One more lesson

“Heartbreaking” would be an appropriate adjective. So would “gut-wrenching.”

But like anything else the Hoosiers do this season that doesn’t involve sleep or food, this two-point loss presents a great lesson: Every single possession counts.

Consider this: Assuming we’re arguing with simple math, had the Hoosiers battened down at the end of the first half and not given Michael Thompson an easy layup, Northwestern might have been staring at a two-point deficit with 35 seconds left.

I know that’s not the sturdiest argument, but there were plenty of moments Wednesday night that could fill in as that example. Open 3-pointers, backdoor layups and a few ridiculous Kevin Coble fadeaways inside the lane all had congruent effects.

It’s easy to generalize when a game slips away in the final minutes and you lose by eight or 10 points, sure. But lose by two, and every minute, every step down the court will haunt you afterward.

These Hoosiers did a lot of things well Wednesday – a lot of things they haven’t been able to do well for most of this year.

The free-throw shooting was superb. The 28-16 rebound advantage was absurd. Nineteen assists to 22 turnovers, while also forcing 19 turnovers and thereby just about canceling that statistic out, was at least a little bit impressive.

All are signs that the Hoosiers are starting to bring it together, whatever “it” may be in this particular cliche.

But none, absolutely none, will warm the snow-white drive home from Evanston with the sharp details of many a possession surely to be on the collective minds of everyone on that bus.

Should the Hoosiers have won, this column would have been something resembling a running diary, surely to bear a cheesy headline like “the road to victory.”

But it’s Thursday now, and that road is still untrodden since Dec. 10, the last time Tom Crean and Co. won a game.

Last night should at least quiet any doubts as to whether this team will win even one Big Ten game.

Devan Dumes is finally developing into a reliable scorer, the bench is deeper and if Matt Roth will just keep shooting, the Hoosiers have at least six respectable scoring options on a team that once looked bare of any.

The Hoosiers can rebound too, according to Basketball Prospectus guru John Gasaway, who pointed out last Saturday that these Hoosiers are pulling down 79 percent of their opponents’ misses. (Kudos to former IDSer Eamonn Brennan on that stat find).

So there are positives, and not just the incremental ones talked about back in November and December.

But for all they did well Wednesday, the Hoosiers got one of their most important lessons of the season, and they had to lose to get it.