Turnovers, poor shooting prove costly for the Hoosiers against Syracuse

Coming into Tuesday’s matchup with No. 4 Syracuse, IU Coach Tom Crean said the Hoosiers would have to find new ways to attack the Orange, including rebounding and getting to the free-throw line.

When Crean repeatedly stressed getting to the foul line, though, he probably didn’t expect that to be IU’s only source of scoring for a large chunk of the second half, especially when the Hoosiers weren’t getting there often.

During a 12-minute stretch in the second half, IU’s only points came from the line, when it scored seven points while failing to convert a field goal.

In IU’s 69-52 loss to Syracuse at the Carrier Dome in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge, the Hoosiers only got to the free throw line 24 times. In IU’s first seven games, it was getting to the free throw line a little more than 36 times per game on average and making about 26 of those shots.

Freshman forward Noah Vonleh converted 13-of-16 free throws, but the rest of the team combined to take just eight more foul shots, converting just five of them to make IU 18-for-24 from the line, well below its 26-for-36 average.

Syracuse (8-0) was 15-for-25 from the charity stripe. IU only got three more points than Syracuse from the free-throw line.

“In the first half, we were establishing it in the post, catching it in the high post looking for guys in the corners, the lanes.,” Vonleh said. “But in the second half we just started settling for 3-pointers, and that’s not what our game plan was.”

IU (6-2), which had made an effort in the early part of the season to take advantage of the new foul rules to get to the line more frequently, only managed to draw 23 fouls against Syracuse’s 2-3 zone.

And against that zone, in which perimeter shots are usually open, IU struggled once again with its 3-point shot.

“We tried to shoot too many jump shots,” Crean said.

The Hoosiers were just 4-for-14 from behind the 3-point line, and started 0-for-4 en route to a 10-0 deficit to start the game.

IU sophomore point guard Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell was the only Hoosier to see one of his 3-point shots go through the net, as he finished 4-for-7 from distance.

While IU struggled from that area of the court, Syracuse, and specifically sophomore guard Trevor Cooney, excelled.

Cooney converted 5-of-9 of his 3-point field goals to score a game-high 21 points. By himself, he made more 3-point field goals than the Hoosiers.

“We did what we came to do,” Crean said. “We got the ball inside. We had movement, we had reversals.”

Only one other Syracuse player, freshman guard Tyler Ennis, made a 3-point field goal, but the Orange shot 6-for-13 overall, 18 percentage points better than the Hoosiers.

Crean said before the matchup that “it would be silly for us to go up there and think we’re going to outshoot them from the 3-point line.”

He expected his team to attack more in transition, get to the foul line more or win the rebounding battle to find a victory.

None of those things happened for IU.

The other area Crean had stressed that his team would need to do differently than it did in March when IU lost to Syracuse in the Sweet 16 was to limit its turnovers. IU
also failed to do that.

The Hoosiers had 16 turnovers, almost exactly what it had been averaging coming into the game.

Syracuse, by contrast, had 11 turnovers.

“In the second half we didn’t take care of the ball as well as we should have,” Ferrell said. “We had a lot of turnovers.”

Follow reporter Robby Howard on Twitter @robbyhoward1.