In the second fixture of their west coast road trip, the Indiana Hoosiers (18-12, 9-10) fell to the Oregon Ducks (22-8, 11-8) 73-64, ending their previous unbeaten (3-0) all-time streak against the Ducks.
Jackson Shelstad catapulted a deep 3 with four seconds remaining on the shot clock and 1:30 on the game clock to give Oregon a 66-64 lead. That heave sparked a 10-0 that the Ducks ran with to close out the Big Ten contest, the first meeting between these two teams as a part of the same conference.
Trey Galloway was handcuffed, detained, booked and charged by TJ Bamba on the ensuing possession, turning the ball and the Hoosiers’ chances over. Oregon made seven of their eight attempts at the charity stripe in the following 65 seconds to close out Indiana’s upset bid.
Mike Woodson’s unit struggled to score down the stretch of the game, going on a 4:26 scoring drought starting at the 8:19 mark of the second frame. Indiana seemed to have a chance at the road win when Galloway, who overtook Yogi Ferrell’s program record playing his 138th game as a Hoosier, hit a 3 to give Indiana 64-63 lead on the possession prior to Shelstad’s dagger.
Indiana entered this contest as high as a 10-seed in some bracketology projections, but a Quad-1 win on the road over the Ducks would have put Indiana into a very safe position to go dancing come March 16 when the tournament field is announced.
“They’ll still be in the field next time I do my list,” said Fox Sports bracketology analyst Mike DeCourcy in the postgame show.
Indiana once again went to the inside-out attack featuring Oumar Ballo and Malik Reneau as the catalyst and Woodson enabling them with the ability to either score themselves or pass back out to the perimeter. Indiana hit nine 3s while Ballo finished with 10 points, 12 rebounds and a blank in the assist column. Reneau added eight points, six rebounds and a single dime.
Nate Biddle contributed all across the 94 feet of court Tuesday, starting with his mid-range jumper 28 seconds into the game all the way to hitting the free throws that extended Oregon’s lead to four following the Galloway turnover. He finished with 14 points, seven rebounds and six assists.
Indiana will now, once again, have to fight for their tournament lives in their last regular season game. This time, it’s on Senior Night on Saturday, when the Ohio State Buckeyes come into Bloomington.
“They really need to make sure they take care of the Buckeyes on Saturday,” Decourcy said.
Indiana’s game against Ohio State on Saturday will most likely be considered a Quad-2 game. A home game is only considered Quad-1 when the opponent is 1-30 in the net and Ohio State sat at 36 coming into Tuesday night. However, the Buckeyes did take down the Nebraska Cornhuskers 116-114 in double-overtime.
That contest is slated to begin at 3:45 p.m. on CBS with Senior Night festivities beforehand.
