Momentum maturity

Tom Crean calls it “winning time.”

That moment – or more accurately, those moments – in every game when momentum hangs in the balance, when leads teeter on the edge of extinction, when winners and losers separate.

That time has not been on the Hoosiers’ side for most of this season, but never was that more apparent than in Saturday’s 65-55 loss to Penn State.

Example: With just under nine minutes left in Saturday’s game, the faithfully assembled Assembly Hall crowd was on its feet. Down just five with momentum clearly swinging IU’s way, Hoosier fans and players alike could surely feel victory in their grasps.

One old-fashioned 3-point play later, courtesy of Jamelle Cornley, and the deficit was stretched from five to eight, and said momentum had vanished. Such was the case for much of the second half, which saw Penn State begin leading by eight and finish leading by 10, with most of the action going back and forth.

The reasons for IU’s fifth Big Ten loss are many, but the most noticeable was this: These Hoosiers still cannot figure out how to hold momentum or take advantage of opportunities when the game is running hottest.

It is becoming increasingly clear such behavior will not be learned until it is, simply, finally done. When that ability will blossom is anyone’s guess.

“When we started to make little runs, our lack of maturity, basketball-wise, caught up with us,” Crean said after the game. “We take away our momentum so much right now, and we’ve got to continue to get through that.”

The problem is that maturity can’t be taught. Maturity is a process, a learned characteristic that just comes, like learning to Rollerblade.

So often this season, opponents have offered IU chances to cut into leads, extend momentum and so forth, but none more so than Penn State. Time and again, particularly in the second half, the Hoosiers would hit a small run, say four or five points, inspire the crowd of 15,626 to their feet, string together one or two stops – and falter.

Even to the bitter end, the Hoosiers were given ample opportunity to wrest control of an otherwise unmemorable contest. But a pair of late Matt Roth 3s and a full-court folly of a turnover by the Nittany Lions weren’t even enough.

Make no mistake, Penn State – while respectable as opposed to laughable – is not a good team. It showed Saturday evening, as Penn State coach Ed DeChellis’ team kept fumbling away chances to control the game.

But as they have all season, to much fan frustration, the Hoosiers could not and did not capitalize.

Sometimes, it was an apparently flustered offense. Sometimes, it was a defensive lapse late in a long possession. Whatever the particular trap was, the Hoosiers just kept falling into it.

“We have to buckle down and say, ‘All right, this is it,’” senior forward Kyle Taber said after the game. “If we get everyone on the court saying that to themselves and putting our minds to it to get the stop, I think we’ll overcome it.”

Everything was just right for a Hoosier victory Saturday, which coincidentally would have been their first since Minnesota came to Bloomington on March 5, 2008. The crowd was just right, the opponent was just right and on several key second-half possessions, the timing appeared just right.

DeChellis himself said it just right in his postgame interview, even if he didn’t mean to.
“It’s all about making a play when you need to make it.”

Indeed.

See you Friday.