Indiana basketball watches another critical opportunity pass by — this time the most costly of all. Why? The all-too-familiar ‘missed execution’ and ‘little things’

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — It was a scene all-too-familiar for Indiana basketball during Thursday afternoon’s 72-59 loss to Oregon in the Big Ten Tournament. Late game scoring woes. Poor execution. And a critically important missed opportunity for the Hoosiers — this time, a very costly one.

All year long, the question has been, can Indiana learn how to close games out? Well, over the course of the last month, the answer was yes. Whether it was at Michigan State, at home against Purdue, against Penn State or Ohio State — IU found ways to be successful coming down the stretch.

That was following a stretch of basketball that had Indiana losing six of seven games — with four coming by five points or less.

But, two of the last three games — both losses to Oregon — have shown that Indiana basketball may have been playing with fools gold for the last month.

“I think when we go on our little scoring droughts, it’s definitely just execution where you’ve got to go out there and execute the play at a high level,” IU forward Malik Reneau said following the game. “We failed to do that in a couple of spots, and they got steals, blocks, and they came down court and was able to execute on their side. So we’ve got to be able to execute and defend on our side too.”

In the first Oregon loss, it was a 2-of-12 finish from the field over the last 8:19 that gave Oregon the win. On Thursday, it was 2-of-11 over the final 6:51 that gave Oregon the ability to pull away again. In those two spans, Indiana was outscored 29-10.

Numerous times throughout Thursday’s loss, Indiana was able to get within one or two possessions after Oregon had stretched the lead to 8-10 points. But, Oregon always had an answer, or Indiana was unable to finish possessions with a make or a rebound.

“I would just say just not executing,” IU guard Trey Galloway said. “There’s a lot of times where even today there’s just some missed execution opportunities that we have. So I’ve just got to be able to clean up on that, and that’s the biggest thing.

“They’re a good defensive team, but I think just being able to finish around the rim, we had a lot of open, easy looks that we normally make, and we didn’t.”

“It was a really back and forth game in the second half,” Indiana center Oumar Ballo said in the locker room after the game. “Cutting the lead down to a one possession game they countered back. It’s frustrating when you make a little run and the next thing you know they make one or two baskets and the extend the lead.”

Those looks translate into Indiana basketball shooting 13-of-27 on layups, and despite having a 16-point advantage in the paint struggled to convert when it needed to. Trey Galloway was 6-of-18, Oumar Ballo was 4-of-11 while Malik Reneau was 8-of-15 from the floor.

“I thought they (Oregon’s defense) had a lot to do with it, although we missed a lot of chippies around the rim with Ballo and Malik. I thought that was a big difference,” Indiana basketball head coach Mike Woodson said. ” Them not leaving Goode and Mack and giving you the looks that sometimes we’ve been accustomed to getting with those two guys, you got to make plays around the rim. Again, a two-possession game, we missed two front ends of a one-and-one, that was huge. Getting back into it, I thought that was the big difference in the game because they made us pay both possessions back down the court offensively where we couldn’t get the stop.

“It’s just the little things. We missed two front ends of a one-and-one, a two-possession game, those are huge. They come down, and they make us pay for it on both possessions.”

In many ways, Thursday’s loss was a microcosm of the season. While Indiana has played well over the last month, opportunity after opportunity passed up the Hoosiers earlier in the year that has now backed them into a difficult spot approaching the NCAA Tourannent — a wait and see position.

“We were dead in the water 2 1/2 weeks ago, so they have been focused,” Woodson said. “When you go 5 out of your last 7 games, and the Big Ten is no joke. We ended up winning 10 out of the 20 games. We expected more this season, but we didn’t get it done. Coming down this homestretch, this team hasn’t quit. They’ve been very, very competitive.”

While being competitive is certainly a step in the right direction, unlike close losses in the last month or two, there is no next game on the schedule. The lessons that should have been learned from the Maryland loss or the Purdue loss or Michigan, UCLA or the first Oregon loss, didn’t transfer into Thursday’s near ‘must-win’.

So, as other teams continue to play — and win, only helping their respective tournament resumes — Indiana basketball waits. And it’s a spot that nobody thought they’d be in six months ago — but here they are.

“I don’t think that there’s a team in the country that we can’t beat if we come ready to play and compete for 40 minutes,” Woodson said. “We’ve had a lot of dry spots this season, but here of late we’ve been playing some pretty good basketball. I don’t think today’s game is an indication of how we’ve been playing the last 2 1/2, 3 weeks.”

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