Indiana Basketball Rues Slow Start in Louisville Loss: 'Changing Beginning Could Change a Lot'

INDIANAPOLIS — The entire Indiana men's basketball team encircled coach Darian DeVries.

Nearly six minutes into Saturday afternoon's game, the No. 22 Hoosiers still hadn't scored, and they faced a 16-0 deficit to No. 6 Louisville at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. DeVries was marginally animated, but more energetic than angered. Eventually, he pulled out his whiteboard, but only after staring at and speaking to several players in his huddle.

Indiana exited the timeout inspired. The Hoosiers found their best look yet on the first possession, scored the next time down the floor and began stringing together stops. Suddenly, their deficit trimmed to 19-14 less than five minutes after DeVries' speech.

The Hoosiers (7-2) ultimately couldn't overcome their slow start, falling 87-78 to Louisville (8-1) in Indianapolis, but they never relented in their pursuit to try.

"I thought our ability to continue to fight was good," DeVries said postgame. "If you give into it at all on a team like that, then you can be down 30 or 40 pretty quickly, because they can do that to you. So, I thought our guys' composure, even after the rough start, they continued to just battle and chip away, chip away.

"We could just never quite get over that hump to get us within a couple of possessions."

Playing in front of an energized crowd at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, Indiana struggled offensively while Louisville threw an early haymaker. The Hoosiers missed their first eight shots, and at the under-16 timeout, they had more turnovers (four) than shots that hit the rim (two).

The Cardinals' defense suffocated Indiana's offense. The Hoosiers couldn't create space or break free, DeVries said. Indiana often had to initiate its offense from well beyond the 3-point line, and Louisville took away some of the Hoosiers' counterattacks, preventing backdoor cuts and dribble-drive penetration to the rim.

Defensively, DeVries felt Indiana competed during the early stages, but Louisville capitalized on minor mistakes. The Cardinals started 6-for-10 shooting and made three triples while growing their lead to 16-0.

Louisville benefitted from 3-pointers by forwards Sananda Fru and Aly Khalifa, who'd made a combined four triples through the season's first eight games. DeVries said Indiana would live with Fru and Khalifa attempting such shots, but they made their attempts and dug the Hoosiers an early grave.

"Those things are hard to overcome against really good teams," DeVries said.

But Indiana tried. The Hoosiers trailed 41-27 at halftime, and their deficit grew to 17 points just over one minute into the second half. Yet with 13 minutes remaining, Indiana only trailed by 8 points after senior guard Lamar Wilkerson hit a 3-pointer that prompted a Louisville timeout.

The Cardinals responded with a 15-4 run to put Indiana behind, 67-48, with seven-and-a-half minutes left in the game, and the two sides traded runs for the next three minutes.

Indiana still didn't go quietly. The Hoosiers trailed by 19 points with four-and-a-half minutes remaining, but they pulled within 7 points after junior guard Nick Dorn hit his third 3-pointer in less than two minutes.

Ultimately, Indiana's deficit proved too big to overcome, but DeVries felt his team battled — which matched the contents of his pre-game speech.

In the Hoosiers' locker room at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, DeVries told his players that each night, they have to give everything in them for 40 minutes as both an individual and team. There will be days where that isn't enough, DeVries said, and the Hoosiers encountered one Saturday.

Yet DeVries had no questions about his team's effort or response following its first loss of the season, a 73-64 defeat to Minnesota on Dec. 3.

"I thought our approach today was great," DeVries said. "I thought we competed really hard. Were we perfect? No. ... And I'm not saying there wasn't plenty of other things we could have gotten better at and corrected tonight, but we competed. Our guys played their tails off, they left it out there. I was proud of them from that standpoint.

"Was there things that we could have done better? Yeah, absolutely. But I liked the way we approached the game. I liked our mindset. I liked our toughness, physicality. I thought that's what we need to do every night."

Indiana never led Saturday, but it outscored Louisville by 7 points after the Cardinals stormed out to their 16-0 lead, and Louisville's advantage never grew larger than 19 points. The Cardinals created a sizable cushion and made timely shots whenever the Hoosiers clawed ever closer. Indiana, by and large, was kept at an arm's length for the game's final 30 minutes.

But the Hoosiers never stopped playing. They were punched in the mouth by Louisville, the biggest, strongest, most athletic and most skilled team they've played thus far.

Indiana exited Gainbridge Fieldhouse with a wealth of lessons, be it the gap between itself and one of the nation's top-ranked teams or the level of performance required to reach such heights.

Perhaps most pressing atop the Hoosiers' mind, however, is a damning what if? As in, what if their early grave hadn't been too deep to climb from?

"I think changing the beginning of the game could change a lot of things," senior forward Tucker DeVries said postgame, "because I thought as we settled in, we played a lot better after that first run from them."