No. 7 Hoosiers suffer drawback at the hands of UConn

D.J. White sat with his head in his hands.\nThe senior forward is used to talking about how much pride he takes in protecting Assembly Hall, his team’s home court.\nBut following IU’s 68-63 loss to Connecticut Saturday afternoon, he was at a loss for words. \n“You always feel bad losing at home,” White said. “We were on a winning streak here for the past two years. But I’ve got nothing.”\nThe No. 7 Hoosiers entered Saturday riding a 29-game home winning streak. The unranked Huskies, playing without two suspended scholarship guards, stole that from them.\n“Losing at home, hey, at some point you’re going to lose at home,” IU coach Kelvin Sampson said after his first home loss as IU’s coach. \nAfter the game, Sampson said the loss didn’t affect him differently than any other loss just because it was at home. \n“I’ve been doing this too long,” Sampson said. “I don’t worry about this. This game is one game. We’re 17-2. Nothing to be down about. We’re going to lose some more games this year.”\nOne thing that did disappoint Sampson was his team’s lack of effort during Saturday’s contest.\n“I (can) handle losses when I’m proud of our team’s effort,” Sampson said. “I wasn’t proud of our team’s effort today. That’s the thing that’s disgusting to me.”\nThe loss was the first at Assembly Hall in nearly two years.\nThe streak started Feb. 22, 2006, when the Hoosiers escaped with a four-point win over Penn State. Marco Killingsworth was the go-to guy in the paint, and Mike Davis still roamed the sidelines as head coach.\nAfter Sampson took over for Davis, he amassed the best home record for an IU coach to start a career. He always credited the fans with IU’s stellar performance at home. But not even the fans could help the Hoosiers on Saturday.\n“Bottom line is, we didn’t play good enough to win,” Sampson said. “Connecticut’s team deserved to win this one.”\nConnecticut coach Jim Calhoun said after the game that the win will be one of the most memorable in his career, which includes two national championships. \n“It’s on that plateau,” Calhoun said. “My respect for Indiana, this building and all it represents – this is basketball heaven, and I love every bit of it. To come in here when they have a 17-1 team with some terrific players and have our kids give everything they had ... I’ll remember this for an awful, awful, awful long time.”\nFrom here, Sampson said the Hoosiers will bounce back. He wants his players to be learn from their mistakes, not dwell on them.\n“We still have a good team,” he said. “This is a setback. We still have 12 more games. Our team’s going to win a ton more games. This may wind up being the best thing to happen to this team.”