‘Couldn’t get his attention’: Mike Woodson discusses ‘heated’ late-game situation against Purdue that resulted in another disappointing loss for Indiana basketball

Indiana basketball had another opportunity on Friday to solidify a resume-building win against Purdue but was unable to execute in another late game situation as it fell to the Boilermakers, 81-76.

It was a 6-0 run over the last 11 seconds that gave Purdue the win, and it was also on the heels of IU’s late game blunder. After Trey Kaufman-Renn hit a hook shot with 11 seconds left to give Purdue a 77-76 lead, Indiana had two timeouts to use to set up a potential go-ahead basket, but instead — no timeouts were used and it resulted in a Myles Rice jumper just outside of the paint that was blocked.

After the game, IU head coach Mike Woodson went into detail what he saw, and why no timeout was called.

“Couldn’t get his (Myles Rice) attention, and about the time he got where he was going – I thought he got fouled on the play, but they didn’t make the call,” Woodson said. “And I don’t think that was the difference in the game. The difference in the game was the 20 turnovers that we had. I thought that was huge. And on the road, you can’t turn it over like that, and they made us pay for it. They had 26 points off our turnovers. But for the most part I thought our guys competed, did a hell of a job, but it’s about winning in this league.”

While there was contact on the final play, no foul was called and it resulted in two more free throws for Purdue to push the lead to three. IU would turn the ball over on the next possession and after two more free throws were made, the ball game was over.

“Well, once he took off I couldn’t get to him. It was too late. The official had went by,” Woodson continued. “Again, that’s just – we gotta connect better. That’s just the bottom line. Because our high pick and roll stuff was going well for us with the ball in Gallo’s hand, and we just couldn’t get back to it.”

“We had numerous plays that we could’ve made that we didn’t make.”

Rice played 20 minutes — including just five in the second half — and went scoreless on 0-of-4 from the field. Galloway, who played his final game inside Mackey Arena on Friday night, finished with 15 points, the most since IU’s win over Providence on November 29. Galloway had scored four straight for Indiana before the critical play for Indiana.

“We were just fortunate there at the end that Trey Galloway doesn’t have the ball in his hands, let’s be frank about it,” Purdue head coach Matt Painter said. “Because he was making plays. So now he doesn’t have the ball there at the end and we were able to get a stop there.”

Galloway had 13 of his 15 points after halftime and was 6-of-8 from the floor in the second half alone. Indiana basketball went almost exclusively to high ball screen action between Galloway and Oumar Ballo in the second half.

Following the late play by Rice, Ballo picked up his fifth foul. As the teams went to their respective benches during a timeout, Ballo was visibly frustrated with Rice and how the play unfolded, getting in the face of the IU guard multiple times.

“Everybody’s heated in the heat of the moment and he didn’t think it was a good play and he voiced his opinion on it, which is okay,” Woodson said of Ballo. “You just hope that you can learn from it and build on it and move on.”

Indiana basketball has now lost three straight games and five of its last six, falling to 14-8 overall and 6-6 in Big Ten play.

SEE ALSO: Veteran efforts fall short as Indiana basketball continues to fail to execute in late game situations

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