FINAL: IU falls to Northwestern, 54-47

For the first time in almost three years, the IU men’s basketball team was held under 50 points in a 54-47 loss to Northwestern on Saturday.

It was the first time since a March 5, 2011 loss at Illinois that IU failed to break the 50-point barrier and the Hoosiers’ first loss to Northwestern since Feb. 19 of that same year.

The loss dropped IU to 12-6 on the season and 2-3 in Big Ten play.

IU Coach Tom Crean said his team’s struggles on the offensive end hurt doubly, as it affected his players’ intensity in all phases of the game.

“You can’t be driven by your offense in the sense that when your offense is not there it affects every other part of your game,” he said. “And that happened too much. It happened with our oldest guys.”

The game started off slowly on both ends of the floor, with neither team able to make an impact offensively. After 3-pointers from freshman forward Noah Vonleh and Northwestern sophomore forward Kale Abrahamson made the score 3-3 in the game’s first two minutes, both offenses stalled.

Neither team scored a point for four minutes and 44 seconds.

The offensive ineptitude continued throughout the game: IU and Northwestern shot a combined 30.6 percent from the field and combined to make only nine 3-pointers.

After entering halftime trailing 22-19 and playing from behind for most of the second half, IU was able to tie the score at 40 with less than four minutes remaining in the contest before Northwestern’s Tre Demps found his offensive rhythm.

The redshirt sophomore guard made a 3-pointer, then collected a defensive rebound and took it down the court for an easy layup. He added a free throw in the game’s dying seconds to help the Wildcats put the game away.

Freshman guard Stanford Robinson said a lack of communication on the defensive end allowed Demps to hit his stride.

“I think our communication, I think it got quiet,” he said. “Our communication dropped. Felt like we could’ve picked it up. Basically, we were moving, holding ours, but our communication was very poor today.”

Crean said he was disappointed in his team and that he saw a lack of leadership on the floor.

“I’m not going to use the term ‘leader’ because I don’t think we appeared like there was a leader today,” he said. “But with guys that get the bulk of the attention, the shots and things like that… we have a long way to go.

“There’s a way to win and a way to lose. Today we showed how to lose.”