Key takeaways from the Indiana basketball 79-78 loss to Maryland

Indiana basketball fell to Maryland on Sunday afternoon in heartbreaking fashion, with a 79-78 loss that came down to the buzzer.

Indiana has now lost four of its last five games and are entering the toughest part of its schedule.

Here are the key takeaways from IU’s loss to Maryland.

Myles Rice surges in the second half: After just two points in the first half — from the free throw line — Rice was a major point of emphasis for Indiana coming out of the half. He was not only aggressive looking to score, but he was in total control of the offense. He scored 14 of his 16 after halftime. Whether it was scoring out in transition, creating for himself off of high ball screens or hitting key late shot clock 3s, Rice did everything Indiana needed from him. Indiana basketball has always been a better team and had potential to reach its ceiling if Rice was in attack mode to score the ball, it’s when he is used as a distributor first that the Hoosiers struggle. Rice’s speed and downhill attacking ability opens up the offense for Indiana and that was out in full force in the second half. He finished with 16 points on 5-of-11 from the field with three made 3s.

Horrendous final few seconds: Down one, Indiana failed to look prepared for the final few moments in a critical game that it needed to win. First, it was an inbounds pass to Malik Reneau who almost dribbled it off his foot out of bounds. Then on the next inbounds play it was a complete mixup on who needed to sub in and who was going to stay on the floor. The players didn’t know and the coaches didn’t know. Then, it was what looked like a mixup on the inbounds play, with both Malik Reneau and Myles Rice heading to the same spot on the floor resulting in a three-point fadeaway attempt by Rice. Not only did Indiana look like a team that had not practiced for key moments like that, the coaching staff looked like a group that was totally lost. It was an absolutely terrible finish to a game that Indiana needed and that falls squarely on the coaching staff.

Second-half defense fails again: This is now becoming a consistent theme with Indiana — an inability to remain focused on the defensive end of the floor after halftime. The Hoosiers held a good Maryland offense to just 41 percent shooting in the first half and saw that jump to 59.3 percent in the second half. Maryland scored 1.367 points per possession after halftime and were 8-of-13 from three. The Terrapins scored on its final four possessions and had a stretch of seven-straight makes from the 14 minute mark until the 10 minute mark. Indiana just failed to come up with much-needed stops when needed and was unable to key in to late clock situations resulting in a few shots at the end of the shot clock — including the ultimate game-winner by Rodney Rice.

Lack of execution: The inability to finish in late game situations is a consistent theme and that was no different on Sunday. Indiana had a five-point lead with 3:07 left in the game and had just one made field goal to wrap up the game — finishing 1-of-5 in the final stretch. There were missed free throws, turnovers and ‘rushed’ looks late in the shot clock. Not only was it a complete letdown, but the inability to play a consistent game, especially late, continues to halt Indiana from seeing any growth. This has been a theme for four years and Sunday showcased that even more.

Make sure to follow Hoosier Illustrated, part of the Full Ride Network, on Twitter @Indiana_FRN, Facebook and YouTube to stay up to date on all of the news, updates and coverage of Indiana University athletics. You can also listen to the Talking’ Bout the Hoosiers podcast on Spotify.

Looking for a place to get more Indiana content? Hoosier Illustrated has partnered with Tom Brady’s company ‘Autograph’ to streamline our coverage, so you can continue to do what you do best – follow IU sports. Use the CODE: Indianafr to get started today. For more info, you can start here.