Around this time each year, people grab their pens and paper to set new year's resolutions. There is no doubt one resolution for Indiana men's basketball was to earn its first road win of the season on January 2nd against Penn State.
However, that goal wasn’t achieved as Penn State shot 50% from 3-point and scored more than half of its points from behind the arc. This was one of the main reasons leading to IU's 58-61 loss.
An opportunity for IU to begin the new year by removing a goose egg next to its road record turned into a heartbreaking loss, prolonging their seven-game losing streak on the road dating back to last season.
Despite former head coach Archie Miller's absence and the arrival of head coach Mike Woodson, the drought of winning on the road hasn't been erased. The last time IU won a road game was February 10th, 2021, almost a year ago against Northwestern.
The Hoosiers have switched from being too hot or too cold on the road this season.
Against Syracuse, IU came back from a deficit but couldn't hold the lead. The Hoosiers then blew a 22-point lead to No. 22 Wisconsin. Tonight, IU was right there the whole way through and barely lost in the final minutes.
Woodson is new to college coaching, so it's partly understandable but still a problem IU needs to solve as the team heads into the main stretch of conference play.
When the Hoosiers fixed one problem against Penn State, the flood gates would reopen, and the team would have to repair damage elsewhere.
Woodson has harped on turnovers all season long, using 12 as an indicator whether the team needs extra conditioning in the next practice. IU managed to have half that number tonight and scored 18 points off Penn State's 13 turnovers.
However, IU was out-rebounded 39-29, and 11 were offensive rebounds in favor of Penn State.
"I look at Trayce's (Jackson-Davis) 20 (points) he only got five rebounds, that's what I look at," Woodson said during the postgame press conference.
The Nittany Lions had 13 second-chance points, which isn't an eye-catching number but it prevented IU from finding a flow and having more possessions.
As previously mentioned, Penn State was dangerously effective from 3-point and made 11 out of 22 attempts from deep. A couple of Penn State shots looked like they were destined to go in regardless of the difficulty. Still, Woodson didn’t like the results overall.
"It didn’t come from inside-out, the ball came from our pick-and-roll coverages,” Woodson said. “Our ability to impact the ball and the big on the ball was something that we've been pretty good at this year. Tonight we weren't, we just weren't good at our pick-and-roll coverage, it was terrible."
I fully agree with Woodson about there being a difference in defense tonight. The damage could have been even worse, but Penn State players got open looks multiple times and decided not to shoot the 3-ball earlier in the game.
This was most likely because the team had a 33.2 3-point percentage coming into the game, which was rated 184th in the country. When Penn State realized it was working, they never looked back.
Thankfully for the Hoosiers, their next scheduled game, which is a big one, is at home against Ohio State. In the meantime, IU has to start finding ways to finish games that are winnable because there are still seven conference road games left in the season. Some of those matchups are against good teams too, which, if won, would look great on a resume come March.
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