In the 87-78 loss, IU found itself down 16-0 seven minutes into the game, and never fully recovered. The suffocating Cardinals defense held the Hoosiers to 11-34 from behind the 3-point line and nabbed nine steals. 

For the better part of 40 minutes, Louisville was the sharper, more composed, more physical team. Indiana was able to make a few runs to keep the game from getting out of hand, but the Cardinals are one of the best teams in the country for a reason.

“When you go down 16-0 against a team like that, it’s tough,” Darian DeVries said. “They’re really good. They do a really good job offensively of making you pay when you make mistakes. Defensively, I thought we gave great effort, but on the mistakes that we made, they made us pay. And I thought defensively, they were really hooked up tonight. They did a good job of making things tough and challenging. We had some moments where we were able to break loose a little bit, but overall, it was just too big of a deficit to overcome.”

Louisville jumped on the Hoosiers from the tip, and they never really found a flow. The UL guards took Tayton Conerway out of rhythm early, forcing two turnovers in the first two minutes, and one of IU’s catalysts found himself in foul trouble. He finished with five turnovers and one assist. 

By the time Indiana settled into the tempo of the game in the second half, it wasn’t able to take advantage of the open looks it started to create. Tucker DeVries, who had 26 points, and Lamar Wilkerson, with 12, made a few things happen, but shot a combined 10-29. Easy opportunities were not abundant against the talented Louisville team. 

As DeVries mentioned, Louisville made his group pay for its slip-ups, and the main culprit was Isaac McKneely. While Ryan Conwell led the way with 21 for the Cardinals, McKneely scored 15 on 5-9 shooting from outside–and every one of them was a backbreaker for IU.

“I thought we did a really good job on [Mikel Brown, Jr.],” DeVries said. “Conwell had his moments. We did a really good job on two really good players. And then you’ve got McKneely. He’s the one who hurt us the most–not that the other guys didn’t. McKneely’s the one that we lost a few times. He’s the one that we made the most mistakes on. A guy like that is elite, and when he’s got space, he’s going to make them. We did a lot of good stuff, but those three, four, five mistakes we made on McKneely, he made them.”

So now, after starting 7-0, the Hoosiers have dropped two straight. Granted, Louisville isn’t a bad loss, despite being down as much as 19 before fighting back a bit, but this team could find itself backed into a corner by next Saturday night.

As matchups with Penn State and Kentucky loom next week, Indiana will need to dig down and find some of the same desperation Louisville possessed Saturday in Indianapolis.