IU 69 Northwestern 65

Hmmm....where to begin? Well, you're always happy when IU wins, but the happiness must be buried down pretty deep after this game because I wouldn't describe the feeling after the buzzer as a feeling of happiness. Mick, Tom, Sean, and I looked at each other and it was more mixed feelings of shock, anger, relief, despair, hopelessness, and disbelief. The only thread of happiness stems from the fact that they had to win that game to stay tourney-bound. But even that fact doesn't bring a great deal of happiness because they are playing so horribly right now that they won't beat anybody in the post-season. We have not played a single good game since beating Wisconsin (and that was a while ago). All we can hope for is that they win on Saturday and then hopefully find a way to break out of this funk. If you're looking for other positives -- at least we're not Iowa -- they had a must-win game against Penn State tonight and lost. I tell you what, even though IU's game against Penn State is at home, the Hoosiers better be ready because Penn State is playing good ball right now. The other positive is that even though we looked horrible doing it, we did break a 3-game losing streak at Northwestern. Of course, tonight was practically a home game. Generally, when we go to these games in Evanston, I would call it about 60% NW fans and 40% IU fans. But tonight, there was the usual number of IU fans but nobody there for NW, so that 60/40 probably flipped in IU's favor. So, at the very least, this was almost like a neutral site game. If some of you did not get a chance to see the game, we started off with a nice 9-2 lead at the first timeout. At this point, we were thinking that this was going to be a nice easy win. Northwestern looked bad even for Northwestern standards. Ratliff got off to a good start by hitting a pair of 3s. Unfortunately, right after the second 3 went in, he must have been bumped or something because his head went 7 miles up his ass and stayed there for the rest of the game. After this time-out, NW went to a 1-3-1 zone. It seemed to give us some trouble, but then there was another time-out and we figured they would come back out and attack the zone. Instead, they came out and had 2 guards stand near half-court and lob the ball back and forth for 30 seconds. Next thing you know, NW has slowly gone on a 20-11 run over 12 minutes and take the lead at 22-20. Then, NW gave IU a big break by missing a wide-open layup and some FTs and the score stayed at or around 22-20 with 4 minutes to go in the half. IU managed to close out the half on a Wilmont 6-0 run. Wilmont hit a 3 with less than a minute, then grabbed the rebound on a NW miss with 8 or 9 seconds, dribbled across half-court with a nice behind-the-back move and then banked in a straight-on 3-pointer. This gave IU a 32-28 halftime lead and fortunately for IU, Wilmont was just getting started. Note -- I just read the recap of the game and Wilmont actuall hit 3 treys in the final 90 seconds of the half. At halftime, we were happy that Wilmont's 6-0 run gave the Hoosiers the lead, but VERY frustrated with the way the were handling NW's 1-3-1 defense. NW had 3 guys out on the ball and a little guy down low on D.J. However, we only managed to get D.J. one touch as part of the normal offense. He got a couple others on offensive rebounds. Being fans of Sampson, we were confident that he would make the adjustment to attack the 1-3-1, but they came out in the 2nd half and still just played lob-pass keep away with the 2 guards standing 35 feet from the basket. Wilmont continued his hot shooting and IU would build 7 or 9 point leads, but then we would let NW cut it right back down to 3 or 4. Finally, with less than 3 minutes to play, IU pushed the lead to 11 on a D.J. 3-point play. It was the first time IU had pushed the lead over 10 points and with less than 3 minutes to go, it looked the Hoosiers had finally busted this one open. But then everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong. IU had 3 straight turnovers that led to easy NW layups and the lead was down to 5 immediately. Then came the free throw struggles -- Shaw missed a front-end, then Bassett made two, then Suhr missed a front-end. NW cut it to two with 14 seconds to go. IU finally does a nice job of breaking the press and get it to Ratliff who is wide-open for a dunk or easy layup with about 11 seconds. All he has to do is take a couple dribbles, go in for the easy dunk, and the clock is running with about 8 seconds left and a 4-point lead. Instead, he just stands there and waits for someone to come foul him, which NW quickly does with 10 seconds to go. So, instead of a 4-point lead and a running 8 second clock, we now have a 2-point lead and a stopped 10 second clock. Of course, he misses the first and I am now thinking that they are actually going to LOSE THE GAME! Fortunately, he made the second and IU played nice defense on NW's 3-point attempt to tie. I guess it's a million times better than a loss, but is sure was ugly. I