Swept

Normalcy should return to the IU men’s basketball team, or so interim coach Dan Dakich hopes. \nThe Hoosiers squeaked past Ohio State 72-69 Tuesday night in the team’s first home game since coach Kelvin Sampson resigned. After the game, Dakich recognized things are probably still a little weird for members of the team. \n“I think the oddness of me being there as opposed to coach Sampson having been there for so long, hopefully that will wear off as we go through things a second time,” Dakich said. \nHe hopes the firsts are over for this team. IU prevailed in its first road and home contests since the midseason coaching change. \n“Regardless, odd, not odd, we’re playing for a Big Ten championship,” Dakich said. “We need all hands on deck, we need everybody on board.”\nSophomore guard Armon Bassett recognized the difficulty of the situation and said the team is determined to shut out all distractions. \n“Obviously, we love coach Sampson,” Bassett said. “We wish he was out there. On the other hand, we’re right up there at the top of the Big Ten. We don’t have no choice but to get used to it. We can’t think about that. We’ve got to focus on our task.” \nWith Tuesday’s win, the No. 12 Hoosiers (24-4, 13-2) pulled into a tie with No. 10 Wisconsin (23-4, 13-2) for first place in the Big Ten. Purdue (21-6, 12-2), tied in the loss column with IU and Wisconsin, hosts Minnesota today.\nBassett led all scorers with 23 points – just three days after he scored a season-high 24 points in IU’s 85-82 win over Northwestern.\n“The only thing I’ve said to him is ‘we’re really good when you’re aggressive,’” Dakich said about Bassett. \nBassett said he tries to mix in his aggressiveness with a desire to feed his fellow Hoosiers the ball.\n“My teammates love when I play like that, so they are very encouraging toward me,” he said. \nBoth teams struggled from the field early – IU shot 35.3 percent in the first half and Ohio State shot 31 percent – but a 25-17 rebound advantage helped give the Hoosiers an early command of the game. By the time the Buckeyes grabbed their second rebound of the contest, the Hoosiers already had nine.\n“We got off to such a bad start for whatever reason,” Ohio State coach Thad Matta said.\nIn addition to its rebounding advantage, IU also controlled the paint early. In the first half, 16 of IU’s 30 points came in the paint, while only eight of Ohio State’s 21 points came in the same area. \nBoth teams shot poorly from behind the arc in the first frame – \nIU shot 20 percent while the Buckeyes shot 28 percent from 3-point range.\nBut the Buckeyes came charging back in the second half. \nLed by seven-footer Kosta Koufos, Ohio State stormed back to start the second half and pulled within one point of the Hoosiers.\n“We got Kosta down low, and he did a very nice job of finishing,” Matta said of his center’s play in the second half. \nDespite an energized Buckeye team, IU never relinquished the lead. The Hoosiers made several key plays, including a rebound-dunk from freshman guard Eric Gordon and a 3-pointer from Bassett, to put the Buckeyes away. \n“I thought we dug ourselves in to a hole today that we just weren’t able to get out of completely,” Matta said. “We were right there, peeking, but just couldn’t get over it.”