Senior guard Geo Baker let the ball roll off his fingertips as he floated it toward the rim. Junior forward Myles Johnson’s 6-feet, 11-inch frame barely had to leave the ground as he rolled off the screen before reaching back with one hand to snatch the ball out of mid-air, slamming it down for the alley-oop.
All it takes is one highlight play to flip the momentum in a game. An alley-oop, a timely 3-pointer or a string of defensive stops. Rutgers got all three and more as they flipped a 15-point first half deficit into a 74-63 win over IU on Wednesday night.
“It's a humbling game,” head coach Archie Miller said Wednesday. “I think it's the first time all season long our team has really looked fractured, where we didn't know how to compete, what to do.”
The opening seconds of the game made Miller uneasy. Within the first 45 seconds of the game, he had his palms skyward looking quizzically at junior guard Rob Phinisee after the three-year starter turned the ball over on each of IU’s first two possessions.
Following the early mishaps, the Hoosiers seemingly took control of the game.
IU opened the game making eight of its first 12 shot attempts, taking a commanding 19-8 lead. The Hoosiers would stretch their lead to 15 points on the backs of sophomore forward Trayce Jackson-Davis and senior guard Al Durham.
Jackson-Davis and Durham scored IU’s first six field goals of the game — trading close-in baskets and 3-pointers between the two — and finished combining for 41 of IU’s 63 points. Jackson-Davis led IU with 21 points and 11 rebounds, recording his 10th double-double of the season while Durham finished with 20 points and knocked down five 3-pointers.
But in the final eight minutes of the first half, Rutgers took control.
A 3-pointer from Baker ended a six-minute scoring drought and sparked a 27-8 Scarlet Knight run. Baker’s 3-pointer was the first of the game for Rutgers after the team started the game 0-for-7 from beyond the arc.
IU’s defense, which smothered Rutgers in the first 10 minutes of the game, began to crack.
The Scarlet Knights went on to make seven of their next eight 3-pointers and finished the first half connecting on 10 of their final 18 shots.
As IU’s defense struggled to hang on to its lead, the offense faded away.
After starting the game six-for-10 from the field, the Hoosiers made just three of their final 13 field goals. On top of IU’s poor shooting, the team committed nine turnovers in the first half, leading to nine Rutgers points.
“They really wore the back nine minutes of the first half, we had a hard time functioning,” Miller said.
IU’s guards struggled in the first half with Rutgers’ ball pressure, committing six of the team’s nine first half turnovers.
“I think turnovers are hard to defend. We had nine in the first half. And that was a big difference in the first half getting turned around.”
In the second half, the Hoosiers had no answer for the Scarlet Knights on either end of the court as their deficit continued to grow.
On offense, IU struggled to create clean looks at the basket and instead began settling for contested jumpers and tough looks inside the paint, making just 10 field goals in the second half.
The accumulation of missed shots bled into the Hoosiers’ defense as they stopped chasing open shooters and allowed the Scarlet Knights to get whatever shots they wanted.
Baker and junior guard Ron Harper Jr. led the way for Rutgers, both scoring 20 points as the team shot 49.2% from the field while knocking down 11 3-pointers.
Miller said that when the game starts to get away from IU and they start to face adversity, the team isn’t fiercely competing right now. He said it hasn’t always been that way this season, but against Michigan State and Rutgers, IU hasn’t had that fight to get back into the game.
“There's been times where we've really responded well,” Miller said. “But here lately, in particular in our last two games, I think when things haven't gone well we haven't responded with that comeback effort that we need.”
