Most people will talk about the Free Throws in this game -- Indiana's inability to make them (10-18) and the fact that Illinois went to the line more than twice as many times as IU (27-39). However, I felt it was the fact that IU's offense completely disappeared in the 2nd half.
After playing an outstanding first half that resulted in a 41-28 halftime lead, the Hoosiers managed only 19 second half points and gave up an 18-3 run to close out and lose the game in devastating fashion.
In the first half, everything was going right. Jordan Hulls was on fire and hit his frist three 3's. Even though I still couldn't really figure out the purpose on most of the offensive possessions, it was working and IU was making good passes and knocking down shots. IU led by as many as 15 points in the first half.
With a 41-28 halftime lead, I really felt that if IU could simply score at a decent rate in the second half, they would win this game. You knew IU's defense wouldn't give up 50 second half points because it just wasn't that type of game. So, I was thinking that even if IU would give up 40 in the second half, they would only need to score 28 points themselves to hang on to the win. Well, Illinois scored 38, but IU couldn't even manage to hit the 20 point mark, which is just flat out dreadful offense.
Only 4 or 5 minutes into the second half, you could feel IU was already pressing and this game took an all too familiar turn. IU was able to keep the lead in double-figures for a little while, but then the offense completely disappeared.
Take a look at IU's shooting stats between the two halves:
1st Half FGs: 14-25 (56%)
2nd Half FGs: 8-28 (29%)
1st Half 3PT: 5-6 (83%)
2nd Half 3PT: 1-11 (9%)
1st Half FTs: 8-12 (67%)
2nd Half FTs: 2-6 (33%)
If Tom Crean is going to run sets in the offense, then he needs to find some that work. This team has no "bread & butter". It's tough because there just isn't that go-to guy. Right now, I would say it's Verdell, but you can't just give him the ball and tell him to go. You have to get creative with some plays to get him the ball in different ways and in good positions.
Right now, when you lose a game like that, I really don't want to hear about the youth and inexperience. However, you simply can't avoid it. Looking at the FT disparity, I think you can point to inexperience. Were there some bad calls against IU and a lot of ticky tack fouls? Yes. However, Illinois also got some of those calls early and they adjusted. IU kept playing the same way and kept getting whistled.
I will say that I was at least happy that IU was at least playing aggressive and tough. That's more than we can say for the OSU game. But now they need to learn to play tough and aggressive without fouling.
Just saw a comment from Tom on the "I Sure Do Hate Illinois" post. Here's what Tom had to say:
"What a kick in the balls."
Exactly.
Extremely frustrating. Even after Illinois came all the way back, IU had a 60-59 lead with 2:18 to go. So, it was looking like this game might come down to a final shot or something. The sad part was that Illinois scored the last 7 points of the game and IU didn't even have a chance to win under 30 seconds. Just bad, really bad.
One big complaint that I have is why wasn't Jeremiah Rivers guarding Demitri McCamey in the second half? It became clear that Illinois was just putting the ball in McCamey's hands and having him make things happen. We had Hulls on him, Verdell on him, Dumes on him, and I think Daniel Moore may have even been on him on one possession. Why not Rivers? I understand not having Rivers on him at the start of the game and in the first half because of the other match-ups. But once Illinois basically went to a 2-man game with McCamey and Tisdale, it became clear to me that you should have your best defender on McCamey. I'm not sure how Tom Crean can sleep tonight with McCamey scoring 13 points and dishing out 7 assists in the 2nd half and never putting your best defender on him.
At least Bruce Weber left us with another gem -- did you see that 2-year old temper tantrum he had on the sideline? That was great. He was literally crying, stomping his feet, and shaking his whole body as he sat in a chair and shook the chairs next to him. A grown man stuck in the terrible 2's. Pathetic.
It's a little bit of a helpless feeling right now.
I believe we head to Michigan next and you can be assured that we'll see a much better effort out of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
5 comments:
I know IU is not going anywhere this year. It is does not take the sting away from losing this game. This is a game that IU absolutely had in the bag. To Jeff's point, the worst part was the last 10 possessions of the game. It is crazy that IU only had one field goal in the last 8 minutes and only 2 FGs in the last 10 minutes. How do you go a quarter of the game with only 2 FGs? IU was down by 1 with 75 seconds to go and didn't get off a good shot.
