Indiana, for all the bumps and bruises along the way Thursday evening in West Lafayette, found a way to pull within six points, 48-42, with 3:04 to go. The Race Thompson put-back after the offensive rebound represented the end of a 7-0 run for the Hoosiers, who hadn’t seen anything of the sort throughout the previous 37 minutes.
Every bucket was a challenge for Indiana, and that proved to be the case even when the Hoosiers were back within striking distance. Indiana would convert just two more field goals in those final three minutes and miss eight more. Ultimately, that was where Indiana came up short all night, finishing with a 28-percent field goal percentage in a 57-49 loss to Purdue.
“They trapped the post every single time (Trayce JAckson-Davis) got the ball,” Indiana head coach Archie Miller said. “Everything around the basket, even our uncontested ones, were rushed. They made it hard on us. It’s not like we weren’t trying to through it inside.”
Purdue forward Trevion Williams, who finished with 19 points and eight rebounds, said the strategy defensively against Indiana was simple – stack the post and stop Trayce Jackson-Davis. Force Indiana’s guards to win the game.
Jackson-Davis finished 2-of-7 from the field, while Joey Brunk finished 2-of-8, Race Thompson finished 2-of-4 and Justin Smith finished 2-of-8.
Thursday wasn’t the first occasion Indiana faced an opponent looking to pack the post and force the guards to win games, and the response from Indiana’s backcourt has been hit-or-miss in those situations. It came through against Ohio State and Iowa but not against Rutgers or Penn State.
And against Purdue, the guards failed to come through again.
“We just weren’t knocking down shots. They were good shots, but they just weren’t falling,” senior forward De’Ron Davis said. “When our shots start falling from outside, the double team isn’t going to be as much of a problem.”
Miller had mentioned on his radio show Monday a conversation he had with Jackson-Davis after the bad Michigan loss Feb. 16, when he recorded five points and two rebounds and how that effort would never occur again. While Miller wouldn’t condemn the effort or attitude of any of his players after the loss Thursday, Jackson-Davis was also neutralized – six points, four rebounds – and there was little anyone, even Jackson-Davis himself, could do about it. With 43 seconds to go, Devonte Green became the first Hoosier to crack double-digit scoring, and he finished with 11 points on 3-of-15 shooting.
Phinisee provided a spark for Indiana in the second half, scoring seven of Indiana’s first nine points of the second half after not scoring at all in the first half, but he ended the game shooting 3-of-11. Junior guard Al Durham finished 0-of-2 from the floor, and what will be remembered of his performance was the one-on-one press debacle that ended in a turnover and fastbreak bucket for Purdue. Durham was handling the ball because of Phinisee’s first-half struggles.
Largely, though, when doing the math, trapping the post contributors would leave a backcourt player open, but Miller said he wasn’t happy with the way his team was able to kick it out to an open shooter. When the Hoosiers did find an open shooter, the shots wouldn’t go down. Indiana finished 5-of-24 from three.Those missed shots, when considering Purdue’s slightly better 38-percent field goal percentage, wouldn’t have killed the Hoosiers’ chances if it weren’t for the final three minutes of the first half, when Indiana turned the ball over four times and Purdue finally found separation, jumping from a 19-18 lead to a 29-20 lead at halftime.
“In this type of game, that nine-point lead is like 15, 16,” Miller said.
In terms of other areas of the game, Indiana didn’t struggle as badly as the ugly surface of Thursday's game might have indicated. It was out-rebounded 40-37, turned the ball over 13 times and had 13 second chance points to Purdue’s 16.
The progress Indiana had made in the last two games was still there in ways, but what has fatally wounded Indiana throughout this season hurt it again Thursday night, and the only way to move past it is to knock down shots.
While failing to hit those shots can lead to losses, it doesn’t indicate a lack of progress.
“Right now, as a group, we’re together, and if we stay together, we’ll be fine,” Davis said.
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