Indiana basketball crushed by Iowa in an ugly 85-60 loss

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Indiana’s 85-60 loss to Iowa on Saturday was the worst reminder of the team’s previous trips to Carver-Hawkeye Arena under coach Mike Woodson.

On offense, the Hoosiers were careless with the ball. Defensively, they couldn’t stop what Iowa does best – shooting three-pointers. Indiana’s third straight loss at home for the Hawkeyes was marred by 16 turnovers and poor defensive play that resulted in Iowa making 11 of 24 three-point attempts.

The loss continued Woodson’s winless streak at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, which is currently 0-3 since taking over the team for the 2021-2022 season. In 2022, the Hoosiers lost in Iowa City 83-74 and committed 23 turnovers in that game. In 2023, Indiana’s defense collapsed in a 91-89 loss at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. Indiana didn’t play Iowa on the road last season, but won its only game against the Hawkeyes 74-68 in Bloomington, snapping a four-game losing streak.

With Saturday’s victory, Iowa State snapped Indiana’s five-game winning streak and dropped the Hoosiers to 13-4 overall and 4-2 in Big Ten play. Indiana returns to the comfort of Simon Skjodt’s auditorium for Tuesday’s 7 p.m. ET game against Illinois, which dropped to 12-4 overall and 4-2 in the Big Ten after Saturday’s home loss to USC.

“Coming into this game, we were playing pretty good basketball,” Woodson said. “When you go on the road in the Big Ten, you can’t turn it over, you have to get the rebound off your opponent and you have to make shots. We failed in all three areas tonight and you can’t have that when you go on the road. So we have to be better.”

Slow starts have been a common theme for Indiana this season. Even in Wednesday’s 82-69 victory over USC, the Hoosiers trailed by 10 points, 22-12. They emerged with similar problems on Saturday night.

Indiana committed six turnovers before the U-16 timeout, making various ill-advised passes and not holding the ball well enough. Indiana’s Oumar Ballo knocked the ball out of the hands of the Iowa double team. Trey Galloway tried to pass from the baseline to Luke Goode up the wing, but it ended up setting up Brock Harding the other way.

Ballo was benched at 14:38 of the first half with zero points and four turnovers. He clapped his hands and shouted in frustration, which only excited Iowa fans even more.

“Ballo is playing quite well for us. He did things tonight that he hasn’t done in five games,” Woodson said. “It wasn’t just Ballo, but everyone had a part in it, especially in this starting group.”

Indiana’s defense also struggled early. This allowed Iowa’s Josh Dix to make his first three-pointers, and the Hawkeyes took a 21-8 lead. Iowa entered the game as the second-highest scoring team in the nation and ranked 14th with 10.8 three-pointers made per game.

Although Indiana was unable to shut down the Hawkeyes’ high-powered offense, they showed fight in the first half after getting into a hole early in the game. The Hoosiers responded with a 13-0 run, turning an eight-point deficit into a 26-23 lead with 7:17 left in the half.

Freshman Bryson Tucker knocked down a mid-range jumper and made a quick dunk. Kanaan Carlyle even hit a three-pointer after making 2 of 19 field goals in the previous four games.

But as soon as the Hoosiers got back into the game, things were out of their hands. Iowa went on a 10-0 run and led 18-5 before halftime. The Hawkeyes led 43-33 after 20 minutes of play, during which they had 12 turnovers by Indiana and five made 3-pointers by Iowa.

“Throwing it away didn’t help, and the losses didn’t help,” Woodson said. “Not going back, I thought our shot selection was terrible today. They made a play in the man-up zone which I thought we executed when we got back into it, but then just one pass and we froze the basketball. That’s something we can’t do, especially against good teams.

Indiana’s situation quickly deteriorated in the second half. Less than three minutes into the half, Iowa led 54-36 thanks to an 8-0 run that began with another three-pointer by Payton Sandfort. Sandfort drained two additional three-pointers to extend Iowa’s lead to 25 points with 13:17 left.

“It’s hard to play defense when you turn the ball over a lot,” Rice said. “They had a lot of advantages. Tonight we turned the ball over a lot of times, they were able to get out of bounds and we scored points for them. That already puts us in a difficult situation when we have to play solid defense or play together when we turn the ball over so much.

Indiana’s offensive shortcomings in the first half were largely due to turnovers, with the Hoosiers shooting 52% from the field. In the second half, they limited their losses, but had serious problems with passing the ball. Over the final 20 minutes, Indiana shot 11 of 34 from the field, or 32.4%.

Rice led Indiana with 12 points and five assists, although he turned the ball over three times. Ballo had 10 points and 13 rebounds, but committed four costly turnovers. As a team, Indiana made 4 of 16 three-point shots, or 25%. Tucker and Carlyle each had nine points off the bench, while Langdon Hatton had eight points each. Point guard Trey Galloway had zero points, four fouls and four turnovers in 20 minutes.

“I thought we played unusual tonight,” Rice said. “Throughout those five games, we played really good basketball and stuck with it. I think we just stepped outside of ourselves a little bit tonight. We started slowly and it was a bit like an avalanche. One thing led to another and lasted all night.

The Hoosiers calmly went away in the second half and never threatened to come back. This defeat continues a string of hard-fought defeats this season. While Indiana has a respectable 13-4 record, all four of its losses have been by 16 points or more. Iowa’s 25-point loss Saturday was the second-biggest margin of all, behind only the Hoosiers’ 28-point loss to Louisville in the Bahamas.

Things are improving quickly in Indiana and as Illinois comes to Assembly Hall on Tuesday, Woodson hopes his team can bounce back from its five-game winning streak.

“We are playing good basketball. I can’t sit here and complain,” Woodson said. “Our last five games against some teams have been very competitive. We have to go back and regroup. The Big Ten isn’t going anywhere. We’ll have Illinois here soon. We have a few days to prepare, and we start training tomorrow at 5 p.m..”