BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Indiana gave the Wildcats a Valentine’s Day present they would just as soon forget.
A massacre.
The Hoosiers dominated the Northwestern men’s basketball team (9-16, 1-11 Big Ten) from the opening tip Wednesday night, using their size advantage inside to score at will. With three players in the starting lineup taller than the Cats’ biggest player, Indiana coasted to a 78-54 victory in front of 16,430 fans at Assembly Hall.
“Our game plan was to go inside and attack the offensive glass,” Indiana head coach Mike Davis said. “Jeff Newton did a great job, and Kirk Haston was good again. I thought our guys were bigger so we would have the advantage.”
The Cats were coming off their first regular-season Big Ten win in more than two years – but it didn’t help. NU couldn’t develop any kind of rhythm and turned over the ball 17 times against the swarming Indiana zone.
The Cats haven’t beaten the Hoosiers (16-9, 7-4) in more than 13 years, when they won 66-64 at home on Jan. 13, 1988. And NU hasn’t won a game in Bloomington since 1968, losing by an average of more than 20 points a contest. Furthermore, Wednesday’s loss was the Cats’ 27th at Assembly Hall, home of the Hoosiers since 1972.
“There are really no positives to take out of this game,” said junior center Tavaras Hardy, who at 6-foot-7 was asked to defend the paint against a mob of taller Hoosiers. “They were so much bigger than us.”
Hardy shot 4-for-13 from the floor and shared the team lead with 13 points.
NU played a 2-3 zone most of the way, but Indiana countered by throwing the ball over the Cats into the post. Using screens, motion and quick ball movement, Indiana crossed up the Cats’ zone and found easy entry passes all game long.
Haston led all scorers with 19 points, and Newton added 17 on 8-for-11 shooting. Even 6-foot-9 Indiana reserve Mike Roberts got into the act, scoring four points in the final minute and drawing the loudest cheers of the night.
“We don’t necessarily have guys who are 6-foot-8 or 6-foot-10 who can guard them,” said NU guard Ben Johnson, who stands 6-foot-2. “There are a lot of mismatches, and we get exposed. They did a good job of continuing to go to them, and it worked for them.”
NU opened the game trying to attack the basket. The strategy appeared to take Indiana by surprise, but it didn’t seem to matter – NU couldn’t knock down what few shots it took in the paint.
As a result, the Cats were forced to start firing away from outside. Not surprisingly, NU’s shooting went downhill. The Cats were only 6-for-23 from beyond the three-point arc and shot just 34 percent from the field.
NU’s top shooter, Winston Blake, had perhaps his toughest game of the season. He went scoreless – 0-for-6 from the field and 0-for-3 from three-point range – and added to his list of injuries when he turned his ankle on a drive to the basket with 42.2 seconds left in the first half. Blake needed a trainer’s assistance to leave the court and played only 12 minutes in the game.
Johnson said Blake – already coping with an injured right big toe – has also had leg and ankle problems on his right side.
Even if Blake had scored closer to his normal 12 points a game, it probably wouldn’t have mattered.
Staring down 20-point deficits within the game’s first 13 minutes, the Cats could have played a near-perfect contest on offense and still lost.
“We just didn’t fight hard enough,” Johnson said. “A lot of it is our fault. We didn’t play hard enough, we didn’t try and battle, and we didn’t try to get loose balls. That’s what we needed to do because we’re so small.
“The basic thing we get from this game is we’ve got to be a lot tougher of a team on the defensive end, and we have to dig down and not let teams abuse us.”
