Hoosiers lose fourth straight home game
By CALEB LYNN
ISL Contributor
BLOOMINGTON– After winning a huge game at Michigan State last Saturday, the Indiana Hoosiers were back in the conversation for an NCAA tournament bid. Since then, however, they’ve dropped two straight games. They fell to Ohio State Sunday afternoon in an ugly ballgame by a final score of 55-52. It was Indiana’s fourth straight loss on their home floor.
Trailing the entire game, the Hoosiers went on a 13-2 run to take their first lead with just a few minutes to play. But they were unable to sustain it, as the Buckeyes fought right back and did just enough to get the win.
Head Coach Archie Miller has been getting used to discussing losses in the post-game news conference.
“It was a very physical game and we were right there,” Miller said, “We just came up a little bit short.”
Once again an issue for this IU team is getting off to good starts. It continues to hurt their offensive rhythm. They have been playing from behind on a nightly basis.
“We had shots that we needed to knock down,” said Devonte Green. “But we just couldn’t.”
Coach Miller added: “The way they chose to guard us was to clog the paint and go under screens.. Our offense hurt us at that point in time.”
Heading into the final part of the game, Indiana was looking for Romeo Langford to finish it out but Coach Miller made it clear that it was not on his players. Miller said he drew up a play that they hadn’t ran before.
“I was not sure if he was open,” Miller said, “But you can put that one on me.”
Romeo Langford was slowly but surely able to put together a decent game. He had 15 points and shot 6-of-13 in the contest.
Langford only lost 10 games in his four-year high school career. The Hoosiers have already lost 11 games this season. Through all of that, he remains optimistic about where IU can go from this loss.
“It was difficult at first,” Langford said, “But we are focused on getting better each and every day. We can’t really focus on these two losses. We just have to focus on Minnesota.”
Indiana also honored Bill Garrett tonight as he was the first African-American to play in the Big Ten for Indiana. Coach Miller and his guys understood what Gardner meant and relayed that to his guys this week.
“Our players are very aware of that,” Miller said, “That opportunity to represent him was very cool.”
Their next game will be on February 16th as they go to Minnesota and look to get past their two game losing streak. Hopes of playing in March Madness are fading, and the Hoosiers need to find a way to get rolling soon.
