By: Sean Nash

Students have finally returned from the glorious three-weeks off that is winter break, but it is time to hit the books again and Professor Nash’s class is back in session. The Indiana Basketball team performed well over the break reaching the top 10 in the national polls including a win over 2nd ranked Ohio State at home. Unfortunately, it appears that the Hoosiers threw away their notes when preparing for Sunday’s rematch.

(Note that grades are for both the Ohio State game and last Thursday’s match-up with Minnesota).

Shooting: D-

Indiana entered this two game stretch as the top 3-point shooting team in the country. The Hoosiers did not make this apparent over the past two games. In the first half against Minnesota, IU managed to shoot just 1 of 11 from behind the arch (9%). The shooting did not improve much in the 2nd half against the Golden Gophers and the Hoosiers finished just 4 of 18 from long-range (22%), which included two last minute 3-pointerss by Matt Roth. The game at Ohio State was not much better as Indiana shot 7 of 21 from deep (33%).

Offense: D

As mentioned before, Indiana seemed to forget what helped to win the game against Ohio State. No, it was not the referees, but IU attacked Ohio State forcing William Buford and Jared Sullinger into early foul trouble. Indiana appears to want to live and die by the three in the Big Ten season. The team is failing to use its’ greatest resource—falready 5-time Big Ten Freshman of the week Cody Zeller. Cody is not being fed the ball in the post as much as he should, the result? Indiana managed to score just 14 points in a half of basketball. FOURTEEN! An unacceptable point total for any Division I basketball team, let alone a Big Ten team that has one of the best shooting percentages in the country.

Rebounding: F+

There is nothing more frustrating in basketball than when a team fails to pull down defense rebounds, handing the opposition extra possessions. Indiana managed to give Minnesota 16 extra possessions on Thursday, many of which occurred late in the game as IU tried to mount a late comeback. The result was Minnesota having the ability to run an entire minute off the clock on a single possession. Indiana followed up this abysmal rebounding performance by giving up 10 offensive rebounds to Ohio State. Jared Sullinger pulled three of these rebounds down, and when he is able to pull down an offense board near the basketball, it is almost guaranteed points for the Buckeyes.

Maybe I am being too critical on the Hoosiers, despite this horrible two-game stretch, the team is 15-3 and still ranked in the top-15 in the country. A generous curve will be given to Indiana’s basketball team, and hopefully the Hoosiers can put this bad week of testing behind them. This week’s lesson: beating the opponents truly weaker than yourself as IU travels to 1-5 Nebraska Wednesday and host 1-5 Penn State on Sunday.

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