He’ll end practice in the afternoon and go ?recruiting.
By the time he comes back to Assembly Hall late at night, he’ll find his players still on the court and putting up shots in full sweat.
It speaks to the work ethic of players like freshmen guards James Blackmon Jr. and Rob Johnson. They aren’t required to be there; they want to be there. It shows a certain maturity.
It’s why the offense, when clicking, has carried the Hoosiers all season — admittedly, maybe too much.
“The one thing, if there’s a recurring theme, we get disappointed at times when we’re not making shots,” Crean said Tuesday. “That’s a maturity thing.”
That’s a theme IU can’t afford to continue against Michigan State.
The Hoosiers will play the Michigan State Spartans at noon Saturday in Assembly Hall with their NCAA Tournament position firmly on the bubble. The Hoosiers have lost seven of their last 11 games.
And although the offense isn’t the only reason for their struggles, it’s been an evident contributor. When the offense goes through ruts, Crean said it sometimes carries over to the defensive end, which is where IU has gotten in trouble.
Put simply, IU has gone as far as the scoring has taken it. Lately, it hasn’t been enough.
In IU’s last six games, the Hoosiers have shot above 53 percent from the field twice. Both times IU won.
In the other four games, IU has shot less than 44 percent and lost all four. In three of those losses, including Tuesday against Iowa, the Hoosiers shot less than ?39 percent.
Following last week’s loss to Northwestern, Crean said the shooting slump doomed other areas on the floor.
An extended break, he said, could allow the Hoosiers time to improve and get back on track.
That wasn’t the case.
After six days off, the same thing that happened against Northwestern happened again Tuesday against Iowa.
The downward trend has become obvious. What isn’t as obvious, at least after Tuesday, is any sort of ?solution.
“We’re just gonna have to watch the film and see what we did wrong,” Blackmon said. “I really have no reason for it right now.”
By game time Saturday, they’ll have had three full days to dissect what went wrong and find an ?explanation.
It’s a rut this team isn’t used to.
They’ve scored less than one point per possession in each of their last two home games after failing to score more than one point per possession just once in the conference season before then.
Throughout the whole season, players have stressed a “one game at a time” mentality, but even junior guard Yogi Ferrell admitted last weekend that the last two games for the team are big.
The first of those two games has given IU a loss. That makes the second all the more important for the Hoosiers.
“We just stick with each other,” sophomore forward Troy Williams said. “At the end of the day, it’s always us on the court. It’s always us in practice. It’s always us in meetings. We just have to stick together.”
