Indiana's Season Ends With Lackluster Loss to Miami in NCAA Second Round
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ALBANY, N.Y. — Indiana has lived and died with its defense all season. It wasn't there Sunday night in its second-round NCAA Tournament game against Miami though, and it brought an end to the Hoosiers' season in a disheartening 85-69 loss.
There wasn't a lot that went right, actually. An it was a sad ending to the brilliant career of senior forward Trayce Jackson-Davis. Outside of a brief run around halftime that actually earned them a two-point lead, they were completely outplayed by No. 5 seed Miami, which was quicker and more athletic at all five positions.
And that was far too overwhelming for the Hoosiers.
"You've got to give Miami a lot of credit,'' Indiana coach Mike Woodson said. "They played their butts off tonight. It was a well-coached game, and I thought they were the better team. They showed it first half, and second half. I thought when we got back in it that we didn't do the things that put us in position once we got the lead to win the game.
"This one is tough to swallow because I truly believe this team had a legitimate shot. As a coach, I put so much pressure and heat on myself to get teams over the hump, so I've got to take some responsibility for this one tonight. When I look at the stat sheet and look at paint points and the rebounding, that's just not Indiana basketball. That's where the game was won. We didn't compete, and they were the better team tonight.''
Miami had 20 offensive rebounds, and outrebounded the Hoosiers 48-31. Center Norchad Omier, who banged with Jackson-Davis all night, had 17 rebounds, including eight on the offensive end. Many of them led to second-half points, which made a huge difference.
"They're a great offensive rebounding team. They've got athletes. They would shoot shots and everyone was crashing. They didn't have guards getting back because everyone was going to get the ball. Omier played really well and was wedging people under the glass, myself included. They were relentless and they punished us, and that's what they did honestly.''
Indiana's season ended with a 23-12 record. There were many good things — two wins over Purdue, big road wins at Illinois and Michigan and Jackson-Davis rewriting the Indiana record books — that happened through the course of the season, but it also ended without any conference titles or NCAA Tournament runs.
There has been progress, but not nearly enough.
Jackson-Davis finished with 23 points and eight rebounds, but despite those numbers, Miami actually did a great job of keeping him in check. They doubled him often early, and from many different directions. Every possession early was a different concept, and Indiana settled for six shots from others before Jackson-Davis even got his first attempt more than five minutes into the game.
That had a lot to do with Miami racing out to an 8-0 lead. Indiana couldn't find its way offensively and the Hurricanes — who are 27-7 now and will play No. 1 seed Houston in Kansas City next Friday — had their way with dribble penetration, blowing by every Indiana defender.
"I told them at halftime that we gave up 40 points and we hadn't done that a whole lot this season. We gave up 80-something points, which wasn't good.
As bad as Indiana played during the first half, they found a way to hang around just enough, and when Miller Kopp hit a three from the corner at the halftime buzzer, the Hoosiers trailed just 40-35 at the break.
And then they came out firing. They scored eight straight points in two-plus minutes to take a 43-40 lead and looked like they had righted the ship on both ends of the floor.
But then Miami got hot again. Indiana had no answer for guard Isaiah Wong, who finished with 27 points and blew by Indiana defenders often. They also couldn't stop Jordan Miller with their fours, and he had 19 points.
Indiana's last lead came at the 13:42 mark when Jalen Hood-Schifino scored to make it 49-47. From there, Miami went on a 14-2 run to jump ahead 63-51. Indiana made one more push to cut the lead to seven with 6:06 to go, but then Miami went on another 10-2 run to go ahead by 15. Indiana got no closer than eight, and lost by 16 despite being 1.5-point favorites coming into the game.
There were several Hoosiers who struggled. Hood-Schifino looked like a freshman early, forcing thing and getting frustrated easily by Miami's swarming and swatting defense. He was so out of control that Woodson actually had to bench him just six minutes into the game to get his head right.
He scored 11 points late in the game after Miami was already up by double digits, which inflated his line a bit. He had 19 points on 8-of-22 shooting with three turnovers. He also struggled to get Indiana into its offense, which was frustrating for everyone, players and coaches included.
"I don't know if I'd call it nerves. We just didn't play well,'' Woodson said when asked about Hood-Schifino's struggles. We did a lot of things tonight from an offensive standpoint that we haven't been doing. We didn't sacrifice the next pass. It was nice individually I had to beat you, I've got to do it myself instead of doing it as a team.
"There were a number of times we could have made the next pass and we didn't do that.''
Miller Kopp ended his college career with eight points and Race Thompson did the same with 11 points and seven rebounds. Galloway had eight points, and Indiana's bench didn't score a single point. Malik Reneau played 10 minutes and didn't take a shot, nor did Kaleb Banks in his three minutes.
Tamar Bates played 20 minutes and was 0-for-7 shooting. He went 0-for-13 in his two games in Albany.
And now Indiana heads into the offseason with a lot of question marks, most notably replacing senior Jackson-Davis, Thompson and Kopp. The Hoosiers have two guards signed for next year, but no bigs. So hitting the transfer portal seems likely.
It's been a good year, but not a great year. And the suddenness and finality of the season is hard to swallow. Especially seeing Jackson-Davis in an Indiana uniform for the last time.
"He's meant a lot to this program. I don't think we're sitting here today if it wasn't for Trayce Jackson-Davis. He could have left two days after I got the job, but he decided to stay on board. He worked his butt off, and he got better. He benefitted from it, and our team benefitted from it.
"I wish nothing but the best moving forward for him and Miller and Race. They gave us all they could give us. It was fun times coaching those guys this season, but they're going to move on, and I've got to figure out our next move as. far as moving this program forward.''
