Column: Hoosiers make statement in East Lansing

Winning in any road environment requires toughness, but winning in Michigan State’s Breslin Center requires a resiliency that has escaped IU men’s basketball teams during the last 17 trips to East Lansing.

Tuesday night, the Hoosiers ended their 17-game road losing streak at MSU by showing more heart and toughness in their 72-68 victory over the Spartans than they have in any other game in the Tom Crean era.

Throughout the day, anticipation was building as Michigan State students stood outside, waiting for the chance to wreak the same havoc that made then No. 4 Michigan look more like a NIT tournament team than a NCAA tournament team.

But when the game Wednesday night finally got under way, the Hoosiers weathered the storm of the “Izzone” by packing their road warrior suitcases full of the one thing that always travels well: defense.

As expected, the Hoosiers didn’t shoot lights out to begin the game, but they didn’t have to because their defensive intensity in the first half.

The Hoosiers may have only shot 13-of-31 (41.9 percent) from the field, but they held the Spartans to only 30 points because IU blanketed MSU, forcing them to start the game 2-of-9 from behind the arc.

Leading the Hoosiers’ defense as always was junior guard Victor Oladipo.

With his four first half steals, Oladipo moved into third place for most steals in single IU basketball season. Oladipo passed Isiah Thomas’ total of 62 from his freshman season in 1979-80.

The junior, who finished with 18 points, nine rebounds and five steals, now only sits one steal behind Quinn Buckner’s 65 steals in 1975-76 and ten steals behind Isiah Thomas’ school record 74 steals set in 1980-81.

“Victor is a very calculated player,” IU Coach Tom Crean said. “He’s very aggressive. As good as he is, his leadership is strong and his intelligence is strong.”

Oladipo was as good as a one-man show guarding the perimeter for IU, but freshman guard Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell and senior guard Jordan Hulls also deserve credit for their defensive work on Keith Appling.

After scoring just three points against IU in the first matchup of the season, MSU’s senior point guard managed only six points and two assists on 1-of-8 shooting.

Down low, the Hoosiers relied on the defensive duo of senior forward Christian Watford and sophomore forward Cody Zeller to shut down Michigan State’s Derrick Nix.

When Nix got the ball in the post, Zeller and Watford were usually there to meet the 6-foot-9, 270-pound forward with a double team.

This technique allowed MSU’s Adreian Payne to finish with a team-high 19 points on a few easy dunks and open looks from behind the arc, but overall it made life tough in the post for Nix.

No time was this strategy more effective than when the Hoosiers led MSU 68-67 with the game hanging in the balance.

After receiving the ball in the high post, Nix got caught in a Zeller-Watford double-team, forcing Tom Izzo to call a timeout with 21.8 seconds left and 11 seconds left on the shot clock.

After the timeout, IU tightened up defensively and forced Gary Harris into a bad shot that trickled off the backboard out-of-bounds – eventually yielding the Hoosiers as the victors after Oladipo knocked down two more free throws to make it 72-68.

“Some of the end was a blur,” Crean said. “But the memories I have is listening to these guys in the timeouts and listening to the resolve they had during the entire game. Our talk got better as the game went on and that's a big thing."

The defensive toughness and cohesiveness that IU showed in the hostile Breslin Center is not something that can be taught in practice.

When analysts, former players and coaches talk about why young teams “need experience to learn how to win”, they are talking about the kind of mental toughness that IU displayed against the Spartans because that was not something in the Hoosiers’ arsenal last year.

That kind of toughness only comes by experiencing the high-level, stress-filled situations that have become common for the Hoosiers in the past two years, but were foreign to IU in Crean’s first three years.

“It's an honor to coach these guys,” Crean said. “They just keep getting better and better. They keep working. They are very committed to what they are doing and they are developing a great maturity about them."

The Hoosiers are now 6-0 against ranked teams this season, 4-0 against teams ranked in the top-10, and now claim sole possession of first place atop the Big Ten standings.

The road to the top has been one filled with challengers and adversity, but IU’s journey does not end here.

Tuesday night, the Hoosiers made a statement to the rest of the NCAA.

Resilient teams don’t quit until the job is complete and the victory is secured.

- mdnorman@indiana.edu