Road woes continue for IU in Iowa

IOWA CITY, IOWA — With the IU men’s basketball team in need of direction and production, its floor leader and second-leading scorer sat on the bench in grey sweats.

Junior guard Verdell Jones was ruled inactive Sunday due to inflammation in his right knee, and the Hoosiers dropped their 12th straight road game in a 91-77 loss to the Iowa Hawkeyes on Sunday in Carver Hawkeye Arena.

“It’s next man up. You adjust,” IU coach Tom Crean said. “I’m not immune to when we have issues in injuries, but I’m pretty numb to it three years in. You can’t spend a lot of time feeling sorry for yourself, and you certainly can’t let your team do that.”

To minimize the loss of Jones’ on-floor leadership, Crean said he asked junior forward Tom Pritchard to take the reigns as a vocal leader and keep good communication going.

But Crean said the plan did not work as he would have liked it.

“If Tom’s talked since we’ve got in the arena, I haven’t heard it,” he said. “That just can’t happen when that’s your most experienced player on the court with Verdell out. You’ve got to step up into the leadership.”

Without Jones, who averages 13 points per game this season and leads the team in assists, the IU offense struggled to find its touch.

The Hoosiers shot a paltry 37 percent from the field, including 8-of-27 from the 3-point line. Sophomore guard Jordan Hulls, who led the team with 16 points in a loss to Wisconsin on Thursday, didn’t register a field goal until the final 20 seconds and finished with 7 points.

Sophomore forward Christian Watford was a lone offensive bright spot for IU, scoring 14 consecutive points in the first half and finishing with a career-high 30. Sophomore forward Derek Elston had the Hoosiers’ only double-double with 10 points and 12
rebounds.

Crean said Jones will miss an indefinite amount of time, and it will be a day-to-day evaluation.

“We missed him. There’s absolutely no doubt about that,” Crean said of Jones. “It’s pretty clear for everyone to see. But that doesn’t excuse the way we played
defensively.”

Iowa came into the weekend ranked 10th in the Big Ten in field goal percentage and last in scoring but shot 58 percent from the field Sunday The 91-point total was the Hawkeyes’ second-largest this season.

Four Hawkeyes scored in the double digits, including three who scored 18 points or more.

Iowa found easy points in the transition game, out-scoring the Hoosiers 16-2 on the fast break and 46-30 in the paint. Though they had fewer offensive rebounds than the Hoosiers, the Hawkeyes scored after eight of their 10 second chances.

Before the game, Crean said the team could not allow Iowa to be as physically dominant as it had been in the two Hoosier losses against the Hawkeyes last season.

But that’s exactly what happened Sunday.

“I’m ashamed to say they imposed their will on us physically,” Crean said. “And it shouldn’t have been that way. I’m not taking anything away from them ... It’s more us. We were not tough enough around the rim today.”