IOWA CITY, Iowa — Why did Indiana basketball’s five-game win streak come to an end at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Saturday night?
Starting point guard Myles Rice blamed an “avalanche” of mistakes for the team’s disheartening 85-60 loss to Iowa.
The problems started right out of the gate as the Hoosiers acted like they were allergic to the basketball. They handed it over on six of their first nine possessions and the sloppy play set the tone for the rest of the evening.
Indiana’s starters were mainly to blame — they accounted for 13 of the team’s 16 turnovers, a number that tied the team’s season-high set back on Nov. 10 against Eastern Illinois.
“It kind of puts it in your head that you got to get those plays back and it’s kind of hard to do that and be your same flow.”
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Why effort wasn’t to blame for Indiana basketball’s loss to Iowa
This wasn’t the first sluggish start for IU this season, but coach Mike Woodson didn’t feel his team’s effort (or lack thereof) was an issue on Saturday night.
He outlined three areas where IU fell short — ”when you go out on the road in the Big Ten, you can’t turn it over, you gotta rebound with your opponent, and you gotta make shots” — and he spent much of his brief post-game press conference lamenting his team’s sloppy play.
“Thought we got off to a slow start, but I thought our second unit came in and got us back in it,” Woodson said. “But when you have 17 points given to them based on us just hand-delivering the basketball, you’re not gonna beat very many teams in the Big Ten doing that.”
“I thought we played pretty solid in the halfcourt defense, but we gave up 26 points but they scored 43 and 17 of those came on our turnovers. Good teams like Iowa, you’re not going to get away with that.”
Indiana’s reserves brought the team back from a 23-13 deficit midway through the first half. The Hoosiers even took a brief lead after Bryson Tucker threw down a fastbreak dunk with 8:03 to go in the half that punctuated a 13-0 run.
Iowa answered with a 16-0 run of its own and never trailed after it took back the lead. Woodson tried to blunt some of their momentum with a timeout after three straight IU turnovers, but nothing clicked for the Hoosiers.
Indiana shot 40.7% from the field (32.4% in the second half) and were 4 of 16 from 3-point range. The only 3-pointer the Hoosiers made in the second half came with 39 seconds left in the game.
It was the first time the Hoosiers were outrebounded (37-31) since a loss to Gonzaga.
“Our last road game was with Penn State and I thought we competed from the very beginning to the end,” Woodson said. “Tonight, we just looked totally different, and we can’t have games like that when we get out on the road. I mean, you gotta consistently put yourself in position where you got a shot at winning a basketball game and we didn’t give ourselves a chance tonight.”
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Indiana basketball hopes loss to Iowa is an outlier
Woodson was remarkably calm during his post game presser as he matter of factly walked reporters through his team’s struggles. It might have been different had Indiana not just won five straight with four of those games coming in the Big Ten.
“We’ve been playing good basketball,” Woodson said. “I can’t sit here and complain. Our last five games were very competitive against some teams, we got to go back and regroup.”
Rice followed the lead of his coach.
“I think we just played uncharacteristically tonight,” he said. “During those five games, we were playing real good basketball and holding on to it. I think tonight we just got a little bit outside of ourselves.”
Was this a bump in the road? Or the start of a downward spiral? Indiana won’t have to wait very long to figure out which version of itself is the real deal.
The Hoosiers’ loss to Iowa was the first of 11 straight games against Quad 1 opponents. Five of their opponents during that stretch are currently ranked in the top 25 of the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll.
“We got to go back and regroup,” Woodson said. “The Big Ten is not going anywhere. We got Illinois here soon. We got a couple days to prepare and it starts tomorrow at 5 o’clock at practice.”
Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: What went wrong for IU basketball in loss to Iowa? It was an ‘avalanche’ of mistakes
