Indiana Basketball: Long scoring droughts doom Hoosiers in loss at Rutgers
By Adam Childs
The Indiana basketball team let a great chance at getting a road win slip away when they traveled to Rutgers, but long scoring droughts doomed the Hoosiers.
The Hoosiers traveled over to Rutgers on Wednesday night trying to pick up their first true road win of the year. The Scarlet Knights have been playing well, but it was still a great opportunity for Indiana to pick up a road win.
Apparently, the Hoosiers forgot the game started at seven as Indiana failed to score in the first two and a half minutes as the Scarlet Knights built a 12-0 lead. Indiana would figure out how to score again as they went on a 22-9 run to take a brief lead with 6:52 left in the first half.
But then the Hoosiers again forgot to score as they put up just four points in the next 12 minutes of game action.
Scoring droughts have haunted the Hoosiers over the last month and it has now cost them in three of their four losses this year. The length of the scoring droughts for the Hoosiers has been alarming lately and it has usually come after a stretch of very good basketball.
The defense did its part to try to keep the Hoosiers in the game, but the offense could never put it together enough to get a win. Rutgers only scored 59 points for the game, winning 59-50, but when the Hoosiers basically go through a full half of scoring droughts it doesn’t really matter how few points they give up.
It is actually a testament to how well the defense played for the Hoosiers to only lose by nine given the fact of how poorly the offense played.
The only bright side to the Hoosiers losing is everyone in the Big Ten is struggling to win on the road and it may not actually hurt Indiana much. And with the way Rutgers has been playing lately, this will not be a bad loss.
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Justin Smith led the Hoosiers with 15 points and seven rebounds. Joey Brunk recorded a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds. Trayce Jackson-Davis had his second straight down game as he only scored four points on 2-6 shooting.
The Hoosiers will look to bounce back when they travel to Nebraska on Saturday looking for a season sweep of the Cornhuskers. It is a game that the Hoosiers desperately need. If they want to win, though, they will need to stay away from their scoring droughts.