For 29 minutes of play, the Hoosiers held it together. With 11:19 left in the second half, they were tied at 53 with 12th-ranked Michigan State on the road.
Then, the dam broke, and Indiana reverted to its same old patterns. This time, one of the best teams in the country exploited those habits to the tune of a 19-0 run that blew the game wide open in an 81-60 IU loss.
Over the course of that back-breaking run, the Hoosiers turned the ball over five times, gave up four offensive rebounds, and managed to not grab a single live-ball rebound. In fact, they went over 11 minutes without one from the time of Reed Bailey’s offensive rebound at 12:34 to Trent Sisley’s defensive board with one minute left.
“We knew there was going to be some issues there with some of the interior play,” Darian DeVries said. “Like, we’re going to have some matchup problems with some of the rebounding things, and obviously, we got crushed on the glass there, so that was a big part of it.”
During that time, Michigan State went 6-10 from the field while making just one 3. The Spartans forced turnovers and attacked the rim, giving themselves opportunities for second-chance points and trips to the charity stripe.
“It got tied up there with about 11:30 to go,” DeVries said. “And then after that, I thought we had some poor offensive possessions, which was the same thing that happened to us the other day at home, where we had some turnovers, maybe a couple of non-quality shots, and that led to their transition, and you can’t give them transition, especially here, and that’s where the game flipped.”
Turnovers continue to be a topic of conversation for DeVries, despite talk of fixing the problem over Indiana’s extended holiday break.
“It’s something you prioritize every day in practice, but, yeah, it’s something that’s very fixable,” DeVries said. “It’s like we’ve talked repeatedly about — where are these turnovers coming from? Who’s causing them? And in most of the cases, they’re decision-making turnovers. It wasn’t because we were getting trapped, and they were getting deflections that way. A lot of them are self-inflicted activity, obviously, by Michigan State, but they’re still decision-making turnovers that we’ve got to do a better job, especially when you’re in that parsed portion of the game. It’s like you’ve gotten yourself, it’s a tied game, there’s 11 minutes to go, being able to play off of two feet, make those sound decisions, still run good offense, still be aggressive, but prioritize the basketball more. And, like I said, that’s disappointing for a veteran group as we have to be turning the ball over in these type of situations.”
The signs of a mental breakdown were there for the Hoosiers leading up to the run, but Lamar Wilkerson’s 19 points helped cover them up for a bit.
Rumors of Michigan State coaxing its opponents into lane violations were true, as Indiana stepped early multiple times in the first half. On other occasions, the Hoosiers were just unaware of the expiring shot clock, resulting in a few violations. All those mishaps, combined with the live-ball turnovers, stacked the odds against Indiana.
It all came to a head after a Lamar Wilkerson steal with just under six minutes to go, with IU down 15. As Indiana had numbers going the other way, Bailey got tangled up with Cooper Carson and proceeded to shove him in the back, resulting in a Flagrant 1 foul. Instead of a fast break with a chance for the Hoosiers to steal back some momentum, Carson headed to the free-throw line, and Bailey fouled out in his 18th minute.
But the truth is, outside of late-game blunders, you can survive those mental errors. On the road in the Big Ten, especially in an environment like the Breslin Center with students back for the first game after break, those mistakes are commonplace.
What you can’t survive is nearly being doubled up in the rebounding battle. If Indiana only gets 19 rebounds to Michigan State’s 37, it’s going to take a stellar shooting night from 3 to be in this kind of game, even when it wins the turnover battle, like it did Tuesday night.
As good as Michigan State is, there are even bigger and badder teams in the Big Ten–one of them in the same state–that have the ability to run up an even uglier final score if the Hoosiers don’t get these chronic issues under control.