If you’re trying to win a game, going up 28-7 in the first half is a great start.
If you’re trying to lose a game — well, just ask Indiana men’s basketball.
To be fair, Indiana’s 91-89 loss to Iowa on Thursday night wasn’t what you’d call an abject disaster. Winning a Big Ten road game after a 13-day hiatus is a tall order.
Still, I don’t think that sentence, however true, offers much solace to Hoosier fans. With a tough conference schedule on the horizon, it’s becoming clear Indiana can’t keep playing one-dimensionally like it did against Iowa. Realistically, it might not have a choice.
Before we get to the good or the bad, let’s start with the ugly — injuries.
With 4:37 remaining in the first half, graduate forward Race Thompson suffered an apparent knee injury. It was the second time a veteran Hoosier had to be helped to the locker room during a game this season, the first following graduate guard Xavier Johnson’s foot injury against No. 3 University of Kansas on Dec. 17.
Both were ostensibly completely random. Both totally suck.
I know, I know. Call me a bleeding heart, but I personally don’t enjoy seeing athletes suffer freak, debilitating injuries in the primes of their lives. I guess I just don’t vibe with the cruel, unfeeling tides of chance like that.
With Thompson sidelined, the Hoosiers turned to junior forward Jordan Geronimo and freshman forward Malik Reneau. Foul trouble haunted Geronimo throughout the contest, pulling Reneau into a tough road test for which he did not appear ready. Unfortunately for the Hoosiers, methodical player development is a luxury they can no longer afford.
Thompson may not be Indiana’s largest scoring threat, but he gets to the basket enough to draw defenders to the paint. Meanwhile, his defensive prowess forces opposing ball handlers to choose between a suboptimal shot or plowing straight into a very large, very strong man. Reneau may be that one day, but Thompson had a four-year head start.
Of course, there’s still the good — senior forward Trayce Jackson-Davis. Against Iowa, Indiana’s star player logged 30 points, nine rebounds and about a dozen pained grimaces as he grabbed the lower back that’s bothered him nearly all season.
It seems almost foolish to say Jackson-Davis can’t carry this team because he’s done that several times the last four years. But whether it’s freshman guard Jalen Hood-Schifino or sophomore guard Trey Galloway, someone needs to step up. Cliché of the century, I know, but it’s true.
[Related: COLUMN: Indiana men’s basketball needed a rebound game. It got one against Nebraska.]
That brings us to the bad — throughout the entirety of the second half, Indiana never adjusted to Iowa’s full court press and more or less collapsed defensively while Carver-Hawkeye Arena went from muted disappointment to unbridled fervor.
With each Hawkeye run, the home crowd steadily grew in rowdiness as Iowa head coach Fran McCaffrey’s forehead began to look like an impressionist painter’s take on an interstate map of the western United States. By the time the final buzzer sounded, the arena was in ecstasy, and the robust transportation network below McCaffrey’s hairline was no less colorful.
Meanwhile, Indiana head coach Mike Woodson had no on-court answers for Iowa’s 21-point comeback. Whether he has answers for the Hoosiers’ depth issues or repeated scoring drought remains to be seen.
For now, the vision of Indiana as a Big Ten title contender is nothing but a pipe dream if Thompson and Johnson aren’t part of it. Time and sports medicine can remedy that, but in the immediate future Indiana needs a way to beat Big Ten teams that doesn’t force a player with an obviously injured back to drop 30 points per game.
Like a dubiously sober man sending ill-advised texts to his ex late at night, the Hoosiers are down bad. Now we find out if they can rally.
