For a moment, there was hope.
Indiana men's basketball sophomore center Kel’el Ware powered through contact, finishing an and-one and giving the Hoosiers a 34-23 lead over Penn State with five minutes left in the first half.
But over the game’s final 25 minutes, Indiana watched its day — and postseason hopes — crumble.
Penn State hit 3-pointer after 3-pointer, reeling off a pair of 10-0 runs in the second half. A mass exodus of fans departed Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall at the final media timeout. Many of those who stayed until the end booed the team as the final seconds ticked away.
The Hoosiers (13-9, 5-6 Big Ten) were dominated in the second half, taking an 85-71 loss to the Nittany Lions (11-11, 5-6 Big Ten) on Saturday afternoon.
From the first possession of the second half, Penn State outplayed and outworked Indiana, which had a 41-37 lead at the break. The Nittany Lions had three separate chances on the opening possession. They didn’t score then but capitalized on an Indiana turnover 30 seconds later and took their first lead another minute and a half thereafter.
Indiana led for over 21 minutes Saturday. It trailed for the final 17:30 and spent the last 12:05 in a double-digit hole.
“The second half, we were so flat coming out,” Indiana head coach Mike Woodson said postgame. “Something I hadn’t seen. It’s like we were a step slow. It’s kind of disappointing because you play a good game against Iowa and then you come back and basically lay an egg.”
Penn State’s offensive eviscerated Indiana’s defense, shooting 57.4% from the field overall and 64% in the second half.
The Nittany Lions, who entered Saturday as the Big Ten’s third-worst 3-point shooting team, matched a season-high with 12 triples while shooting a season-high 54.5% from downtown.
Perhaps most indicting of Indiana’s defensive effort is Penn State lacked its best scorer, sophomore guard Kanye Clary, who ranks fifth in the Big Ten with 18.4 points per game but didn’t play due to a face injury.
“You give up 85 points, you’re not beating anybody in the Big Ten doing that,” Woodson said. “That’s just not us. You’ve got a chance when you’re trying to hold teams to 65 and under in the Big Ten. When we’ve done that, we’ve been pretty successful.”
Indiana outrebounded Penn State 28-22, shot 48.1% from the field and went a season-best 84% at the free throw line.
Statistically, the Hoosiers had several strong categories — but they lacked an immeasurable attribute that ultimately fostered their sixth double-digit loss this season: heart.
“Yes, I want more fire out of my guys,” Woodson said. “They didn’t fight tonight the second half and that’s kind of disappointing. We’ve got to go back to work and see if we can work our way back.”
Indiana senior guard Trey Galloway echoed Woodson’s thoughts, claiming the Nittany Lions simply played harder than the Hoosiers — an unacceptable outcome for a program with Indiana’s standards.
“Just not playing hard enough and smart enough on the defensive end,” Galloway said. “Lot of unnecessary fouling and a bunch of miscues — that’s really just on us — that we can’t have this late in the season.”
The defeat serves as another blow to Indiana’s already slim NCAA Tournament hopes. The Hoosiers’ resume is lackluster, with no Quadrant 1 victories nor standout nonconference wins.
Now, Indiana can add another flaw — its first Quadrant 3 loss of the season.
The Hoosiers needed to accumulate wins, avoid bad losses and find a way to pull an upset or two in the second half of Big Ten play. Instead, they started their closing stretch with their third home defeat of the season.
“That’s a game I thought if we played well, we had a legitimate chance to win,” Woodson said. “I thought we did play well early on, and then we just had too much slippage defensively the second half.”
In his press conference Friday, Woodson noted he hasn’t had a full deck of players since Nov. 26 against Harvard University. With starting senior point guard Xavier Johnson out with an elbow injury, the Hoosiers were again undermanned.
Indiana doesn’t have the depth needed to survive such an absence; freshman guard Gabe Cupps scored 2 points and failed to record an assist in 33 minutes while taking Johnson’s place in the lineup.
Depth is one issue, and defensive breakdowns are another. Those two woes were particularly prevalent Saturday and led to a third detriment — all-but-gone tournament hopes.
But most concerning is Indiana, in early February, had a home game in front of 17,222 fans and only competed for 20 minutes, leaving its season at risk of falling to irrelevancy in the final month.
“I’m not going to throw my guys under the bus,” Woodson said postgame. “They just didn’t perform the second half. They didn’t, they didn’t. They were flat as hell.”
Follow reporters Will Foley (@foles24) and Matt Press (@MattPress23) and columnist Daniel Flick (@ByDanielFlick) for updates throughout the Indiana men’s basketball season.
