No. 21 Indiana men’s basketball headed to Maryland in hopes of continuing its hot-streak in Big Ten play by defeating a home-dominant Terrapin squad. The Hoosiers came up short in a 66-55 loss due in large part to playing undisciplined, errant offense for 40 minutes.
Tuesday night marked only the second time Indiana was held to fewer than 60 points, the other contest coming in a 63-48 loss to Rutgers on Dec. 3.
The Hoosiers showed many signs of regression that led to the lackadaisical performance, but three important things went wrong that could have easily been adjusted or amended.
Trayce Jackson-Davis
The senior All-American had an uncharacteristically nondominant offensive night, albeit a monster outing on the defensive end with 20 rebounds.
[Related: Jackson-Davis surpasses 1,000 career rebounds, moves closer to Indiana’s third all-time]
Still, his impact on the other side of the ball was too quiet to provide sufficient energy to a Hoosier squad that lacked focus and drive all night. Jackson-Davis finished with 18 points, below his average of 25.4 over the Hoosiers’ five-consecutive wins.
Early on, his teammates struggled to get the ball to Jackson-Davis in the post. When he did get touches down low, he was doubled immediately, often too suffocated to initiate a play or make a decent move to the basket.
“Hell, we couldn’t make shots,” head coach Mike Woodson said. “We got the ball up the court, and then we just became lackluster.”
Jackson-Davis missed six shots –– many of them bunnies at the rim –– and turned the ball over twice. His shot selection was iffy at times, and he had only one objectively strong take to the basket: a putback dunk late in the second half.
When Jackson-Davis is in control, it pays dividends for the Hoosiers. Against Maryland, he had to work for everything. And even though he finished with an admirable stat line, the bulk of the fault came by not allowing Jackson-Davis to be the focus of the offense from the get-go.
Turnovers
Indiana finished with 12 turnovers –– not a horrible statistic on its own. However, the time-and-place impact of those miscues played a major role in the Hoosiers’ loss.
Many of the turnovers were of the live ball category, mostly including errant passes. Jackson-Davis attempted a handful of beautiful dishes to his fellow forwards in the post, but neither graduate Race Thompson nor freshman Malik Reneau were ready for or able to handle the potential assists.
Freshman guard Jalen Hood-Schifino made a couple mental mistakes at the top of the key, allowing Maryland guards to pick off the passing lane and score easy layups in transition.
The Terrapins only committed five unforced errors themselves and finished with 14 points off Hoosier turnovers. In a game where the outcome was decided by 11 points, each Indiana miscue was a disappointing and largely impactful step in the wrong direction.
Isolation sets
All too often, the Hoosiers found themselves taking Terrapin players one-on-one, whether in the full-court press breaker or half-court sets.
Hood-Schifino was at the root of both of those issues. He shot 1-for-14 on the night, finishing with 3 points in 34 minutes as the Hoosiers’ primary facilitator.
“Obviously, you’ve just got to learn from your mistakes, but at the same time, he’s been one of our rocks this year,” Jackson-Davis said of his freshman point guard. “We have to put this behind us, because we’ve got a big game Saturday and we’ll need him to step up.”
Instead of giving Jackson-Davis touches in the high-post at the outset of each possession, guards like Hood-Schifino and sophomore Tamar Bates were guilty of pulling up for highly-contested, low-percentage jumpers that seldom saw the bottom of the net. Bates finished with 2 points on 20% shooting from the field.
“Sometimes we were rushing it a little bit,” Jackson-Davis said. “Instead of making one more pass, we were shooting contested jumpers. And sometimes we had open shots, and we just weren’t shooting them.”
When Woodson opted out of a set press breaker, he gave the keys to the likes of Hood-Schifino, Bates and junior guard Trey Galloway to get over half court with minimal help from Indiana forwards. An overdose of east-to-west dribbling movement in the backcourt instead of diagonal passes or straight-line drives up the floor cost the Hoosiers a potential advantage too many times to count.
A lack of productive structured plays has been a glaring issue for Indiana all year, and once Maryland was able to eliminate Jackson-Davis from any threat of domination, the Hoosiers lost their entire offensive identity.
Follow reporters Evan Gerike (@EvanGerike) and Emma Pawlitz (@emmapawlitz) and columnist Bradley Hohulin (@BradleyHohulin) for updates throughout the Indiana men’s basketball season.
