GREGG DOYEL

Doyel: Which IU team will show up? Flip a coin

Gregg Doyel
gregg.doyel@indystar.com
  • Nebraska at Indiana, 8:30 p.m. Wednesday
Indiana Hoosiers guard Yogi Ferrell (11) is defended by Michigan State Spartans guard Matt McQuaid (20) and Michigan State Spartans forward Deyonta Davis (23) during the second half of a game at Jack Breslin Student Events Center.

EAST LANSING, Mich. – Indiana basketball is whatever it wants to be. The Hoosiers can be that good, as we saw a few days ago when they sent No. 4 Iowa home with a loss. That team, those Hoosiers, can beat anybody.

This team? These Hoosiers? The ones who showed up Sunday at the Breslin Center without shooting or defense or leadership?

These guys can lose to anybody. Hell, they have lost to anybody. A week ago this version of Indiana basketball showed up in State College, Pa., and lost to Penn State. And Penn State’s awful.

It was the rancid version of Indiana that showed up Sunday, enjoyed itself for about 10 good minutes before falling completely apart against Michigan State. And Michigan State’s awesome. The No. 8 Spartans spent the final 25 minutes picking the final score, and – eeny, meeny, miny, mo – settled eventually on 88-69.

With Indiana, you just never know.

“This game,” Michigan State coach Tom Izzo was saying afterward, “scared me more than most we’ve played.”

Insider: IU's Yogi Ferrell in a slump? Don't tell Tom Crean

Well, sure. Indiana can give an opposing coach the chills. The Hoosiers surround the Big Ten’s leading shooter, freshman center Thomas Bryant (72.4 percent entering the game), with four 3-point shooters. They won’t all be hot, but if a couple of them get going, watch out. A couple of them got going Thursday against Iowa. The Hoosiers won that one 85-78.

Nobody got going on Sunday – well, nobody but Max Bielfeldt. Which is crazy, right? Three times he had come to the Breslin Center with archrival Michigan, and he scored a total of nine points with zero 3-pointers. On Sunday the senior graduate transfer led IU with 15 points and 10 rebounds, and made a trio of 3-pointers.

“For a while, he was the best player on the floor,” Izzo said. “Who would have ever thought Bielfeldt …”

Nobody? Everybody? There is no right answer when it comes to predicting what the Hoosiers will get from any of their players, not anymore, not with their best and most dependable player (Yogi Ferrell) in a three-game funk and their most talented player (Troy Williams) in witness protection and their two sensational freshmen (Bryant, OG Anunoby) riding that freshman roller coaster and then someone like Max Bielfeldt putting up a double-double on the road against a physical and deep frontcourt like Michigan State’s.

The only thing we know for sure about Indiana is, frankly, troubling information: The Hoosiers are a dependably excellent team in just one gym in America, Assembly Hall, where they are 14-0 this season. That makes for some enjoyable home games, but this IU team will be defined by what happens in the NCAA tournament, where the Hoosiers are headed for a middling seed that will send them far, far away from Bloomington. And in all other venues – away games, neutral games, Hawaii, Indianapolis – the Hoosiers are a 50-50 coin flip at 6-6.

That’s an ugly phrase today – 50-50 – because those were the effort plays that both coaches mentioned went mostly Michigan State’s way. Indiana had its stretch of 50-50 balls midway through the first half, when the Hoosiers turned an 11-5 deficit into a 33-23 lead, but it was all Michigan State for the final 25 minutes. Izzo was asked what happened to change that.

The famously fiery Izzo lifted his eyebrows, looked around and smiled.

“Some good huddles,” he said.

Indeed, Izzo was a major reason for this win, saying before the game that he’d noticed something amiss with Indiana’s transition defense – fast break points: Michigan State 22, IU 9 – and making adjustments during the first half and at halftime that resulted in the Spartans closing the game on a 65-36 roll. Denzel Valentine put up another superb stat line (30 points, 13 assists, five rebounds) and Matt Costello added 22 points and 11 rebounds, prompting IU coach Tom Crean to suggest that Costello “is playing his way into the NBA, and we helped him today.”

It’s hard to predict which Indiana team will show up, but when the Hoosiers reveal themselves it’s easy to identify which version we’ve just seen. And on Sunday we saw the Duke version of IU, the Hoosiers who went to Cameron Indoor Stadium on Dec. 2 and were blown out 94-74. That remains their worst loss of the season, but only because IU junior Collin Hartman – along with Bielfeldt, the Hoosiers’ best player on Sunday – hit a 3-pointer with five seconds left Sunday to trim a 22-point deficit to its final 19-point result.

The symbolic totem for this IU team is Troy Williams, who plays with the pace and athleticism that Crean values most on the recruiting trail and can dominate a game when he’s playing well. In the second half of the Iowa game, even as Ferrell was struggling (2-for-12 shooting, one assist, two turnovers), Williams was exceptional and the Hoosiers picked up their biggest victory of the season.

On Sunday, Williams was invisible. Zero points, four rebounds, one assist, two turnovers. The considerably better play of Anunoby (eight points, five rebounds, two blocks) will trigger questions among IU fans about the Hoosiers’ starting lineup going forward, but the question on Sunday was more basic:

What on earth happened to Troy Williams? Crean thinks he knows. Michigan State, he said, made it a point to never lose track of Williams on the offensive end, denying him his occasional flashes of brilliance that often come on unscripted cuts to the rim for a pass or a tip dunk. And when the Spartans removed the spontaneity from Williams’ game, he had nothing left. After the game, believe it, Crean talked with Williams about his disappearing act.

“This has got to be a learning experience for him,” Crean said.

Sure, but that’s a choice – and Troy Williams has to make it. A guy that talented, he’s as good as he wants to be. So it’s like I said: Williams is the symbolic totem for this IU basketball team.

Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at@GreggDoyelStar or atwww.facebook.com/gregg.doyel

Nebraska at Indiana, 8:30 p.m. Wednesday