Hoosiers can't ecclipse .500 against Iowa

So much for a winning Big Ten record.

With two consecutive conference victories and a .500 overall record going into Sunday’s game against Iowa, IU was favored to win.

But the theme of defying expectations continued through the weekend, as IU dropped a 58-43 game to Iowa, which has the second-worst Big Ten record.

The same Hoosiers team that beat Minnesota in overtime and Penn State on the road didn’t show up to Assembly Hall on Sunday. They were 0-of-9 on 3-point attempts, had seven second-chance points and 16 points in the paint. The same team that averaged 74 points in its previous two games only had 43 on Sunday. And the same team that averaged 15 assists in those same two games had only three against Iowa.

“That’s the beauty of competition,” Iowa coach Todd Lickliter said. “You have to do it every night, and you don’t get anything for a previous outing.”

In the last meeting between the two, IU beat Iowa in its lone Big Ten victory on Feb. 4, 2009. Whether Iowa came in looking for revenge or IU came in looking for an easy win, it’s hard to say.

IU coach Tom Crean discounted the complacence theory in his postgame press conference.

“Before you write the story that they were overconfident, overlooking Iowa, were full of themselves, none of that happened,” he said.

If it wasn’t overconfidence, it was a lack of energy.

“I don’t know if any of us overlooked this team, but when we came in tonight we weren’t prepared to fight at all,” said freshman forward Christian Watford, whose 10-point output against the Hawkeyes is his smallest since IU’s 66-60 loss to Illinois on Jan. 9.

But a bigger streak was broken against Iowa. Sunday’s game broke a 277-game record where IU scored at least one 3-pointer. The last time IU did not make a 3-pointer was March 9, 2001.

Iowa wasn’t perfect, either.

They had zero fast break points, shot 60 percent at the free-throw line and had 21 turnovers.

“If you would have told me we would have 21 turnovers and win, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Lickliter said.

While Crean said a lack of toughness was to blame for the loss, he didn’t know how to fix that before Saturday’s game at Illinois.

“We emphasize it all the time,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a magic drill.”