Following IU men’s basketball’s 74-67 loss to Northwestern, head coach Archie Miller kept repeating two words — "disappointed" and "turnovers."
For a team that uses a guard-heavy lineup and often has three players on the court at any time to facilitate the offense, IU has been plagued by turnovers since the beginning of the season. Tonight against the Wildcats, the team’s 16 giveaways were the difference in the seven-point defeat.
Miller said he was disappointed in the team’s inability over the past few weeks to improve on taking care of the basketball but took full responsibility for the lack of progress.
“We didn’t play well enough to win tonight,” Miller said. “We’re making the same mistakes over and over sometimes in terms of taking care of the ball, which really hurt us tonight."
In the first half, IU’s turnovers never let them find its offensive rhythm, and often led to Northwestern runs, burying them early.
With more than eight minutes remaining in the first half, the Hoosiers were trying to end a 15-3 Wildcats scoring run, during in which they hadn’t scored in over two minutes, when sophomore guard Armaan Franklin lazily dropped off a pocket pass behind a cutting Trayce Jackson-Davis, which sparked a fast break the other way.
As IU’s offense continually stalled due to turnovers and Northwestern’s high-pressure defense, frustration started to boil over.
While walking back to the bench for the under-four timeout, Jackson-Davis yelled to his teammates “Get me the f—ing ball. Damn.”
Constant giveaways stifled any chance IU had of taking control of the game in the second half. Whenever the Hoosiers had a spark that looked ready to ignite a run and put the Wildcats in the rearview mirror, an inopportune turnover seemingly always snuffed it out.
“We had some empty possessions when we were getting stops,” Miller said. “We had some very inopportune, bad possessions that we didn’t take care of it when we got the lead.”
With a little over nine minutes remaining in the game and the lead, Miller said he felt good. IU seemed to have found a rhythm offensively, and while Northwestern was matching them blow for blow on both ends of the court, they were able to take care of the ball for a short period and get good looks at the basket.
However, as the game went on, fatigue started to set in as the turnovers resurfaced. The Hoosiers only had seven players play over 15 minutes, which Miller said contributed to the team's sloppy play down the stretch.
As the two teams traded the lead back and forth, it was the Hoosiers’ late turnovers that allowed the Wildcats to give themselves breathing room.
“Yeah I thought our execution there at the end of the game, we took the lead with over five minutes left but down the stretch, after that, I thought we were sloppy,” Jackson-Davis said. “You do that against a good team, you get beat. So, that’s what happened.”
At the end of the game, IU closed the door on its comeback attempt the same way they got into trouble all night.
In the waning seconds of the game, senior guard Al Durham tried to sweep across the top of the arc to find an open shot down five to give IU a chance. As he tried to turn the corner he dribbled off his foot, forcing the Hoosiers to foul and making it a three-possession game.
“We have too many plays that aren’t going to work for us going forward in this league,” Miller said. “We can’t turn the ball over 16 times, we’re not that good.”
