(See Sean Morrison's post below this one for post-game audio from coach Tom Crean and players).
Here are some notes from Loyola's 72-67 victory against the Hoosiers on Tuesday night.
End-of-game decisions
After Rivers missed a shot with 37 seconds remaining, IU allowed 20 seconds to go off the clock before fouling Loyola's Brett Harvey. The reason: Harvey is one of the nation's best free-throw shooters. Last season, he was second in the nation in free throw percentage at 91.0 percent. This season, Harvey is 26-for-30 from the charity stripe.
"That was the one guy we did not want to have to foul, but once it became very clear he wasn't going to give it up, than we've got to reach in," Crean said.
Crean was also asked about the play call that resulted in Rivers' missed shot and if he wanted Rivers to be taking the shot.
"Jeremiah was our 5-man at that point...we don't do a lot of practice with Jeremiah at the five. That was a fine play. We want to slip a guy behind him, we want to slip a guy in front of it. Jeremiah ended up in front of it, Christian had his guy on the side. No problem - we just wanted to get it inside that middle and attack," Crean said.
Second half substitutions
Crean started Devan Dumes and Tom Pritchard in the second half in place of Maurice Creek and Derek Elston. Why? Why not, Crean said. He was asked the reasoning behind the decision:
"Oh, I dunno, we were down 20. Do you think I should have stuck with what I had? I'm over there searching, too - playing different defenses and things like that. Nothing was working," Crean said.
Academics
IU had ten (and possibly 11) basketball players post a 3.0 GPA this semester. Crean said that is quite the accomplishment considering where the program was even recently.
