EVANSTON, Ill. — Rest doesn’t come often in the Big Ten, no matter how much it’s needed.
Each team plays 18 games spread across the Midwest and New England packed into just under 10 weeks.
Add in the strength of the conference and the importance of each game in the final season standings, and playing in the Big Ten is ?exhausting.
That much was evident in IU’s 72-65 loss to Northwestern on Wednesday. It was the Hoosiers’ seventh game in February, and the fatigue looked like it had taken effect.
IU Coach Tom Crean said in a pre-game press conference that he didn’t think the Hoosiers needed rest, but their play Wednesday indicated ?otherwise.
IU’s offense — normally one thought, one pass ahead of defenses — lagged. The ball stopped moving. Screens weren’t separating defenders from their men. Shots grazed the front of the rim.
The Hoosiers shot 37 percent from the field, 39 percent from the 3-point range and an abysmal 44 percent from the line. The offensive struggles reached a boiling point midway through the second half, when IU was held without a point for more than 10 minutes.
“They missed some shots they normally hit,” Northwestern Coach Chris ?Collins said.
It was worse defensively. Not only could IU not protect the rim, it started to forget to guard Northwestern’s players. Multiple possessions ended with a Hoosier frantically searching for a Wildcat who had ?already scored.
“We didn’t stay with the cutter a couple times,” Crean said. “We were in certain actions that we didn’t jump the zone on.”
IU relies heavily on two freshmen and a first-year starter, which may have contributed to the apparent fatigue.
At this time last year, freshmen guards Robert Johnson and James Blackmon Jr. were preparing for their respective state tournaments and junior forward Hanner Mosquera-Perea was a backup, playing just under eight minutes per game.
Blackmon played 23 games his senior season of high school and Johnson played 29.
IU has played 29 times already and is guaranteed at least three more games this season.
Crean downplayed the issue. His team’s performance wasn’t a result of players being tired, he said.
“We just missed shots,” he said. “I’d love to say, ‘Wow, our legs gave out on our shots,’ we just didn’t make them.”
With rest so precious in a Big Ten schedule, a six-day break is a rarity — especially so close to postseason play. The Hoosiers won’t play a game this weekend and will have until Tuesday as a breather until closing the regular season and starting postseason play.
Any time off is good for a team, Crean said, but it won’t change how IU prepares to end the season. He and his staff have been working to avoid fatigue all season, he said.
“That’s a good thing ?inside of it,” Crean said. “We really just monitor every day to get ready for what the next day should bring us, and I don’t think that will change with a six-day, no-game break. Every team goes through it.”
