Indiana’s lack of production beyond ‘Batman and Robin’ costs Hoosiers a potential resume-boosting win

Assembly Hall clapped in unison as Sam Alexis caught the bounce pass ahead of his second of two free throws. He paused, sized up the rim 15 feet away, and smoothly went into his shooting motion for his second shot from the charity stripe early in the second half of Indiana‘s matchup against Michigan State.

His free throw found the bottom of the net, splitting the two attempts and cutting the Spartans’ lead to seven with 18:57 to go in the game. This moment wasn’t more than another point on the scoreboard for IU, but it ended up being a major turning point in the Hoosiers’ loss to MSU.

It was the only point scored in the second half for Indiana Hoosiers not scored by Lamar Wilkerson or Tucker DeVries.

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Sure, the duo that Tom Izzo said were like “Batman and Robin” were sensational for the better part of Sunday afternoon’s contest, but what about the other Hoosiers? What about the rest of the roster that Darian DeVries assembled?

To put it simply, they were nonexistent when Indiana desperately needed a victory. The Hoosiers fell to 17-12, 8-10 in Big Ten play, and just 4-12 against teams in the first two quadrants. Their NCAA Tournament hopes are dwindling, and a win here would have done wonders for Indiana’s résumé.

But in the end, Indiana fell 77-64 largely because it couldn’t generate enough scoring to match Michigan State. The Hoosiers could’ve guarded better to force more missed shots, but they also would’ve liked more than two players to make a field goal after being down by eight at halftime.

“I didn’t think our offense got nearly enough movement,” DeVries said on what led to the lack of scoring from most of his team. “I thought we had a lot of late clock with no movement, not enough action there for us. That’s certainly a reason why I don’t think our offense was as good.”

Despite the lack of “movement” or general lack of shot-making with a 39% mark from the field and a 28% showing from 3-point range, Wilkerson and DeVries were able to have a productive afternoon.

“Batman and Robin had 29 and 20. They got theirs and hit a couple too many 3s,” Izzo mentioned, using the superhero reference once again — Batman for Wilkerson and Robin for DeVries.

Opposition Q&A: Michigan State’s Tom Izzo reacts to their 77-64 win over Indiana

But Wilkerson specifically really did play like a superhero at times. He scored 19 in the second half, including a stretch of five minutes during the middle part of the half where he scored 12 points in less than four minutes.

At the tail end of that run by Wilkerson, he hit a 3-pointer to cut Michigan State’s lead to just five. With just under 11 minutes to go, Indiana was right back in it, but the absence of scoring outside of Wilkerson and DeVries caught up to them.

After the Hoosiers made the game 60-55 in favor of Michigan State, they scored just nine points the rest of the way. They scored just two points in the final six minutes of action and didn’t score at all in the final three minutes of the contest.

The Spartans started compensating for what Wilkerson, and to a lesser extent, DeVries were doing. MSU made the plays down the stretch, and while defense was certainly an issue at times for Indiana, the fact that it couldn’t find the scoring was the much bigger issue.

“We got it to right there, a two-possession game, get a stop, get the ball, get in transition, get the crowd into it, and it seemed like they just came up with all the loose balls, all the big plays in those situations,” DeVries explained on why he believed his team let the momentum get away from them.

Indiana never played particularly well Sunday afternoon. From the get-go, Michigan State was out to a solid lead, and the Hoosiers never led in the 40 minutes of play. Izzo noted that it was a mostly wire-to-wire victory for his Spartans, but to say that IU didn’t have chances to make a game of it would be foolish.

But when the time came for someone to help Wilkerson, or to help DeVries, assistance wasn’t there. Alexis played well in stretches, but he went 0-for-2 in the second half. It seemed like the other Hoosiers were timid when they had the basketball, looking to force something to their duo of scorers.

When nothing was there for Wilkerson or DeVries, possessions stalled, especially as the game got closer to its final buzzer. As a result, Indiana took a game that was once separated by just five points into one that was out of reach in the closing moments.

Michigan State outscored Indiana 22-0 in bench points, with 18 of those being scored by a red-hot Kur Teng. Jeremy Fears Jr. and Jaxon Kohler were MSU’s “Batman and Robin,” according to Izzo, and the difference is that the Spartans found scoring elsewhere — Indiana certainly did not.

Another Quad 1 opportunity came and went, and it seems like the same can be said for the chances that Indiana will be playing NCAA Tournament ball in DeVries’ first season as head coach.

‘Just not enough’: Indiana’s effort holds up, but the gap to the top shows against Michigan State

One singular game against a top team in the Big Ten wasn’t the difference, but a matchup with Michigan State felt like one that Indiana needed to have — yet it slipped away because no one outside of Wilkerson or DeVries stepped up.

The narrative surrounding IU basketball right now is that a Wilkerson-less March Madness would be a shame — and that’s understandable from an Indiana perspective — but basketball is a team game. It takes five to win, and the Hoosiers didn’t have all five players on the floor playing well enough to pull off what was a much-needed upset victory over the Spartans, possibly costing IU a spot in the NCAA Tournament.

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