[Postgame 3-2-1] What We Learned From Indiana's loss at Illinois
Here are three key stats, two observations, and one lingering question from Indiana's 70-62 loss in Champaign.
Another quad-one opportunity goes by the wayside for the Hoosiers as they fell short against a top-ten ranked Illinois team in Champaign yesterday afternoon.
This one felt like the game in which Indiana might finally break through, but it wasn’t meant to be in the end.
The Hoosiers played solid defense for all 40 minutes yesterday, but as we have seen numerous times this season, the offense lagged.
Indiana shot 0-9 from beyond the arc and 12-22 from the charity stripe.
This loss drops Indiana to a 12-8 record and a 4-5 record in Big Ten play.
Here are three key stats, two observations, and one lingering question from Indiana’s last game.
Did you miss yesterday's edition of the postgame show?
3 Meaningful Stats
1. Mackenzie Mgbako notched his first double-double.
Yesterday afternoon’s performance from Mackenzie was easily his most productive in an Indiana uniform.
The freshman recorded his first career double-double, scoring a dozen points in addition to grabbing the same amount of rebounds.
“Mack has come a long way in terms of where he started and where he is today,” head coach Mike Woodson said postgame. “He still has a way to go, but he's gotten better.”
Mgbako struggled mightily from the field, going 4-14, including 0-3 from three; however, the poor shooting is nullified by the defense he played on and off the ball.
Blocking-out has been an issue for Mike Woodson’s squad this season, but when his team needed a rebound most yesterday, it was Mackenzie flying in for the rebound.
“I knew they were gonna crash,” the freshman said. “We just got to box out.”
2. Indiana shot 0-9 from three.
This is becoming bleak, folks.
Indiana was so close to proving haters wrong and winning a game without making a single 3-pointer.
Last night’s goose egg from 3 marks the first time an Indiana team has done that since the 2009-2010 season. Yeah, it’s that bad.
It wasn’t like the Hoosiers weren’t getting good looks from three throughout the game. Guys like Xavier and Trey passed up shots that 95% of college basketball teams shoot.
“When you're on the road, you got to do almost everything right to come out with a win,” Woodson said. “We just didn't make the plays coming down the stretch.”
There is something to be said about Indiana almost beating a top-ten team on the road without making a single 3. Malik dominated in the post, and Indiana was having great success driving the ball downhill to the basket.
But Indiana simply isn’t going to consistently compete with good teams while experiencing such a consistent disparity from the 3-point line.
3. Xavier Johnson played well.
A confident Xavier Johnson can be both amazing and terrifying for Indiana. It depends on if the shots are falling and mistakes are kept to a minimum.
Yesterday, Indiana got both the good and the bad from their sixth-year senior.
Johnson finished with 14 points on 6-11 shooting. He was fantastic as the off-ball guard and played tough defense.
On the other hand, he cost his team points at inopportune times.
At the end of the first half, after putting back his own miss right before the buzzer, Johnson tossed the ball to an aloof Coleman Hawkins, which led to a brouhaha between the two programs. The officials deemed that it was enough to be a technical foul.
Whether you disagree with the call or not, the officials know X’s history and will keep him on a short leash. There didn’t seem to be any intent behind the pass, but by passing it, Johnson gave the officials a chance to determine whether or not there was a reason behind it.
Johnson also finished 2-7 from the charity stripe, missing two big free throws late to keep the Hoosiers from tying the game and gave the Illini fans free nuggets from McDonald’s.
A leader can’t give the other team a free two points and miss five free throws, especially late in the game, but X did a lot to give Indiana a chance to steal a victory on the road.
2 Important Observations
1. There is no killer instinct on this team.
With 13 minutes left in the game, IU took a seemingly commanding 49-42 lead on a 13-0 run, and it looked like last year’s game all over again. The State Farm Center crowd of 15,544 lost all of its energy, so Brad Underwood took a timeout.
The timeout paid off big time.
The Illini went on a 12-1 run over the next four minutes of gameplay to take a three-point lead.
This has happened in nearly every game that Indiana has played in this season. The Hoosiers just lack the firepower to kick a team when they’re down and finish them when they have them on the ropes.
It’s hard to point fingers at either the players or the coaches because we’re not sure what is being said in the huddle, but there is a sense of complacency from Indiana after they go on big runs to take a lead.
If Indiana continued to do what they were doing on the big run after the timeout yesterday, then there would have been Illinois fans headed to the exits at the under-four timeout.
“When you go through a Purdue game, like we played in Wisconsin, where we played in spurts I thought we were solid all the way through,” Woodson said. “We just didn't make the plays coming down the stretch.”
2. Malik Reneau still hasn’t figured out how to play without fouling.
Reneau has improved in nearly every category from his freshman season in Bloomington; however, the one thing he can’t shake is fouling.
The sophomore picked up his fourth foul with a cheap one with just under nine minutes left in the game.
Coach Woodson decided to stick with his big man, but was trying to go offense/defense to save him,. Then, with a tick over three minutes left in the ball game, he fouled Coleman Hawkins in the paint, leading him to the bench in crunch time.
Malik has been by far the best player on the court for Indiana all season long, but frequent foul trouble has handcuffed him from putting up even more spectacular numbers in the paint.
“He's improved from the time he came in here as a freshman and I can't help but think he'll continue to grow,” Woodson said of Reneau. “We just gotta get we got to get everybody involved as planned.”
1 Lingering Question
How should we assess Indiana’s tough three-game stretch?
This stretch of games was always going to be the toughest of the season, but nobody anticipated Indiana going winless.
There was a lot of ugly in these games, but it did get increasingly better from game to game.
It would be easy to say that this should be graded as an ‘F’ for Indiana, but we saw flashes of improvement that could pay dividends as the schedule gets easier over the final six weeks of the season.
Indiana has swung and missed at almost every big opportunity they’ve had this season, but they have a chance to gain momentum now by racking up wins over teams that are towards the bottom of the standings.
Personally, I believe there’s still a slim chance that the Hoosiers go dancing like Coach Tonsoni in Saturday Night Fever. (Don’t believe me? Here's some proof that Coach is a dancing king!)
The next two weeks will teach us a lot about this team’s drive to make the NCAA tournament. Just don’t expect this group to pack it in after a rough stretch of play.
Thanks for reading!
We’ll be back to talk IU hoops with you again after Tuesday’s game against Iowa.
In the meantime, make sure you vote for the Game Ball and Hoosier Hustle Award.
Have a comment on last night’s game? Leave it below!
This team is improving in many areas over the season, but one area still is lagging badly, and that is concentration on what they are doing while out there. There is just no explanation for the poor free throw shooting, except lack of desire and concentration. You are also clearly right about the tendency to get soft after they make a big run in a game. There is also no way this group is a zero for all 3 point shooting team. If the women like Sara, Sydney, Chloe and Yarden can shot them well, then, these guys could too. No excuses, just lack of concentration and practice, practice, practice. All of this is getting into the mental part of the game!
Good to know.