Something was different in the second half.
After holding Minnesota to 27 points in the first half Saturday, the Hoosiers couldn’t seem to keep the Gophers out of the paint.
But for the last 2:30 of IU’s 74-68 win against Minnesota, the scoring stopped. The Hoosiers switched back the the zone defense they played in the first half for the final 2:30 and the game slowed down.
“I just felt like at times in this game we weren’t there in the moment,” senior guard Yogi Ferrell said. “Guys probably thinking about other stuff. We just weren’t buckling down and doing what you needed to do defensively. Our offense is going to come, but at the end of the day we have to get stops.”
Only two of Minnesota’s (6-16, 0-10) field goals in the second half weren’t layups or dunks. Some of this was in transition. Other times the easy looks came from Minnesota’s half-court offense.
After scoring no fast-break points in the first half, the Gophers scored 16 in transition in the second half.
Sometimes the layup came immediately. Others the Hoosiers (18-4, 8-1) were able to stop the initial attack, but then have mismatches all over the court like freshman center Thomas Bryant trying to stop someone on the perimeter.
“Our transition defense was terrible,” Ferrell said. “We weren’t getting back at all. No matches in transition. We had Thomas on the point guard, which is not what we want. Terrible communication.”
Part of the problem was the Hoosiers were tired, Ferrell said. The more Minnesota got out in transition, the more IU’s legs started to give out. As this happened, the communication stopped.
The Hoosiers were struggling to have the energy to get back on defense themselves, Ferrell said, so they didn’t have enough to direct their teammates.
“So now you’ve got five quiet, tired players on the court,” Ferrell said. “It’s kind of hard to play defense that way.”
This all came on a day when the Hoosiers struggled shooting themselves. When the Gophers came to Assembly Hall last year, the Hoosiers made a then-school record 18 3-pointers.
IU was only 2-of-18 from behind the arc this time around. Only two IU players shot more than 50 percent from the field Saturday. Bryant made 11 of his 13 attempts for a game-high 23 points. Senior forward Max Bielfeldt made four of his seven shots for eight points.
Bryant also pulled in a game-high eight rebounds.
But IU Coach Tom Crean said he isn’t concerned about the shooting woes. If anything, they weren’t shooting enough, he said.
“I’m not the least bit concerned about that,” Crean said. “I don’t think we shot enough threes. That’s the last thing I get worried about with this team.”
But the Hoosiers won. On a day when the shots weren’t falling and they were allowing layup after layup, they are still in first place in the Big Ten.
Ferrell said he doesn’t like to compare teams from year to year. He wouldn’t talk about how this team might be different from years past because IU won a game where it struggled shooting the ball and playing defense.
But he said the Hoosiers have improved this season. They’ve improved in close games and are hanging on when they might not be playing well enough to win.
“We’ve made many strides from the beginning of the season with how we want to win close games,” Ferrell said. “Those close games we’ve had early on in the season and losing those, I think that helped us.”
