Indiana Basketball: Top 10 games of the decade, #8

As the Indiana basketball team rolls into the new decade its time to take a look back over the past ten years. We rank the top ten games of the decade and today we look at number eight.

The 2018-19 season started off so promising with a big win over a ranked Marquette team and a 12-2 record at the beginning of January. But then the season turned on the Hoosiers and they went through one of the worst stretches of basketball in the program’s history. They would lose 12 out of their next 13 games. It essentially kept them out of the NCAA tournament last year. But that one win was a big one and continues our list of top ten games of the decade.

Today we remember game number eight.

Indiana 79 Michigan State 75 OT

at Michigan State, February 2, 2019

The Hoosiers entered this game on a seven-game losing streak and were seeing their NCAA tournament chances start to go down the drain. Michigan State was coming off a rare loss of their own but was still heavily favored to beat the Hoosiers in East Lansing.

Before the loss to Purdue, Michigan State had won 13 games in a row and looked like the class of a very top-heavy Big Ten. Cassius Winston was in the middle of a player of the year season and Nick Ward and Xavier Tillman were providing the support inside.

This game should have been an easy win for the Spartans but someone forgot to let Indiana know that.

The first half was an ugly display of offense especially during a seven-minute stretch where there were nine total points scored. The Hoosiers would only score two points during that stretch but because the Spartans couldn’t score either they only trailed by three when they scored again.

Michigan State would take a three-point lead into the half after the scoring picked up to end the half. The second half was as close as you could make it. As the teams combined for 15 lead changes and three ties. Neither team could make a run and after Ward made his only free throw of the game with 18 seconds left the game was headed for overtime. Ward would hit just 1 of 9 from the line during the game in a horrid display of shooting.

Romeo Langford hit an early three in overtime that would give Indiana the lead that they wouldn’t relinquish. Langford would finish with 19 to lead the Hoosiers in scoring.

Winston would lead all scorers with 26 including 4-4 from the free-throw line. That would be half of the free throws the Spartans would make on the game as they went just 8-22 from the line in what would be the difference in the game.

The Hoosiers would make it a clean sweep a few weeks later as they again beat Michigan State, this time in Bloomington. It would be just their third win in 15 games and surprisingly two of them were against the Spartans.

The two games against the Spartans were big highlights in an otherwise disappointing year. This game was probably the most shocking outcome of the Big Ten all year long and it was a tease to all Hoosiers fans of what could have been.