Indiana-Louisville Recap: Battling the Bullies

“Relentless” is the word of the week. 

Coaches and pundits tossed the term around like wedding rice before Indiana’s showdown with Louisville at the Jimmy V Classic, mostly while praising the Cardinals defense and the planet-devouring inevitability that is Montrezl Harrell. 

And the tag fit the product. Louisville hammered the Hoosiers Tuesday night, harassing with the press and spiking Indiana layups into the concourse. Other times, Rick Pitino’s team only had to set up the sword and let Indiana’s young stars throw themselves down to the hilt on it. 

Louisville bullied Indiana relentlessly at Madison Square Garden, but even the most casual observers saw Pitino’s No. 5 team catch multiple body blows in the process.  

Let’s get into Indiana's unsatisfying, but ultimately positive 94-74 loss to Louisville. We saw the predictable holiday ham giveaway, the further blossoming of Nick Zeisloft’s pendulous onions and Montrezl Harrell doing what Montrezl Harrell does.

The Holiday Ham Giveaway

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Oh man, you missed it? 

They were just here a minute ago. Stanford Robinson and Troy Williams pulled a truck right up to the corner and started tossing turnovers out the back like spiral hams. They had on derby hats and told us to “vote Bull Moose.”

Suffice it to say, with the kind of spread IU ball-handlers put on the table Tuesday, Louisville won’t have to eat for weeks. The Hoosiers coughed up 19 turnovers against Louisville, most of which surprisingly occurred on half-court offense as opposed to against the full-court press.

Stanford Robinson gets credit as head chef, coming off the bench and baking up a team-high five turnovers due to his penchant for channeling Leeroy Jenkins on each and every take to the basket. He also played a pivotal role in the back-to-back inbound turnovers Harrell lunched on in the first half. In short, Robinson showed us he's miles away from being the place-holder Indiana needs while Yogi Ferrell receives his thimble of rest each game.

As for Williams (three turnovers), I’ve said it before and I’ll say it every week until Ragnarok comes and sea monsters crawl from the deep to perform in a small but spirited off-Broadway production: Troy Williams should only handle the ball if Earth’s very atmosphere is aflame.

Every time he dribbles, give the other team two points. It’s that simple.

Nick Zeisloft’s Monstrous Onions

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After his performance Tuesday night, I'm confident Indiana tailors will need to take eight inches out of Nick Zeisloft’s inseam this week just to create breathing room for his growing confidence. 

Zeisloft attempted five field goals against the Cardinals, all three-pointers. He connected on three of those attempts, each coming in stretches of dire need for Indiana. 

These triples, along with perimeter contributions from Ferrell, Blackmon Jr., Johnson and Max Hoetzel, kept the Hoosiers hanging around for most of the game. With Louisville getting 78 shots to Indiana’s 61, hitting from deep was a big mitigating factor in stretches for Crean’s team.

That is, until Louisville started hitting threes. The Cardinals finished 8-23 from deep, while Indiana shot 8-20.

Regardless, Zeisloft has the onions. Z for Three is the truth, and he deserved more minutes down the stretch.

He is Montrezl, Destroyer of Worlds

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The answer for Montrezl Harrell is out there.

It might be sitting in a locker room in Lexington or Durham. It could be parked in a Nevada hangar or missile silo.  

Whatever it is, it should be kept behind 12-inch blast doors and multiple electronic fail-safes, because whatever is capable of bringing Montrezl Harrell down could probably bring everything down.

The 6’8” Cardinals forward carved Indiana like so much roast Tuesday night, scoring 21 points and snatching 11 rebounds.  

This is about the stat line Hoosiers fans should’ve expected coming into the game. Harrell dunked seven times on a team admittedly lacking size and post depth. Crean had no properly experienced big man to wedge into Harrell’s well-established flight pattern between the baseline and the rim. Mosquera-Perea, Williams and Emmitt Holt all took turns on the player Pitino is calling “the best player in the country" according to Jeff Borzello of ESPN. None managed to take away the baseline dish that is Harrell’s bread and butter.

Also, for what it’s worth, I like Harrell.

I say this because a lot was made of his yelling and jawing Tuesday night. Harrell was cocky. He got overly excited for some jams, and along with Mangok Mathiang, he seemed ready to let Indiana hear it. 

Some people called him classless and worse. 

But before we start lighting torches and testing to see if he floats, let's try something.

Take all of these annoying traits Harrell has and contrast them against a familiar figure—say, a certain small forward from South Florida who once dragged his undercarriage on the nape of Melsahn Besabe’s neck like a pilot hooking the fly wire on an aircraft carrier.

Harrell gives me flashes of Sheehey. You hate to play him, but you’d love to have him on your side.

Other Notes

—Nothing helps the bitter taste of defeat go down like the sight of James Blackmon Jr. baptizing the opposing team’s superstar post presence.  

I will live off this CJ Fogler Vine and handfuls of wild berries for the next four days and be glad for it.

—Here’s a college basketball lifehack for all you aspiring coaches out there: Make sure refs know ahead of time that your team is super physical, so they don’t misinterpret contact the wrong way.

—Depth was an issue against Louisville. The IndyStar's Zach Osterman confirmed the fatigue many of us at home saw while watching Indiana leave shots short down the stretch in the second half.

—Crean’s run-happy offense didn’t benefit Indiana against Louisville. Too often the Hoosiers found their blood running high after breaking the press and tried to score quickly. Indiana found much greater success when it slowed down and probed the Louisville defense methodically. 

—Louisville is good. The Cardinals came into Tuesday night’s game No. 2 in the nation for defensive field-goal efficiency. Peegs.com’s Mike Pegrams reports that prior to Indiana, Louisville held their opponents this season to 31.2 percent overall shooting and 22.8 from behind the arc. Indiana went 47.5 percent from the field and 40 percent from deep.

—Emmitt Holt continues to show promise. He had a nice block on Harrell but made a few rookie mistakes. 

—Ferrell and JBJ can’t both come out at the same time against top-flight teams like Louisville.

—Mosquera-Perea turned in a solid performance, all things considered. He opened up the scoring with a—gasps, jubilation, huzzahs—strong post move on the base line and a bucket. Hashtag progress, y’all.

—Ban the jump pass.

—Terry Rozier came through in the clutch for Louisville. Buried the Hoosiers with late threes. 

Indiana will look to grab its eighth win of the season Saturday against the Grand Canyon Antelopes (4-5) Saturday. After that, the Hoosiers have a week to prepare for what will surely be an infuriating affair with Butler—a talented team that requires three wooden stakes and a double-tap to put away.

Take heart, friends. Indiana lost to the bully, but it proved it could exchange body blows with some of the best talent in the nation. Louisville took our lunch money, but not our pride.

Dan is a Trending Lead Writer for B/R. Once or twice a week during the college basketball season, he turns into an irrational monster that yells at men wearing candy cane pants.

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