MADISON, Wis. - The clock ran out on the Hoosiers' 1-17 conference season Sunday.
There would no fairytale ending to IU's Big Ten season nor would there be for IU coach Tom Crean's sideline return to the state he coached in for nine years.
IU (6-24, 1-17) lost 85-61 to the Badgers Sunday, marking the team's 20th loss in 21 games and its ninth straight headed into the Big Ten Tournament.
Crean said his team battled hard and continued to show improvement, but lamented, "We just don't have a lot of positive results to show for it."
The loss also mared the first season the Hoosiers have failed to win a road game since 1900, the program's inaugural year in which they played only five games.
For the fifth time this season, IU was forced to play most of the game without its leading scorer, junior guard Devan Dumes, who sat our after re-aggravating a knee injury last Tuesday.
In his absence, freshmen guards Verdell Jones (23) and Nick Williams (19) filled the void, both finishing with career-high point totals in the losing effort. The two guards did most of the scoring for the Hoosiers, including 24 of the team's 28 points to open the game.
"With Devan being out, Coach put the ball in our hands today," Williams said. "We were the first two options to score with Tommy (Pritchard) down in the post. And Tommy got in early foul trouble so we knew we had to score."
For more of this story (and for a blow-by-blow recap of tonight's live blog), follow the jump.
The Hoosiers played the Badgers tight in the first 10 minutes of the game, but trailed at halftime for the ninth game in a row. Wisconsin built a 17-point lead at the half despite the Hoosiers shooting 60 percent from the field in the period.
Turnovers continued to doom IU, who ranked 325th in the nation in the category headed into the game. The Badgers scored 15 points off of IU's nine first half turnovers (16 for the game), while Wisconsin only turned the ball over six times the entire night.
Despite the loss, Crean said he's pleased with several individual improvements he's seen this season, including Jones and Williams who he said are becoming "bonafide, both ends of the court type of guys."
"You can look at the glass half full, you can look at it half empty, I choose to look at it half full as much as possible...though it doesn't make it any easier as you go through," he said.
In his post-game press conference, Crean elaborated about the "invaluable" experiences his team is gaining this season. Among the experiences he listed: sophomore walk-on guard Brett Finkelmeier's first start of his career Sunday, Matt Roth's 29-point explosion against Ohio State and Pritchard's presence in the post "since the very beginning."
"(The experience) is going to help us a lot, just having a year under our belts," Williams said. "We know we're freshman, we know we're young, but we shouldn't be playing like this. We'll have a whole season to work with coaches and get in there ... and some of the things were doing this year that are mistakes we won't be doing next year."
IU will need to upset Penn State (21-10, 10-8) in the opening round of the Big Ten Tournament if they want to extend their season. IU has already lost to the Nittany Lions twice this year, including a 61-58 defeat less than two weeks ago in State College, Penn.