think we have to do a report card on this one because there was a wide variety of performances. Overall Team Performance: D- This goes against my rule of not grading below a C- for any win, but I think anyone who watched the game will agree with me on this one. Again, this is a bad NW team even by NW standards and we nearly handed the game to them. Kelvin Sampson: F I like you, coach. But the main reason that this was a close game was because you got out-coached. I would even hesitate to call it out-coached, it was more of an all-out failure for Sampson to react, adjust, and coach his team. If Penn State does any film study, they should be playing a lot of 1-3-1 on Saturday. A.J. Ratliff: F- Cook already commented that this should be an F- and I am not going to argue with him. Seeing a game live, you can pick up even more things than you can on TV. Of course, Ratliff was bad enough tonight that Cook obviously didn't have any problem picking it up on TV. But anyway, seeing the game live, you can just see that Ratliff was playing horrible defense, not finding open men, making horrible decisions, and missing his last 8 shots of the game. Honestly, I can't describe how horrible he looked. It had Sean wishing he was graduating this year. Absolutely pathetic. Roderick Wilmont: A+ Not necessarily an A+ to mean perfection, but an A+ for a couple other reasons. First and foremost, he single-handedly carried this team to victory tonight. If Wilmont would have been off tonight, IU would have easily lost by double-digits. Second reason for the A+, check out his stat line -- 31 points, 12 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, and 1 blocked shot. He set a school record with 9 triples and was 9-13 from 3-point land and 11-17 overall from the field. And finally, watching the game live and watching some of the little things....Wilmont does a lot of those things. Maybe he was more active tonight because he was scoring a lot, but I just like the fact that Wilmont is out there always trying to make something happen and trying to win. By contrast, Ratliff looks like he is just going through the motions. Lance Stemler: C- I think we have to accept the fact that Mike White has better range than Stemler. Casper made a layup, but missed two more threes badly. He was active and decent in some other areas, but he needs to find that jump shot if IU is going to make any run in the Big Ten Tourney or the Big Dance. D.J. White: C Got some things going in the 2nd half, but was a non-factor in the first half. Part of the blame with the limited touches has to fall on D.J. because he does not post strong enough and demand the ball. But then again, tonight really proved that this team does not have any good passers. We were joking at the game that our only play that worked tonight was the 2 guards to play catch for a while, then get it to Wilmont on the wing and he will force up a 3. Fortunately, Wilmont was hitting them because there were no actual offensive plays or any attempt to get the ball to D.J. Armon Bassett: B+ Had his share of mistakes, but he was the only one that penetrated and probed the defense and he was usually the one getting the ball to Wilmont. Finished with 9 assists so that was good to see. He also hit both his free throws in between Shaw and Suhr missing critical front-ends. Suhr: D A little white dude needs to hit free throws at the end of a game. He almost air-balled. He did chase down an offensive rebound. Shaw: C+ Defense is horrible and all he does is foul. He was in foul trouble and Calloway was hurting, so Sampson was kind of forced to keep Ratliff in the game even though he spent the game trying to get a good look at his pancreas. Calloway: C- If only grading on-the-court results, Calloway would probably be in the D/D- range because he did not look good. Unfortunately, it was very clear that he is in a lot of pain and was nowhere near 100%. I'm concerned that we won't be able to get much out of Earl the rest of the year. Poll Results: * All 10 voters correctly predicted the win....LUCKY! * If win last 2 & B10 Tourney, majority think a 3 or 4 seed * If win last 2 & lose 1st game of B10 Tourney, majority think 6 or 7 seed * If split last 2 & lose 1st game of B10 Tourney, majority think 8 or 9 seed, but 2 voters don't think they'll be dancing. * If they would have lost their last two and 1st game of B10 Tourney, majority think they would not be dancing. * Favorite A.J. was a tie between Guyton and Moye. Ratliff received 0 votes and after tonight, he is an embarrassment to the IU A.J.'s * Favorite Earl -- Calloway edged out Jason Lee's My Name Is Earl character. Go Hoosiers! ************************************************************************************** Members of the IU Hoops Blog take matters into their own hands tonight as Jeff, Mick, Sean, and Tom are heading into Evanston to personally see that the Hoosiers come out victorious. If they do not, I will be the one on SportsCenter taking some swings at Bendeman (because a loss would most likely be his fault).