The one thing that I want to know is how many fouls did Illinois have when Watford went to the line and missed his first FT. I thought IU and U of I each had 10 fouls at that point. I thought Watford was shooting two. He obviously wasn't. I thought the BT Channel put up a stat in the previous possession that both teams had 10 fouls. It didn't matter. I'm sure Watford would have missed that FT as well.
I still cannot get over how tight they played in the second half. The only guy that wants to take the big shot is Dumes. Unfortunately he is not even a 33% shooter for the season.
Just really disappointed......
The saying the offense is terrible implies that there is an offense that we run. It sure looks a lot like the Mike Davis years when we have the ball. Everyone runs down the court and the first guy to get it around the 3 point arc throws up a shot.
In the second half as the lead was slipping away, you could tell that the IU players felt like they could do nothing to stop it. We were throwing up 3s with an 8 point lead as if we were down ten with one minute to go.
Rivers is starting to drive me crazy as well. He drives to the basket with reckless abandon and throws up junk shots hoping to get fouled. That is all well and good if he could hit a damn FT, but we all know better.
This one still hurts. Similar to Michigan last year, but this year might be worse because we are supposed to be better.
Tom, never believe any stat that the Big Ten Network puts up.
Chris writes:
First of all, I love the candy stripe warm-ups. Seriously, is there a better warm up pant in the entire college hoop world? They are sweet.
I think the point about using JR on McCamey is key. McCamey was willing himself to win the game. He was just too strong for Hulls, VJ3 or Dumes. Or as Buckner would say, "He had too much Strenth." If Crean had made that change, its possible that JR could have disrupted their rhythem because he does have the STRENTH to match the Russian Demetri McCamey... It not like you need to save JR's legs for his shot.
The second thing is FT shooting. There are not too many teams that are good enough to win at this level with such poor FT shooting. If they had hit their FT's they would have won. Toward the end, Watford was fouled and had a one and one. I knew that foul was basically a turnover. Illinois chipped away at the lead with FT's and then salted it away with FT's. Is that coaching or just individual execution? I have a hard time believing that Crean isn't teaching FT's.
Elston: What happened today? Missed a key second half point-blank shot and then brick 2 second half FT's off the front of the iron? I'm worried about his guy. He looked confused and his minutes were few. I wonder if he's still engaged or if he's not buying into the coach. Transfer watch...just a feeling.
Offense. Look, we've hitched the wagon to Coach Crean for a 10 year contract. You HAVE to believe that he knows what he's doing. He won at Marquette against Big East competition. That is a fact. MU was a high scoring offense that regularly made the highlight reel. Right now, we have guys like Bobby C and Pritch on the inside. We lost Mo and Roth to injury. Crean doesn't have the developed talent on the floor to do what he wants to do. Who matches up with Tisdale? Which player has developed a signature move or shot?
None of them. In the second half, they guys looked like they wanted to play one on one instead of sticking to the system. That was their failure.
Basically, we blew their doors off in the first half with dribble drive and making good passes out to the arc or finding the open man underneath when the help came. To me, that looked like a half court offense. The offense was working when we executed it. All offenses look like shit when you lose concentration and get lackadaisical with passing and cutting. We didn't execute in the second half so we blew it. We didn't use our best defender on McCamey to disrupt their flow.
Crean wasn't perfect today. He should have made that matchup change and he should have used a couple time outs to refocus the team in the second half. With a young team that has limited scorers, you need to stop play, settle them, and get them to focus on executing the offensive & defensive gameplan. I know coaches are worried about getting to the end without a TO, but I wouldn't worry about that with this team. Just keep them in the game and prevent the other team from getting a run. Its a mental toughness thing.
Cant really add anything else to the disappointing loss except for one positive.
A t-shirt I saw an IU student wearing:
"I just CREANED in my pants!"
Pretty sure you can't buy it at the bookstore...but catchy.
You know who this is.
I saw that shirt too, Ben.
Post a Comment