Boiled Over

WEST LAFAYETTE -- If the IU men's basketball team was looking for love on Valentine's Day, West Lafayette was the last place they were going to find it.\nA game in which the Hoosiers picked up 26 fouls compared to the Boilermaker's 11, ended in Purdue's favor, 71-56.\nPurdue coach Gene Keady said he told his team it would be their biggest game of the year to see how they would handle the pressure. Sure enough, Purdue handled the pressure just like Keady wanted them to. They played with effort, and three different Boilermakers scored 17 points a piece.\nIU coach Mike Davis didn't see that same effort from the Hoosiers.\n"It's a shame to be shown, by the other team, the effort you need to win a game," Davis said.\nThe Hoosier effort looked solid in the first couple of minutes of the game. Field goals from seniors A.J. Moye and George Leach put IU up by four -- its biggest lead Saturday.\nAs IU's small lead quickly dwindled away, the team was never again in the lead and was down by as many as 16 points in the first half.\nThe Penn State game showed the Hoosiers ability to make three-point baskets, but in the contest at Purdue, IU only had three successful treys before halftime, which saw IU trail 35-25.\nThe second half had the Hoosiers down by as many as 18 points. \nIt was junior guard Ryan Tapak who stepped up for IU in their struggle to get back into the ball game.\n"Ryan Tapak played well and with a lot of energy," Davis said. "He played basketball, and I hope the other guys look at him and watch him."\nDavis said Tapak made good passes and his intensity helped him play well. \nTapak finished third on the team in scoring with 11 points -- nine of which came from three-point baskets. \nMoye said he didn't set the tone for the Hoosiers at all.\n"That's why we lost," Moye said. "I have no reason why I played like crap."\nMoye finished with seven points and two assists.\nHurting the Hoosiers the entire game was senior guard Kenneth Lowe. \nLowe scored his 1,000th career point less than eight minutes into the game. He finished with 17 points but fouled out late in the second half with a technical foul.\n"It was an error on my part," Lowe said of his technical foul and would not comment otherwise.\nIU's leading scorer was sophomore guard Bracey Wright. Wright had 16 points and three assists but was only successful on five of his 18 field-goal attempts.\nDavis said it wasn't playing on the road that hurt Wright, it was just Purdue and the fact that they wore him out and chased him all over the court.\nWright said the team missed a lot of wide-open shots and he personally wasn't able to knock them down.\nThere is no question the IU team has to win the rest of its games, Wright said, and in order to make it to the NCAA Tournament, the team will have to first win the Big Ten Tournament in March.\n"It's frustrating, but you have to take the card that's dealt right now," Wright said. "And that's the position we put ourselves in."\n-- Contact staff writer Natalie A. Trout at natrout@indiana.edu.