When a bad team plays well against a good opponent, it’s called a moral victory. Does that mean Saturday’s win against Rutgers was an immoral loss?
Yes, IU did earn a 72-64 victory over the Scarlet Knights, but they looked just plain bad for most of the game.
I wrote before that if IU doesn’t come out and play with passion, it would be a tough second half of the conference season.
The good news is it looked like IU was playing hard, and the numbers back that up. The Hoosiers outrebounded Rutgers and had 13 offensive boards. They scored 32 points in the paint. And in the first half alone, they had 16 fast break points.
The bad news is, despite IU playing hard, it looked bad. They weren’t kicking the ball out to the perimeter as much as they should, and the shots just weren’t going in.
The worst number of all is, despite the Hoosiers’ 13 offensive rebounds, they couldn’t do anything with them. They only had seven second-chance points. IU Coach Tom Crean stayed positive about that issue after the game despite the low percentage on extra opportunities.
“I’m going to go with 13 offensive rebounds and say that’s a real plus,” Crean said. “We want to do a better job of finding the three. What we want to do is get the board then sprint out if we don’t have it. Then, get that next pass and try to get even more threes.”
Crean said it’s important that his team always has an eye out on open shooters after offensive rebounds, but it’s important that they focus on getting the offensive rebound first. If it weren’t for timely runs near the end of each half, IU would have lost this game.
With 5:33 left in the first half, IU initiated a 12-2 run and with 6:50 left in the game, IU went on an 8-0 run to take the lead. The Hoosiers never gave it back, thanks to some timely defense — something they lacked in the closing minutes of their last two games.
Freshman guard James Blackmon Jr. said the players were motivating each other during a break in the action.
“Coming out of the timeout every one of us just said, ‘Come on, give it all for these last seven minutes’ and we just toughed it out,” Blackmon said.
This is another classic example of IU playing to their competition. Rutgers is probably the worst team in the conference and they were just a few minutes away from walking out of Assembly Hall with an impressive road win.
The combined length of time of the two big runs for IU was just 5:45. IU looked really good for those stretches, but the rest of the time they struggled.
And with Wisconsin up next on the schedule, that task becomes even more urgent.
crkrajew@indiana.edu
