Column: 3 lingering questions from Indiana’s loss to Butler

As IU prepares for Wednesday night’s game against Mount St. Mary’s, a few questions still linger around the team’s loss to Butler over the weekend that has dropped the Hoosiers from No. 1 to No. 6 in the polls.

Why wasn’t Cody Zeller on defense for the final play?

I’ve gotten this question a lot since Saturday and I think it’s a fair question to ask.

First, let’s set up the situation.

On the Hoosiers’ second-to-last possession, Zeller hit a shot that drew the teams even. With the game tied at 86, Butler had the ball out-of-bounds at a timeout with 19.2 seconds left on the clock.

At this timeout, IU head coach Tom Crean replaced Zeller and Christian Watford with Will Sheehey and Remy Abell to matchup with Butler’s smaller, quicker lineup.

“At the end of the game we were going with an all-out switching call where we switch everything and making sure that we were keeping a man in front and getting up on the glass, but we didn’t do a very good job of it,” Crean said. “It was really about being able to switch everything with no fear of being driven.”

With Watford and Zeller out, the Butler Bulldogs noticed the Hoosiers’ lack of size in front of the net.

In the decisive play of the game, Butler guard Alex Barlow knew this could be a weakness in the IU lineup of Jordan Hulls, Yogi Ferrell, Victor Oladipo, Sheehey and Abell, so he attacked.

“(Cody) Zeller was out, so there wasn’t really anybody inside,” Barlow said. “There weren’t really any shot-blockers or threats. I just tried to get as deep and I could and float it up there once I saw the clock wind down.”

Taking out Zeller seemed to be a curious move by Crean, but Crean said his decision came down to the late-game strategy of substituting Zeller in for offense and out on defense to take away possible mismatches against Butler’s high-ball screens.

“We were in a 55 and we wanted to switch out of everything,” Crean said. “They were in the ball screen game and were running a lot of high-ball screens at the end of regulation or overtime. In that situation, we wanted to continue to have that switching because it was either going to be a drive or a three. We wanted to make sure that we could defend the high-ball screen, which they had been running consistently, by not putting ourselves in a switch that would be advantageous to them.”

As a team player, Zeller didn’t have any problem with his coach’s decision.

“Well we were playing offense-defense and that’s what Coach Crean thought was best,” Zeller said. “We do a lot of that `late-game situation’ in practice, so I wasn’t really surprised.”

Despite Zeller’s lack of surprise, this was a moment that left a number of IU fans yelling at their television in shock, while leaving the Hoosiers’ backline vulnerable without a big man to clog the lane.

Barlow’s game-winner is a testament to the true value of Zeller’s presence in the middle for IU.

He is the preseason player of the year, a seven-footer and IU’s leading shot blocker.
Other team’s notice when the Big Handsome is not on the court for the Hoosiers, so with the game on the line, it wasn’t surprising that Barlow decided drive to the basket against Hulls.

“I was looking for the options and they weren’t open,” Barlow said. “I saw the clock get about to six, so I decided to make a play. I like to get my right hand so I made a little spin move. The floater is a shot that I work on a lot, and I happened to get a lucky bounce. It was a good feeling.”

Moving forward, if the Hoosiers are on defense with the game on the line again this year, I expect to see number 40 on the court clogging up the middle instead of on the sideline – no matter what perceived mismatch might exist – because his presence changes the complexion of IU’s entire defense.

How did Butler dominate the boards?

If you re-watch the game, you can see the Hoosiers miss a lot of block-outs.

Christian Watford (partially because of foul trouble) was noticeably absent on the boards for long periods of times, while Butler seemed to take advantage of every second-chance opportunity it got from offensive rebounds.

At halftime, the Bulldogs had 14 second-chance points and 16 points in the paint. They would finish the game with 27 second-chance points and 42 points in the paint.

As a team, Butler collected 19 of their 40 rebounds on the offensive end. Roosevelt Jones led the way with 12 defensive rebounds (three offensive boards), while Erik Fromm collected all five of his boards on the offensive glass.

Another way to illustrate the Hoosiers’ woes on the boards over the weekend would be to look at who led the team in that category. Usually the big men dominate the glass for IU, but on Saturday Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell led IU in rebounds with eight while Cody Zeller (five) and Watford (three) only combined for eight boards.

Butler is a physical team, especially when it comes to rebounding, so part of the reason why IU struggled should be credited to the Bulldogs’ style of play.

That being said, the Hoosiers will see physical opponents down the road in Big Ten play, so being out-muscled cannot be acceptable.

While the ball doesn’t always bounce your way, rebounding comes down to positioning, hustle and downright determination. For one game, the ball seemed to be bouncing Butler’s way, but even when it wasn’t, the Bulldogs beat IU to the ball – plain and simple.

For the rest of the season, I expect to see a more tenacious and team-oriented effort on the glass. It will be the only way IU can own the boards against a more physical opponent.

How good is Butler?

This week, the AP rankings and coaches Poll rankings had mixed feelings about Butler, ranking the Bulldogs 19th and 25th, respectively.

I’m a little bit surprised by this disparity, but I think over time their ranking will solidify itself somewhere in the mid-to-late teens.

The rest of Butler’s non-conference schedule – including a home game against No. 14 Gonzaga on Jan. 19 – is winnable and should give them momentum entering their inaugural season in the Atlantic 10 conference.

After beating the Hoosiers, it’s hard not to be high on the Bulldogs, especially with Brad Stevens leading the way. If Rotnei Clarke’s shooting and the play of Roosevelt Jones stays hot, watch out for Butler come tournament time.

That could be bad news for IU fans because I would not be surprised if the tournament selection committee decided to replicate last year’s model of “rematches” – example: IU v. Kentucky – by lining up Indiana and Butler to play against each other in the Indianapolis Regional with a Final Four trip at stake.

That would be fun. Imagine Lucas Oil filled with twice the crowd from Saturday’s game at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. The battle for Indiana would put the state at odds, but there is long ways to go until then.

Until then, the Bulldogs must stay steady and take care of business like they did against the then-No. 1 team in the nation.