IU 65 Minnesota 60

Well, I was in a really good mood until that just happened. I was just putting the finishing touches on what was a pretty lengthy post-game recap and my post disappeared. If IU would have lost this game, I would have just given up on this post, but since they won and I am in a great mood, I'll give it another try. I am still kind of pissed because I had some good stuff and it's not all coming back to me. Anyway, what a crazy game. How in the world did they win a game where they couldn't hold on to the ball. It was ridiculous. IU looked like grade-schoolers out there. They couldn't dribble, they couldn't pass, they couldn't catch. It looked like every last one of them had double-vision or something. In my last post that disappeared, I had not yet seen the box score and I was pretty sure they had 30 or more turnovers, but I just checked and they had 26. That has to be wrong, it seemed closer to 40 to me. The game had a horrible feel as soon as we joined it in progress. They are telling us that Gordon picked up a ticky-tack foul in the opening seconds and then we get to watch him go in for a charge and get his second foul just 3 minutes into the game. Have a seat, EJ. Then they flash that IU has 7 turnovers in the first 5 or 6 minutes. The crowd is going wild and I am thinking that this is not looking good at all. However, all of the sudden Stemler hits a 3 and IU has a 1-point lead. So, then I am thinking that IU weathered that storm without any damage and actually have the lead. Of course, that was short-lived because seconds after Stemler's 3 to take the lead, Ratliff fouls a 3-point shooter for another 4-point play. So, Ratliff has barely played the equivalent of a full game and has given up two 4-point plays. It should be noted that Ratliff did not see the floor in the 2nd half, so Sampson must be as impressed with Ratliff's play so far this year as some of you guys. IU chalked up a whopping 15 turnovers in the 1st half alone, but the good news is that they were shooting the ball well. Especially in one stretch where they went on a 17-0 run after being down by 6 to take an 11 point lead. This was mainly due to Crawford catching fire and hitting 4 triples. He is definitely streaky. IU managed to go into halftime with an 8 point lead. However, somewhere in the mix, Gordon came back in for a few minutes but he picked up his 3rd foul. When he first came back in with the 2 fouls, you could tell he was playing cautiously, but that was a good thing. Twice, he drove the lane under control and made nice passes for two assists. However, he got careless on defense and bumped a guy out of bounds to get his 3rd foul and had to sit the rest of the half. Then, DJ also picked up his second foul and had to sit the last 3 minutes of the 1st half. So, even after limited minutes for Gordon due to 3 fouls and 15 team turnovers, IU still managed to put up 40 points in the half due to hot shooting. The first 15 minutes of the second half were even worse. IU continued to turn the ball over at an alarming rate. In fact, I was convinced that they had to have more turnovers in the 2nd half, but apparently they only had 11. Pretty scary when you are talking about a half of college basketball and you are saying "only 11 turnovers" in the half. Anyway, it was still really ugly. Even when they would hold on to the damn ball long enough to get a shot up, it was only after they nearly turned it over. Every pass was dangerous - they were either ill-advised to throw it in the first place, or they were lazy passes, or they were simply inaccurate passes. It was nuts. And they couldn't dribble either. I am pretty sure that Gordon only shot 3s before getting to IU because it looks like he has never dribbled a basketball before. He couldn't catch the damn thing either. He had two outlet passes for fast-breaks that he couldn't get a handle on. It was crazy. And none of the other guards were any better. Crawford, Bassett, Gordon, and Ellis were all over the place. And to make matters worse, IU went ice cold when they did manage to get a stinkin' shot in the air. 16 minutes into the second half, IU had only scored 12 points and found themselves down 56-52. I thought IU was finished at this point. Their 8 point halftime lead had now turned into a 4 point deficit. They couldn't get the ball up the floor and they had missed four or five 3-point attempts in a row and Gordon even missed the front-end with about 4 1/2 minutes to go in the game. Fortunately, they played good down the stretch and came away with the win. It started when Crawford hit a jumper in the lane with 4 minutes to go to end a huge draught for the Hoosiers. Then, with IU down 2 and a minute to play, IU worked the ball and got it to Stemler at the top of the key and Lance drained it baby! I've kept my faith in good ole Stiffler for moments exactly like this and Lance came through big time. Then, on Minnesota's next possession, Gordon played outstanding defense and forced Minnesota to throw up a prayer that was nowhere close. Gordon then got fouled and nailed both FTs to give IU a 3-point lead with about 30 seconds to play. On Minnesota's next possession, they got a wide-open look at a 3 but they missed and IU got the rebound. Stemler got fouled with 5 seconds left, he nailed both freebies to seal the victory! I can't possibly do a report card because everything had 2 angles in this game. For example, as a team, it was their sloppiest performance of the year and they deserved to lose, but they found a way to win on the road against a pretty good Minnesota team and that is a big-time win. Another example - Eric Gordon was atrocious for most of the game but he was 4-4 from the line in the final minutes and had an outstanding defensive stand inside of a minute. As for DJ.....just another double-double with 17 points and 10 rebounds. Normally, I would point out his 3 turnovers as a negative, but you really don't notice 3 turnovers when Gordon had 7, Bassett had 4, and Crawford had 4. The box score is interesting for this game. Not only did IU have 26 turnovers, but Minnesota had only 11. That's 15 extra possessions we gave to them. However, some other areas of the box score definitely show how IU still found a way to win this game. And this stat really surprised me because there were a couple possessions where Minnesota got a few offensive rebounds, but IU outrebounded them 42-26. The FT line was also huge for the Hoosiers. Even though IU had 7 fewer attempts, they still made 1 more FT than Minnesota. IU was 12-14 including 8-8 in those key last 4 minutes of the game. Minnesota was just 11-21. In fact, you could just look at overall shooting as the difference. When you boil it down, the goal of basketball is to put the ball in the basket. The shooting was a big difference for IU in the first half to get that 8-point lead, but even the overall shooting percentages for the whole game really favored IU: FG% -- 47% for IU to only 40% for Minnesota 3-PT% -- 41% for IU to only 18% for Minnesota (including 0-7 in the second half) FT% -- 86% for IU to only 52% for Minnesota One final note is that I think Ellis continues to come up big for this team. Even though he looked as shaky as everyone else, he was only tagged with 2 turnovers while leading the team with 6 assists and pulling down 9 rebounds. No matter how ugly, I really do think this could prove to be a huge win for IU. Teams are going to have a tough time going into Minnesota and coming out with a win. Also, IU already has 1 more conference road win than they had all of last year when they went 2-6 on the road. 3-0 on the road in the Big Ten is very impressive and they are now 4-0 on the road overall. Go Hoosiers!