Struggles continue on road

WEST LAFAYETTE -- The No. 14 Hoosiers (14-4, 4-2) were looking for something more than state bragging rights when they headed north to take on the Purdue Boilermakers (12-4, 4-1) Saturday night. \nThey were searching for a team identity on the road -- a way to bottle up the intensity they'd exhibited at Assembly Hall and in the national championship rematch with Maryland earlier in the season and bring it with them into their opposition's arenas.\nIt has been a recurring theme for much of the season, and Saturday's 69-47 blowout at the hands of the Boilers proved that they have more work to do.\nWhen the game ended, coach Mike Davis calmly walked off the court and showed no signs of anger on his way to the locker room. But he made his frustration with the Hoosiers' lackluster performance apparent once he had his team behind closed doors, berating them loudly for close to 20 minutes.\n"Well I'm going to have to pray a lot tonight," he said. "God's got to forgive me for a lot of things I said in there because they weren't real nice."\nDavis didn't have many positive points of the game to discuss, unless of course he was talking about the Boilermakers.\n"Purdue was great," he said. "(Jeff) Newton and (George) Leach played like high school players. I thought (Purdue junior forward Chris) Booker and those guys had a lot to do with it. They were physical (but) clean; no cheap shots. \nThey played physical, they were well prepared. They had us shooting fade-away shots, they had us rushing layups. At one point we had no one going for offensive rebounds." \nDavis has been calling for Leach to play with more intensity in recent games and when that didn't happen Saturday afternoon he kept his starting center on the bench for all but 15 minutes. Leach would finish with no points, four rebounds and four blocks, while Newton scored seven points and grabbed nine boards. \nDavis enlisted the services of freshman forward Sean Kline and A.J. Moye to help out down low but it proved to be unsuccessful. Purdue out-rebounded IU 40-33 for the game, all seven of their extra boards coming off the defensive glass. \nThe Hoosiers came into the second half down only 12, but had trailed by as much as 20 in the first period.\nAs the final 20 minutes got under way, the Boilermakers proved that they were not going to let up. \nOn IU's first possession after the half, Leach turned the ball over on a travel. \nPurdue sophomore point guard Brandon McKnight brought the ball up the court on the ensuing possession and threw a perfect alley-oop to Booker that sent the crowd into frenzy and put the Boilermakers up by 14.\nThe Hoosiers tried to get back in the game as point guard Tom Coverdale was fouled on an aggressive drive to the basket. He made the layup and knocked down a free throw for a three-point play but Purdue freshman forward Matt Kiefer answered with a layup on the other end to keep the lead in double digits.\nMoye then knocked down a 15-foot jumper to make the score 41-30 but the Boilermakers, led by Booker and senior guard Willie Deane, went on a 10-3 run, increasing the lead to 19 points. \nDeane and Booker both scored nine points in the second half and finished with 18 and 13 respectively.\nThe Hoosiers, suffering from various scoring droughts and turnovers, could not get back into the game. With just over two minutes to go all they could do was watch as Purdue increased the lead until, mercifully, the game ended.\n"It doesn't make sense," Davis said. "You come in and play Purdue, it's a great rivalry game and you don't play like you're supposed to play."\nWhile Booker and Deane led the Boilermaker's attack on the Hoosiers in the second half, it was junior guard Kenneth Lowe who put IU on the ropes early.\nWhile IU floundered to find any semblance of offensive rhythm or defensive intensity, Lowe thrived, scoring 17 of his 19 points in the first half on 6-9 from the field and a perfect 3-3 from the three-point line.\n"Lowe got off to a hot start," said shooting guard Kyle Hornsby, who finished with two points and three rebounds. "I don't know if he's that great of a shooter but he sure made us look bad."\nCoverdale was understandably quiet after the game, but in two brief sentences he summed up the Hoosiers' performance well.\n"We just didn't play hard and we didn't fight," he said. "That's the bottom line"