Hoosiers fall to Xavier 80-65

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. – About midway through the second half of the IU men’s basketball team’s 80-65 loss to Xavier Saturday, Eric Gordon reached a boiling point.\nThe freshman guard had just missed a layup and knocked the ball out of bounds in a desperate attempt to grab his own rebound. The frustration of a 4-for-12 shooting night for IU’s leading scorer manifested in one instant.\nThe rest of the Hoosiers ran down to the other end of the court, but Gordon held onto the ball in his right hand as he and Xavier guard C.J. Anderson stared one another down and argued back and forth, separated by a lone referee in a striped shirt. IU coach Kelvin Sampson ran out onto the court to make sure his star player calmed down, but it was just one of many forgettable moments for Gordon and the No. 8 Hoosiers, who lost their first game of the young season in the championship game of the Chicago Invitational Challenge.\n“(Gordon) will learn from this, and so will we,” Sampson said after the Hoosiers’ most lopsided loss in his two-year IU tenure. \nThough he finished the game with 20 points to lead all scorers, Gordon scored just four points in the first half on 1-for-6 shooting and was benched with about seven minutes remaining in the half after picking up his third foul. \n“The thing about young kids is they’re going to make mistakes,” Sampson said.\nIt was Gordon’s worst scoring performance in his brief career as a Hoosier, and with Gordon cold from the floor and on the bench with foul trouble, IU had to find other ways to score. \nThe 3-point shot, the bread and butter of IU teams of yore, wasn’t working either. The Hoosiers were 1-of-15 from behind the arc. Sophomore guard Armon Bassett, who had been sidelined with an ankle injury for most of IU’s 70-57 win Friday against Illinois State, shot 1-of-7 from 3-point range.\nBassett’s lone 3-pointer of the night came in the middle of a 13-3 Xavier run to close out the first half and put the Musketeers on top 40-29.\n“I think our immaturity and our inexperience really hurt us in the first half in certain situations,” Sampson said.\nAfter the game, Sampson said it was too soon to say whether the team is too reliant on Gordon, who has led the Hoosiers in scoring in each of IU’s five regular-season games.\nOne of the only bright spots for the Hoosiers was the play of senior forward D.J. White, who was a focal point of the IU offense early in the game. White finished the game with 16 points on 7-of-9 shooting.\nThe Hoosiers return to action Tuesday night when they host Georgia Tech in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. White, a senior captain, said he hopes he can use Saturday’s loss as a teaching tool. \n“This is a learning experience for the young guys and us older guys, also,” he said. \nSampson tried to put the loss in perspective. After the game, he reiterated that it is still November, and he believes his team will get much better as the season progresses.\n“Games like this can only help you,” Sampson said. “One of the things you learn over the years in coaching is you just don’t overreact to stuff.”