Indiana men’s basketball: The overtime thriller that didn’t have to happen

Indiana men’s basketball deserves all the credit for its gutsy, one-point, 2OT victory at UCLA. It was just the second Quad 1 win of the season and the third road win, arguably the second-best resume piece behind the win over Purdue earlier this week.

All of that can be true while acknowledging that there was no reason for that game to go to overtime in the first place.

Blowing a 10 point lead with 1:35 left in the game is a feat. It’s a shared responsibility for sure, but one that falls at least some on the shoulders of the head coach, who should be able to draw up plays to make sure his best players get the ball in the most advantageous situations.

That was just about the opposite of what happened tonight.

It started with a bad pass from Lamar Wilkerson, the first of his two turnovers in the final two minutes. Indiana was actually able to get a stop on defense, but then Wilkerson missed the front end of a one and one to give UCLA the ball back.

By that point, Darian DeVries should probably have considered inbounding elsewhere. Wilkerson is a good free throw shooter, but UCLA was playing to trap first and foul only when forced to.

DeVries was forced to burn his final two timeouts after inbounding it directly to him as he approached the sideline, leading to easy UCLA traps and no outlet passes. When he finally got an inbound pass towards the middle of the court, he picked up his dribble at the first sign of a double team and turned it over again.

One way or another, Indiana did not end up fouling while up by three points in the closing seconds of regulation and Trent Perry was able to hit a contested 3-pointer to send the game to overtime. We don’t know if DeVries instructed players to foul or not as he wasn’t asked about it postgame but it’s another interesting turn of events.

Wilkerson’s overtime scoring was enough to redeem his shaky play down the stretch, but the offense going through him in each overtime period was another interesting decision from DeVries. Entering overtime, Nick Dorn was Indiana’s leading scorer with 26 points. He only attempted one more field goal over those final two minutes. Indiana didn’t have a point guard with Conor Enright on the bench with five fouls, but there’s enough passing ability in Wilkerson and Tucker DeVries to make something happen.

Because of rising foul trouble, DeVries had to turn to Trent Sisley off the bench for some crunch time minutes. More than that, Sisley was a major factor offensively, taking two of Indiana’s biggest shots in the second overtime period.

He hasn’t shot the ball well from the free throw line this season, making it perplexing that he had the last play drawn up for him as a primary option with under two seconds in the game. Sisley ended up making one when it mattered most, but that doesn’t answer for many of the decisions Indiana made down the stretch.

By the end of the game, with three players having fouled out, the Hoosiers were clearly running on fumes. An extra ten minutes of action was probably not what this team needed with its short bench and a quick turnaround before another road game at USC this Tuesday.

It was perplexing and worth extra thought. Mistakes were made and that can’t happen again when Indiana needs every game it can get.