Watford: 'I guess we overlooked them'

The worn cliche has been heard a million times. Players and coaches always want to take it one game at a time.
 
But IU coach Tom Crean and his players recently admitted to straying from that universally-known notion.
 
Before the current nine-game losing streak began, IU was fresh off two Big Ten wins and preparing for Iowa on Jan. 24. They didn’t prep in every capacity. Their minds were elsewhere.
 
“Oh, yeah we did,” freshman forward Christian Watford said when asked if IU players’ minds drifted past Iowa. “We were on a winning streak right there, and I guess we overlooked them. We didn’t really take that game as seriously as we did the other games. We want to go pay them back.”
 
The Hoosiers lost 58-43 to a Big Ten team that might have the least amount of athleticism and talent in the conference.
 
IU had been playing well, but there was not room to underestimate opponents, as freshman guard Jordan Hulls said Saturday.
 
“We’re not really in a position to look over anybody,” he said. “They just came in here and out-toughed us and that’s all it really came down to.”

The Hoosiers were facing the lone team they defeated in a 2008-09 season where they went 1-17 in the Big Ten.The Hawkeyes came in with that loss in mind, and they played like it.
 
Crean didn’t see his team floundering before the contest.
 
He said their practices were great leading into the Iowa game. He remembered seeing hard work — the same work that had them within the Big Ten race, barely separated from the conference's top-tier teams.
 
He said his players' actions suggested that they were prepared.

On Saturday, Crean revealed the Hoosiers had bought into their early-season performances, if only for a game.
 
“I think they embraced success a little bit in those games,” Crean said. “We won those two games, and I think you try to have a team never read the press clippings and the magazines and all of those things. They’re not as big a deal, but I think they got caught up thinking they were a little bit better than themselves.”
 
With that loss, IU spiraled into a streak changing the complexion of its season.
 
The Hoosiers were 9-9 before the Iowa game. They now sit stagnant at 9-18, approaching a conference-loss record that dates back to the 1943-44 season. Not since that year has IU been defeated in 10 straight Big Ten games.
 
His team hasn’t changed its win column in nine contests, but Watford said IU let numbers get to it when approaching Iowa.
 
“We were looking at their record more than what kind of team they are,” he said. “We went in that game kind of lax, and they came out and played great.”