For the second consecutive game, Indiana men’s basketball was completely outclassed on the road by a superior opponent. This time, the score was even more lopsided and came at the hands of Purdue, making it worse than the loss to Illinois on Sunday.
It was clear within the first five minutes that this was going to be an uphill battle for Indiana. Mackey was loud. Purdue was locked in. Indiana was not.
It was a painful watch, but not a terribly complicated one. Purdue was the better team for all 40 minutes, allowing Matt Painter to empty the bench up 30 in the final minutes. Now, for the second straight game, Indiana has suffered the worst loss of the Darian DeVries era, this time by 29 points.
Here are 3 Takeaways:
Embarassing
Getting beat that badly by your biggest rival in a primetime, nationally televised game sucks. There’s no two ways about it. Looking at the box score does not make me feel better about it.
After out-rebounding Purdue in the first matchup, Indiana got dominated on the glass tonight, giving up 30 rebounds while pulling down just 15. The Hoosiers grabbed just one offensive board in the entire game, leading to zero second chance points.
Unlike the 11 turnovers, up from eight in the first game, the rebounding deficit cannot be explained by the rowdy Mackey Arena atmosphere. That’s a failure of game plan, execution, and effort that should not happen in a game of this magnitude.
By the final whistle, this was the worst loss to Purdue since the Bob Knight era, though I couldn’t be more precise because Kenpom’s data only goes back to the 1996-97 season.
Tayton Conerway
After suffering an ankle injury and an illness over the last few weeks, Tayton Conerway looked healthy for the first time in a while, providing a nice offensive boost off the bench.
Conerway came off the bench to lead the team with seven assists, also finishing second on the team with 12 points. Indiana has struggled with getting points from guys not named Lamar Wilkerson lately, so this is an encouraging sign even if it didn’t matter much in the end result.
DeVries will likely want to see better, more consistent defense from him going forward, as he had a few lapses that resulted in points on the other end. Still, it wasn’t a huge impact on the game tonight, much like his offensive burst.
Reset
Tonight was probably uglier than a lot of us could have imagined, but if there is a chance at saving this season, it cannot carry over into Tuesday’s home game at Northwestern. A loss in that game may mean the Hoosiers have to beat both of Michigan State and Ohio State to make the NCAA Tournament.
DeVries is going to have to figure out a way to get his group back in the right headspace to finish this season strong. He will need one or multiple of Tucker DeVries, Nick Dorn, or Conerway to provide something consistent on offense to compliment Lamar Wilkerson’s dependable 20 points per game.
While a loss to ranked Purdue doesn’t matter in a vacuum, margin of victory does matter for NET rankings, which means Indiana has some work to do over the final four regular season games. It starts with winning Tuesday, hopefully in convincing fashion.