IU repeats old mistakes in season-ender

The season came to an end in IU’s 73-58 loss to Northwestern in the Big Ten tournament. And while the Hoosiers played 30 games before Thursday’s matchup, the same problems remained.

Turnovers were one of IU’s largest setbacks to begin the season, and they reappeared in the face of Northwestern’s 1-3-1 zone.

The Hoosiers had their first win in 12 games against the Wildcats just five days ago. When asked what the major difference was from that 88-80 win, sophomore guard Verdell Jones didn’t budge one bit.

“I thought our turnovers were the biggest thing,” Jones said, eyeing the stat sheet. “I’m looking here. They had 29 points off of turnovers. If you want to win any game, that’s unacceptable.”

It didn’t always seem Jones would have to come out and speak in detail about his team’s problems like he has so many times before.

IU began the game with an 8-0 run and played Northwestern evenly for most of the contest.

Then the score hit 45-39 with 13 minutes left in the second half.

“I think the story of the game for us was really when we were up six, had six turnovers within four minutes and went down four,” IU coach Tom Crean said.  

From then on, Northwestern’s 1-3-1 zone and guard Jeremy Nash changed the way IU looked in terms of its offense, defense and mentality.

Nash swung his long arms in the air to make IU players throw high, slow lob passes. The plays turned into Northwestern layups more often than not.

That might have been what resulted in 29 points off 19 turnovers for Northwestern.

“The bottom line in this game was the points off turnovers came at very tough times for us,” Crean said. “There were times when I think maybe our youth showed, in a sense of maybe where we were tentative.”

Crean said his team should have been prepared.

He had them spent extended time in practice working against zone and half-court traps because he wasn’t satisfied with the effort against it in Saturday’s win.

Given the extra attention he allotted to the concept in practice, Crean expected players to step through a trap when faced with two defenders.

Yet six IU players committed a turnover in the game, with three players coming out with four mishaps.

Freshman guard Jordan Hulls, who scored a career-high 24 points against Northwestern on March 6, was one of the guys with four turnovers.

When facing the zone, he’d pick up his dribble and set himself up for a trap near half-court.

At halftime, Crean grabbed a clipboard and drew out what he wanted Hulls to do against the zone as they walked toward the locker room.

Northwestern coach Bill Carmody said his team was worried about Hulls after the first performance he had against them.

“Just find out where that guy Hulls is,” Carmody said he told his team.

They did.

As Hulls struggled to a scoreless second half, his team also had trouble putting points together because of limited possessions after turnovers.

The teams were tied at 45-45 with more than eight minutes left in the second half. IU would score 13 points for the rest of the game, while Northwestern put up 28.

Despite a tough night overall, Jones finished with 20 points. The only other player to score double digits was freshman forward Derek Elston with 10.

Jones would later walk the bench battered from a game were he was knocked around and sent to the free-throw line eight times.

When the final buzzer sounded, he wasn’t the only IU player slow to get up.

“The bottom line is, when you’re turning the ball over the way we did, you just lose a lot of confidence because they’re getting easy shots,” Crean said.