Turnovers, poor post-play lead to IU demise in Iowa City

IOWA CITY, Iowa — It might be impossible to make Iowa look better than it did against IU on Sunday night.

A team scrapping for wins every week, the Hoosiers made the Hawkeyes look like the best team in the Big Ten — and them some.

The 73-57 loss came for a bunch who seemed overwhelmed with a Hawkeye group that has never been confused with anything resembling the Big Ten’s finest.

This game couldn’t be chalked up to youth. IU had been outplayed by a 10-19 team of freshmen and sophomores for a second time.

What seemed to be the culprit was effort.

IU coach Tom Crean and his players said that wasn’t so.

“For two teams that are near the bottom of the standings that was a very hard-fought game,” Crean said. 

The numbers suggest something more one-sided.

Iowa scored 23 points on IU turnovers, but still managed to the grab loose balls on hustle plays.

The Hawkeyes were fouled 31 times and came out with 26 made free throws.
Most of all, the Hawkeyes learned from a Thursday loss to Northwestern and used it against IU.

Iowa coach Todd Lickliter sat at the podium and recited a quote to describe his team’s progression.

The adage dealt with the idea of applying previously learned knowledge.
“The only thing worse than learning from experience,” he said, “is not learning from experience.”

IU has not done that lately.

The Hoosiers fell for the 10th-straight game, making similar mistakes to the ones that began this current string of losses.

Their problems began at 20 turnovers. They only had four assists to counter.
Sophomore guard Verdell Jones said those mistakes came from trying to make plays before ever getting a pivot established.

“I think it was too anxious, trying to do our move before our feet got settled,” he said. “We had six or seven travels. You can’t do that in a game like this.”
Outside of Jones, who scored 22 points and was perfect from the free-throw line, IU had only one player in double figures.

Freshman forward Christian Watford scored 13 points in the game,
Nearly every other player was passive on offense. They passed the ball around the exterior and looked for Jones, expecting the perfect cure-all on every play.
It did not come.

IU shot 18-of-40 in the game and had 13 less shots than Iowa when the first half ended. Iowa finished with 22 buckets.

“It’s no secret right now that we’re not a great shooting team,” Crean said. “We obviously didn’t shoot the ball real well, but we are a very good foul-shooting team.”
IU had many games come down to free throws where it didn’t answer the call. But they were 20-of-25 and shot 80 percent as a team on Sunday.

Where they differed with their competitor the most was on defense.

Iowa used a simple screen-and-roll play to unravel the IU counter from the beginning.
Forwards Aaron Fuller and Jarryd Cole each scored easy baskets when IU big men jumped out hard on screens.

Crean said his team had to respect Iowa’s ability to shoot the ball. They made an attempt to push opposing guards to the baseline before having the big man return to the lane.


Post players Fuller and Cole combined to score 25 of Iowa’s 73 points.
The rest of the Hawkeye buckets came from guard Matt Gatens, who scored a career-high 25 points.

Small mistakes like miscommunication and travels stumped IU all night. Jones said pensive play has to accompany effort.

“We got to fight and play smart at the same time,” Jones said. “We fought, played hard, but we didn’t execute on a lot of things.”