How Hoosiers got kicked out again

PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas – Indiana made up for its loss to Louisville on Thursday with another poor performance, falling 89-73 to No. 4 Gonzaga in the Hoosiers’ second game in the Battle 4 Atlantis on Thursday.

What dug the hole so deep for No. 15 IU this time? Three reasons:

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Another ugly defensive performance

Indiana (4-2) needed an 8-0 deficit to get back on track on Thursday, but once the Hoosiers got their motor going, they showed focus and fighting spirit that wasn’t really on display against Louisville. They played with activity and energy and were inspired by Oumar Ballo’s assertiveness.

For about 11 minutes, in a half punctuated by foul trouble in both directions, IU battled Gonzaga to a standstill. Ballo was excellent. Players like Trey Galloway and Kanaan Carlyle seemed eager to make up for Indiana’s failures a day earlier. The large IU crowd at the Imperial Ballroom responded accordingly.

And then, slowly and yet somehow all at once, the Hoosiers’ resistance evaporated. Empty possessions led to runout results. Sales were converted into points. Compared to Gonzaga, Indiana was almost nonexistent on the glass.

A 9-2 run turned into a 15-2 run, then a 17-2 run. Before IU could catch its breath and move on, Gonzaga (6-1) was over the hump and way away, and the Hoosiers were waiting for another chance in the Bahamas that was disastrously wasted.

Insider:Mike Woodson wanted these games to define his IU tenure. Without improvement, they will.

Beaten into the paint

Rebounding has never been a particular strength of Woodson’s teams. But such weakness has rarely occurred.

Gonzaga doubled the Hoosiers 26-13 in the first half. The Bulldogs converted 10 offensive possessions into 17 second-chance points, and much of their 18-point halftime lead was due to the deficit in second-chance points (17-3).

Combine that with a collapsing post defense — Gonzaga scored 36 points in the first half, a shocking number unless you saw how disjointed Indiana looked defensively — and it’s easy to understand Thursday’s game got so dramatically out of control so quickly.

Effort and focus should never be optional for a team with IU’s ambitions. They were way too inconsistent in the Hoosiers’ first two games here.

Where this leaves Indiana

This is a complicated question.

In the short term, the Hoosiers will likely take nothing more from their trip to the Bahamas than a tarnished analytics profile. Nothing about the last two games will do IU much favors in the eyes of the selection committee.

And yet that pales in comparison to more existential concerns. How can this team seem so disorganized and disjointed? How can an offseason of adding talent to the roster lead to back-to-back disastrous defensive performances? And what does it say about the direction of this program that such performances are still so commonplace even after more than three years in Mike Woodson’s tenure?

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