Too Big, Too Good: Arizona Overpowers Indiana in Las Vegas Showdown

Arizona's dominant big men were too much for Indiana on Saturday in Las Vegas. The Hoosiers fell behind by 19 points early and made several comebacks, but couldn't get over the hump in an 89-75 loss, their second of the season.

LAS VEGAS, Nev. — There are many good reasons why a lot of people think Arizona is a Final Four team this year. And they were all on display Saturday,  when the No. 10-ranked — but not for long — Wildcats beat No. 14 Indiana 89-75 in Las Vegas in a cross-country battle of top programs.

Arizona's big-man tandem of 6-foot-11 Azuola Tubelis and 7-footer Oumar Ballo were simply too much for Indiana's out-sized front line to handle. Tubelis had 21 poiints, and Ballo added 15 points and 12 rebounds. Arizona also made Indiana pick its poison, hitting 10 three-pointers.

It was all just too much.

"We got down early but I thought we fought. Arizona is a good team, they are,'' Indiana coach Mike Woodson said. "The game was won in the paint, and they were the better team in the paint. Tonight we let this one get away.

"Their bigs are dominant bigs. They're good and there's a reason why they average 20 and 19 points a game between the two of them. We had to battle that, and I thought they got the better of our bigs tonight. I really do. We haven't doubled a lot since I've been here, but we also haven't played many teams that had two bigs like that.''

Indiana ran into all sorts of problems early. Playing without freshman guard Jalen Hood-Schifino, the Hoosiers really needed point guard Xavier Johnson on the floor for quality minutes. But he picked up two fouls in the first four-plus minutes and had to go to the bench. When he did, Arizona went on a 17-0 run and suddenly was ahead 27-9, stunning the huge Indiana crowd that made the trip to the desert.

It was ugly, and could have stayed that way, but the Hoosiers did a great job of battling back. They cut the lead to five on three different occasions, and even got it to three one time in the second half. But every time the Hoosiers made a run, Arizona jumped right back out ahead. 

''They're a really good team and they've got a lot of big guys, and they beat us up on the glass a little bit and that hurt us,'' said sixth-year senior Race Thompson, who had a team-high 16 points and nine rebounds. He was 4-of-7 shooting from the three-point line, a career high. ''The same thing happened in the Rutgers game (last Saturday). We win the rebounding game, we'd have a better chance to win.''

The slow start was tough to overcome. Indiana battled back often, but could never get even. It was too big of a hole to overcome for the Hoosiers, who are now 8-2 on the season.

''I think we had to find our rhythm a little bit,'' Thompson said of the slow start. "I think everybody just needed to settle down a little bit. That's what we talked about in the timeouts. We just had to wake up and put our foot on the gas.That's a really good team that we just played, but I wish would could tip it up and play them again.''

Indiana had five players in double figures for the first time all year, with several people contributing to the comeback. Thompson was huge, but so was Johnson when he got back on the floor. He wound up being able to play 26 minutes, scoring 11 points with 11 assists and just two turnovers.

Indiana's two best three-point shooters — Miller Kopp and Tamar Bates — got rolling, too. Kopp had 14 points, making 4-of-8 threes, and Bates scored 13 points on 6-for-10 shooting from the field. 

Trayce Jackson-Davis was the fifth Hoosier in double figures. He had 11 points and five rebounds before fouling out in the closing minutes of the game. He passed Christian Watford to move into 10th place on the all-time Indiana scoring list. He did that, ironically, on the 11th anniversary of the famous Watford shot against No. 1 Kentucky.

Jackson-Davis and Thompson, for all the good they did on Saturday, still struggled to control Arizona's size. They were out of position at times, but mostly it was getting overpowered.

It made a big difference.

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"We just weren't doing the things we practice every day. They beat us at our own game,'' Thompson. "We pride ourselves on playing defense, and we let up too many points tonight. Letting up 45 points in the first half,  that's way too much. They hit a lot of threes off of offensive rebounds, and those are hard to cover.'' 

Arizona, which had been ranked No. 4 in the country two weeks ago before losing at Utah, outrebounded Indiana 44-34 and had 16 offensive rebounds. The Hoosiers gave up 17 offensive rebounds in their first loss to Rutgers, a disturbing trend that will need to be fixed.

Doing that by Saturday might be a good thing, because it doesn't get any easier next weekend when Indiana plays No. 6 Kansas in Lawrence.