Hoosiers find a way to end skid with dramatic finish
BLOOMINGTON – James Blackmon Jr. made it sound like a simple decision. It certainly was an important one.
IU (16-13, 6-10) needed 40 minutes, packed with the kinds of momentum swings that have too often undone the Hoosiers this season, to see off Northwestern (20-9, 9-7) on senior night Saturday, in a thrilling 63-62 win.
Blackmon’s 13 points led all Hoosiers, but it was his assist, with less than three seconds left, on a Thomas Bryant dunk and foul that ended a five-game losing streak, and handed Indiana its first win over a KenPom top-50 opponent since the end of November.
“Very proud of the resiliency of this group,” IU coach Tom Crean said. “Certainly, numerous times, they could’ve turned it in. And they never did. And I never felt like they would.”
It almost didn't matter.
The last seconds of Saturday’s game dying away, Greensburg native Bryant McIntosh — the night’s standout performer, with 22 points — needed just two more. Two more to blunt a last-gasp IU comeback. Two more to give the Wildcats more comfort on the NCAA tournament bubble.
McIntosh drove the lane as the shot clock ticked down, hoisting an eight-foot runner.
To that point, McIntosh’s decision making had paced Northwestern, for better or worse. When he was aggressive, the Wildcats were too. When they settled, he was settling with them.
For essentially the first time Saturday, that aggression didn’t pay off. The last of his 18 field goal attempts rimmed out.
Blackmon grabbed the rebound and sprinted up the floor, the game clock ticking under five seconds. Crean signaled for a timeout from IU's bench.
But during live-ball action, only a player can call timeout. Blackmon drove the lane.
"I heard the bench calling timeout, but I was already in my move," Blackmon said. "I just went with it, tried to be confident."
He had been Indiana’s standout performer of the evening, but that wasn’t necessarily a distinction.
Against a sturdy Northwestern defense, the Hoosiers went long stretches without much success. They finished the night just 40 percent from the floor, and scored only seven points in the first 11 minutes of the second half.
Northwestern built significant advantages on both sides of halftime, leading by as much as 12 in the first half.
A 22-0 Indiana run just before the intermission, punctuated by Devonte Green’s three-quarter-court buzzer beater, turned momentum toward the Hoosiers. But they could not keep it, their 10-point halftime advantage disappearing within the first 6 ½ minutes of the second half.
“We fought,” Northwestern coach Chris Collins said. “At the end of the day, we just didn’t finish.”
The Wildcats surged ahead, leading by seven with 10 minutes left. Their advantage lingered there, between 5-8 points, for most of the rest of a half. With 90 seconds left, the visitors led 62-55, and IU’s five-game losing streak looked likely to extend to six.
Northwestern would not score again.
• BOX SCORE: Indiana 63, Northwestern 62
Robert Johnson made a layup. Blackmon hit a 3-pointer. Collins called timeout, prompting the wild final sequence. McIntosh nearly iced a win. Instead, his miss cued Blackmon's second dance with last-second heroics this season.
Blackmon collected the rebound with nine seconds left, according to the official box score. He drove the length of the floor, attacking from left wing.
“I was coming down and they collapsed on me dribbling, and I saw two or three guys come at me," he said.
Bryant followed from the opposite side. When Blackmon reached the rim, he wrapped a pass around two defenders to Bryant, who slammed home a game-tying dunk and was fouled.
His ensuing free throw hit the back iron and the backboard, bounced three feet in the air, then dropped in off the side of the rim. McIntosh’s halfcourt heave hit the rim, but wouldn’t go down. Indiana's five-game losing streak, however, would.
The win slots IU into a three-way tie for 11th in the league, and within a half game of the top 10. That would mean a bye to Thursday in the Big Ten tournament, valuable for a team depleted by injuries.
But on Saturday night, killing that slump and finishing a win for senior forward Collin Hartman were enough, for a team that’s come close and fallen short so often in the last month.
“For our guys to find a way,” Crean said, “down seven with a minute and a half (left) … very proud of them.”
Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.