Column: Hoosiers miss chance to take Big Ten lead

Tuesday night was supposed to be the night the No. 2 Indiana men’s basketball program earned sole possession of first place in the Big Ten for the first time in the Tom Crean era.

It was supposed to be the night Crean earned his first win as a Hoosier against Bo Ryan’s Badgers. He entered the night 0-8 against Wisconsin as the head coach of IU.
 
It was supposed to be the night where IU ended its 10-game losing streak to Wisconsin and avenged some of the abuse the Badgers have laid on all of Indiana’s sports.

But as the clock ticked and the Badgers continued to drill shots, it became apparent that IU’s climb to the top of the Big Ten was not meant to happen on this night.

“You have to shoot the ball well against Wisconsin,” Crean said. “That’s the bottom line to me as much as anything else. We will look at the other things, but you have to keep going when the shots are not going.”

Tuesday night was a typical Wisconsin game.

The final score, 64-59, barely broke the 60s.

And of course, no Wisconsin basketball game would be complete without a plethora of missed shots by their opponent. IU shot 20-of-54 from the field and only 3-of-12 from behind the arc.

The Badgers made the Hoosiers one-dimensional and then took that option away in the second half.

After Cody Zeller scored 18 points in the first half, the Badgers and center Jared Berggren locked him down by allowing the Hoosiers’ big man to score only five points in the second half.

With the starters battling the Badgers shot-for-shot, this was the game where IU’s depth and bench was supposed to outshine Wisconsin’s bench.
But it never happened.

For the second consecutive game, IU’s bench was non-exsistent.

After posting only three points against Minnesota, the Hoosiers’ bench, the leaders in the Big Ten in bench scoring, only mustered two points against Wisconsin. The Badgers’ bench scored 16 points on the game.

“I’m not as concerned about the lack of offense from the bench, I’m concerned about the lack of creating pace of the game with deflections and defense,” Crean said. “You need guys to come in and make plays.”

In a hostile environment, the Badgers silenced the crowd out of the halftime break with a 16-7 run in the first eight minutes of the second half and never looked back.

As we learned Tuesday night, nobody can silence Bloomington like Wisconsin.

“You know if you just play the game and have the right attitude about it, you make good things,” Wisconsin Coach Bo Ryan said. “If you’re a nervous nelly or whatever term you use, you can’t antagonize about every little thing when you play. Players have to play.”

In the best conference in college basketball, losses like these are bound to happen, but it was not supposed to happen to IU like this.

The Hoosiers seemed to win most of the battles that matter. They outrebounded the Badgers 37-28, outscored them in the paint 30-22 and even had more second-chance points, 10-6.

But the loss happened because Wisconsin hit more shots than IU.

Down the road, IU should get another chance to move into first place in the Big Ten. But Tuesday’s loss against Wisconsin was a missed opportunity for the Hoosiers to prove that they are the best team in the Big Ten.

­— mdnorman@indiana.edu