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Indiana Hoosiers embarrassed by Duke, 94-74

By Scott Stewart

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Last night in Durham, the Indiana Hoosiers got outplayed, outclassed, and out-hearted by the Blue Devils in a 20-point demolishing at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

IU bottomed out. Yes, “out-hearted” is not a thing, but it is the best way to sum up the events of last night’s drubbing as part of the Big Ten/ACC challenge. The Big Ten clinched the challenge with Iowa’s win over Florida State, but Indiana can’t say they played a part in helping.

Examining the loss, fans are quick to first point the dirty finger at Coach Tom Crean. Crean’s seat might be hotter than the sun at this point, but there’s still no sign in the coming days that he will be out of a job no matter what the #FireCrean crowd wants. But, it’s more than that.

Tom Crean can’t make James Blackmon Jr. stand up and be accountable defensively. He can’t force Troy Williams to play with a level-head when flying up the floor. He can suggest it, but he certainly can’t make it happen himself. Crean also can’t box out the Duke bigs, nor can he force his frontcourt to fight for every board off the glass. No, Crean can’t do everything. He can do a lot of things better, but not all of it falls on the talking head, who is in his eighth season at Indiana.

Duke is a fantastic basketball team. Grayson Allen and Brandon Ingram as just the bigger cogs in a machine that overall churns consistency and takes advantage of mistakes on both ends of the floor.

Last night, the two combined for 40 of Duke’s 94 points on 17-26 shooting. Consistency. Indiana only turned the ball over nine times, but Duke capitalized off turnovers and second chance points, and just bullied the Hoosiers down low. Thomas Bryant finished with six points and zero rebounds in 26 minutes. Advantage.

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The Blue Devils have an impressive non-conference streak at home: 120 straight wins, now 121, and what was supposedly the biggest threat to that quickly turned into one of the biggest letdowns of high-profile programs playing hoops on the big stage.

The Hoosiers didn’t even shoot the ball poorly – as a team they were just over 50% and hit 7-17 from distance (41.2%). The problem? Duke shot it even better – nearly 53% from the floor on 17 (!) more attempts, 45.8% from long-range on seven more attempts – and a lot of this came from winning the rebounding battle which led to those easy second chance points.

So, all of this begs the question: where does Indiana go from here?

The Hoosiers (5-3) are back at home to host Morehead State in two days time, and where the boo-boys were out against Alcorn State you better believe they’ll be in full force at Assembly Hall on Saturday. In an incredibly disappointing start to the season, there’s no place Indiana can go but up, right?

After all, that’s what you think when you’ve bottomed out.

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