Costly Mistakes Lead To Another Road Loss for Indiana

Poor free throwing shooting, too many turnovers and a lack of rebounding was too much for Indiana to overcome in an 83-74 loss to Iowa on Thursday night at in Iowa City.

IOWA CITY, Iowa — There are times when Indiana basketball coach Mike Woodson is very succinct with his words. He's done this a long time, and he can economize and summarize quite well at the same time. 

He did that perfectly Thursday night after his Indiana basketball team lost another road game, this time to Iowa 83-74. They blew a seven-point halftime lead, and are now 0-4 on the road this season. Dating back to last February, they have now lost eight straight road games.

Woodson summed up all the reasons why the Hoosiers lost in just 64 words.

And that might have been the best performance of the night. 

"When you're throwing the ball away, you're not rebounding the ball and you're not making your free throws, that's a bad combination when you're trying to win on the road,'' Woodson said. "You've got to do almost all of those things perfectly to win on the road, and we didn't do that tonight.

"As good as we were in the first half, we were awful in the second half.''

Yep, that sums it all up really well.

Indiana (12-4, 3-3 in the Big Ten) did play very well in the first half. Trayce Jackson-Davis and Race Thompson were dominating inside, and the Hoosiers scored 48 points on 58.1 shooting. They led 48-41 at the break, and that included a 2-minute 10-0 Iowa in the middle of the period when Woodson subbed all five starters.

That could have been a disaster, a 23-16 Indiana lead that turned into a 26-23 deficit, but the Hoosiers rallied nicely to make a solid run to the break.

"Our bench,  they've got to play a role. They have to hold a lead, or extend it,'' Woodson said. "Our bench is just as important as the guys who start, but they didn't play well in that stretch and they went on a 10-0 just like that, so I had to go back to the guys who got us the lead.''

Iowa came out much more aggressively in the second half, and their trapping full-court and three-quarter presses caused Indiana all sorts of problems. They had 14 turnovers in the second half and through the first eight minutes of the half, the Hoosiers took only six shots.

The Hoosiers scored just 18 points in the first 16 minutes of the second half.

Point guard Xavier Johnson and Rob Phinisee each had four turnovers and Race Thompson, who's had integral part of Indiana's press offense, had five. Indiana finally lost its lead at 59-57 and the 9:59 mark and got within one point on several occasions, but a 12-2 run late did the Hoosiers in.

"I just think when you turn the ball over 23 times and eight of those came from our (point) guards out front, Rob and X, that can't happen. I've got to get more leadership there in terms of them being able to calm to storm and at least give us an opportunity to score the ball.''

Free throws were also a huge issue, something that's haunted this team for years. in the second half, Indiana went to the line six times and NEVER ONCE made both free throws. They were 5-for-11 from the free throw line. Meanwhile, Iowa was 13-for-14 from the line in the second half, making their first 12.

That's a massive difference. 

The difference between winning and losing.

Iowa star Keegan Murray was saddled with foul trouble all night and had 12 points in just 22 minutes. But his twin brother Kris came off the bench and rescued the Hawkeyes, scoring a career-high 29 points with 11 rebounds. Iowa, a poor rebounding team, beat the Hoosiers on the boards 35-31.

Trayce Jackson-Davis led the Hoosiers with 18 points and Race Thompson had 13. Sophomore guard Trey Galloway had 10 points off the bench. 

"I just got to get them to believe,'' Woodson said. "We're playing well enough. Wisconsin was 38 and a half minutes of good basketball. Tonight was just 20 minutes of good basketball. You just can't do that.''

Indiana gets another chance on Monday night, when they travel to Lincoln, Neb. to take on the Nebraska Cornhuskers.