My Two Cents: Even in Extra Time, Indiana Shows It Is Still an Incomplete Team
MADISON, Wis. – There were very good reasons why Indiana was considered a middle-of-the-pack team at the beginning of the season, and those same reasons still exist.
What's most obvious? This is still an incomplete team.
It can look very good at times, and the Hoosiers certainly did during Thursday night's slugfest with No. 8-ranked Wisconsin, a very legitimate Big Ten title contender. For long stretches, Indiana stood toe-to-toe with them, and actually played well enough to win.
But there are no moral victories in college sports, and when things bogged down again late in both overtimes, the end result was an 80-73 loss after 50 minutes of physical Big Ten basketball.
And why do I say incomplete? Because what we haven't gotten from this team so far during the conference season is a complete game from the beginning to the end. They miss Joey Brunk to provide depth inside. They missed guard Armaan Franklin, who's out with an ankle injury, on Thursday night.
Indiana is 2-3 in the league now, but even in the two wins – Penn State and Maryland – the Hoosiers were horrible for long stretches in those games, too.
But they also play well and dominate at times, too. They made 14 of 18 shots from the field in one stretch to take control of this game. Trayce Jackson-Davis has been doing that consistently, but none of the others have really delivered from start to finish in games. This is a team with veterans – Race Thompson, Al Durham, Rob Phinisee and Jerome Hunter – and four freshmen who are still trying to figure it out.
At times, they look so good. They did that at Wisconsin, erasing a 12-point lead and actually taking a lead late in the second half. They had their chances, and they couldn't get it done.
It just wasn't enough.
"In general, our team has had to get more consistency from our veteran guys, and the fact that they're starting to pick it up a little bit is a good sign,'' Indiana coach Archie Miller said. "From Penn State to Maryland and then tonight, Al has been very good, and Rob has been much better and Jerome really picked it up tonight.
"We need guys to step up without our leading perimeter scorer in Armaan (Franklin), and we need to continue to ride with guys who do a good job. We need overall contributions and consistency from more guys, and we're getting better with that.. We saw that tonight and we need to see more of it.''
What's been lacking is solid play from EVERYONE throughout a game. Jerome Hunter had a great game Thursday against Wisconsin, but that's because he was picking up the slack for Race Thompson, who had early foul trouble and wound up with only four points in 21 minutes.
And Anthony Leal had his best game as a Hoosier, scoring nine points on three made three-pointers and giving the Hoosiers a much-needed boost when they fell behind early by double-digits.
But he got minutes — a lot of them, 35 in total – at the expense of fellow freshman Trey Galloway, who struggled for the second straight night. I'm not a big plus-minus statistic fan, but he was minus-13 in the first half, and when Leal played well, Miller simply stuck with him. Galloway played only 12 minutes, and didn't score, with one missed shot and one turnover his only statistics.
"Anthony Leal really picked us up, really played well,'' Miller said. "It's a credit to him and what a winner he is. He hit a couple of big shots to get us back in the game, and he played great on both ends of the floor.
Jackson-Davis was the key to Indiana's big run. He finished with 23 points and 12 rebounds and was virtually unstoppable during the Hoosiers' rally. But Wisconsin switched up a lot of things defensively and kept the ball out of his hands more in overtime. Not only did he not get any good looks in extra time, but he couldn't even get involved in the offense. WIsconsin took that away, and then Indiana wasn't as effective in moving the ball around to find open shooters. And they threes they did get in overtime just didn't go down.
"He played a ton of minutes, 49 minutes in a double overtime game. and he did a great job all game long,'' Miller said of Jackson-Davis. "At the end of the day, we're going to live and die with Trayce. They're ball-screen defense was better late and they did more switching to stay in front. Usually he's going to draw more fouls. They stepped up and kept the ball in front of them really well and kept us on the perimeter.''
Indiana took only eight foul shots all night, and Wisconsin had 20. That discrepancy was obvious.
But what was also obvious is that when Indiana really needed a basket to close out the game, be it in regulation or the two overtimes, it just didn't happen. The first overtime especially, the play called – called actually twice in both timeouts – with the game tied in the final seconds. never materialized. Indiana didn't get a shot off.
"At the end of the first overtime, we wanted to give Al Durham an opportunity to clear it out on that left side,'' Miller said. "But we didn't execute well to keep our spacing, and he got tied up. It was disappointing to not get a look there.
"But give them credit. They made a lot of winning plays at the end and we didn't make enough winning plays at the end. You have to find a way to step up and execute against a team like Wisconsin and we didn't do that when we needed it the most.''
Indiana also couldn't get the stop it needed on the defensive end either. In regulation and the end of the first overtime, Wisconsin's D-Mitrik Trice got the matchup he wanted and hit fadeaway jumpers to tie the game. He scored 21 points and was the Badgers' leading scorer. And Tyler Wahl got wide open for two three-pointers in the second overtime that sealed the deal.
"We had our chances to get stops in regulation and didn't get it done,'' Miller said. "Give them credit, they won it and we didn't.''
We have to be realistic here. Indiana can play games like this against the top teams in the league, and they may very well win a few of these along the way, too. But they also have no one who's guaranteed great every night after Jackson-Davis. Miller is exactly right that Indiana can't win without Durham and Phinisee playing well, and it is encouraging that they've been better.
But Indiana needs that every night going forward. Those two were awful the first portion of the season, and they have been better. But they were also the ones involved in overtime when plays didn't work.
And the freshmen will be freshmen. It was great to see Anthony Leal have a good game, and maybe that's the springboard he needs to feel confident that he can play well and contribute on this level.
That's the thing about being an incomplete team. To win games at this level, Indiana needs everyone to play well for 40 minutes every night, and we''re just not seeing that.
Not yet, anyway. There are some encouraging signs that say we will, but from whom and for how long? Stealing road games in the Big Ten is hard, even without fans, and they could have stole one Thursday. But they came up short, in their third overtime game of the year.
They'll finish off a few of these down the road, maybe. They'll get better, maybe. They'll surprise at times, too, with how good they look. But then they'll also bog down and look awful on offense against the league's best teams.
Which leaves us with this: Every night will be an adventure.
