Indiana's loss to Purdue on Saturday was a rehashing of previous wounds that had plagued the Hoosiers since before its best basketball. Now Indiana is trending downward at perhaps the worst time of the season.
Going into Iowa
Indiana has now dropped its fourth consecutive game, as the sudden Maryland loss on Jan. 26 continues to haunt the Hoosiers. After building positive momentum following wins over Ohio State and Michigan State and a strong road win at Nebraska, Indiana has dipped in a major way after allowing a good Maryland team to leave Bloomington with a one-point win.
With the wind out of its sails, the Hoosiers are struggling to find a foothold, and, unlike the Northwestern game Jan. 8 after the bad road loss at Maryland, there aren’t any games in the near future that would lend themselves to tune-ups.
KenPom.com projects Indiana to lose its next six games, and Iowa rebounded from its flukey loss to Purdue’s downpour of threes with a 24-point win over Nebraska. There are no more easy ones left for Indiana, as it looks to find some kind of path from 5-7 – tied for the third-worst conference record – to an NCAA Tournament bid.
To find that path, Indiana is going to need to shake some of the habits it’s created for itself since the end of that Maryland game in Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, and it’s going to need to shake them quickly.
First half turnovers, scoring droughts
Turnovers have been a problem for Indiana in general, not just in the first halves of its games. The Hoosiers ranked second-to-last in total turnovers during conference games in 2019-20, and in each of its last three games, it’s turned the ball over at a rate higher than 20 percent. Indiana has lost its last three games by an average of 14.7 points and has surrendered an average of 16.3 points per game off turnovers in those losses.
Whether those turnovers result in points or not, Indiana is finding more empty possessions than it had seen in quite some time, and that was primarily the case in the first half against Purdue. The Hoosiers hit 43 percent of their shots in the first half Saturday, but they coughed up the ball 10 times and gifted Purdue 12 points in the process.
Those turnovers weren’t from the typical culprits but were widespread. Eight Hoosiers had committed a turnover before halftime, and limiting turnovers to the players on the roster prone to committing turnovers is becoming less and less common.
Paired with the scoring droughts that have defined Indiana’s identity even through its best games, and the Hoosiers fail to get much done on the offensive end when they need it most.
Purdue scored nine of its first 15 points of the game off Indiana turnovers, and in the final four minutes, Indiana missed four shots and turned the ball over three times, while Purdue jumped ahead from 28-28 to 37-28.
“We got off to a decent start,” Archie Miller said Saturday. “But our turnovers in the first half really killed momentum. And their run at the end of the half was really a deflating deal.”
Lack of free throws
From the box score that was released from the Marquette exhibition until now, getting to the free throw line was at the core of how Indiana would score points in 2019-20. For much of the season, Indiana hovered around the top-five teams in total free throws attempted but has recently dropped to No. 26 while maintaining the No. 12 free throw rate in the country.
But, undoubtedly, the Hoosiers aren’t getting to the line as often as needed. Archie Miller said he didn’t know why his team wasn’t getting to the line after its Penn State loss and then noted that the lack of physicality inside had hurt them on both ends after losing in Columbus.
In its last four games, Indiana has attempted 10, 10, 18 and 14 free throws respectively – not bad numbers but not the numbers needed when placing as much weight as Miller and the Hoosiers place on free throws offensively. The problem was there again Saturday. Trayce Jackson-Davis was the only starter to attempt free throws for Indiana. He took 10 of Indiana’s 14 free throw attempts.
Indiana has proven to be at its best, in terms of getting to the free throw line, when it can freely move the ball through the post or find lanes from the backcourt. The Hoosiers have struggled to create those opportunities as of late.
Out-worked in the interior
Purdue is a team that works hard on the floor. That’s known by anyone who’s seen Matt Painter coach in West Lafayette, but statistically, a team that rates top-10 in defensive efficiency and 18th in offensive rebound rate is going to naturally be a hard-working team. Archie Miller knew that going into the game.
“The game is going to come down in February in our league in general, who's rebounding the ball effectively home and away,” Miller said Thursday. “We didn't effectively rebound the ball in our last two games on the road, and we got crushed. When we effectively rebound the ball on both ends of the floor, we have a chance to be a pretty good team.”
While it was only by one rebound Saturday, Indiana was out-rebounded, 29-28, by Purdue, and for a team ranked No. 11 in the country in rebound rate, its rebounding performances have left itself vulnerable – 22-26 against Ohio State, 40-34 against Penn State, 32-28 against Maryland, 27-29 against Michigan State, etc.
At the center of those struggles is Joey Brunk, who had emerged as a crucial rebounding contributor for Indiana during some of its most complete performances, including a four-game stretch of double-digit rebounding. But Brunk has maxed out at six rebounds in his last six games, and finding other rebounding presences has been difficult for Indiana.
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