Thoughts about A 93-64 loss to the boiler makers:
Indiana didn’t just lose tonight.
The doors were blown off when the Boilermakers flipped the script on their loss in Bloomington last month.
In the midst of a slump, Fletcher Loyer had a 2-for-6 performance from deep and eight points at Assembly Hall. Tonight at the Mackey Arena? Loyer went a perfect 5-for-5 from the floor, including 4-for-4 from deep and 4-for-4 at the line for 18 points. Conor Enright made Braden Smith work for everything he got in Indiana’s home win on Jan. 27. Tonight, Enright picked up three fouls in the first half. Smith, meanwhile, settled in early and felt comfortable – both scoring and distributing. The mid-range jumper fell and Smith, like him, found his teammates all over the court. The reigning Big Ten Player of the Year scored 15 points (5-for-10) and dished out eight assists.
Omer Mayer played seven minutes and scored just two points in Bloomington. But he went on an all-time high in the second half, making all five of his shots, four of which came from deep. Every shot from Mayer seemed to take an already raucous Mackey Arena to another level. He finished with a career-high 18 points.
Add in 20 points on 8-of-10 shooting from Trey Kaufman-Renn and you get a picture of a Purdue team that shot the lights out tonight. The Boilermakers scored 1.46 points per possession against the Hoosiers. That’s their second-best mark of the season, eclipsed only by the 1.51 points per possession they scored on Nov. 28 against Eastern Illinois. Purdue shot 10-of-18 (55.6 percent) from three-point range and posted an effective field goal percentage of 75. It was an absolutely dominant performance.
Conversely, this was Indiana’s worst defensive performance of the season, besting the 1.28 points per possession it allowed against Iowa on January 17. The Hoosiers couldn’t string together stops or make the Boilermakers uncomfortable. Purdue got what it wanted with great success tonight, the crowd and players were in a feedback loop as they smelled blood in the water in the second half.
After seeing much less playing time lately since working back from his ankle injury, Tayton Conerway was a bright spot for the Hoosiers tonight. The Troy transfer added playing time due to Enright’s first-half mistake, getting to the basket with ease (5-of-7, 12 points), but also coupled that with a strong ability to find his teammates as he broke through the Purdue defense (seven assists). Lamar Wilkerson was held in check in the first half (two points, zero field goals). But as we saw after teams pushed hard against him in the first 20 minutes, Wilkerson finally found daylight in the second half and went on the run. He shot 7-of-10 over the final 20 minutes and finished with a team-high 20 points.
It was one of those years for the Hoosiers, on the road against the Big Ten’s elite. This 29-point drubbing is Indiana’s third loss by 20 or more on the road in conference play. Michigan State defeated the Hoosiers by 21 points. Illinois beat them by 20 points. And if Michigan hadn’t taken its foot off the gas in Ann Arbor in January, the 14-point loss the Hoosiers suffered could easily have been by more.
Indiana needs to flush this one and move on. A path to the NCAA Tournament is still within reach, although nothing is guaranteed at this point.
(Photo credit: IU Athletics)
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