BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) — The loss was so thorough, even Bob Knight was baffled.
“You know, it’s … I don’t know, I wish I could figure it out,” Knight said after Michigan’s 112-64 rout of Indiana, the second-worst defeat in his 27 years at Indiana. The worst loss under Knight was a 106-56 defeat to Minnesota in 1994.
“That’s not happened to us often, but it’s happened before. I’m sure if you’d ask the players they wouldn’t be able to give you an answer. I’m sure they’re as disappointed as we (coaches) are about how we played.
“It looked like we had taken no time nor had we made any effort to prepare for the game, the players or the coaches.”
Andrae Patterson, who had strong second halves against Purdue and Northwestern, missed all seven shots he took in the first half and rode the bench in the final period.
A.J. Guyton, the team’s leading scorer for the season, hit two 3-pointers in the first half and managed only one free throw after that. Freshman Luke Recker, second in scoring, had only 10 points.
“We got run off the court,” Recker said. “It was hard to tell what was in our minds. You can’t describe this.”
By halftime, Michigan led 54-25, and the Hoosiers just went through the motions the rest of the way.
“I think the only thing you can do in those circumstances is, let’s go play a 20-minute game and see what we can do with this half,” Knight said of his halftime instructions to his players.
The result was a 66-point turnaround from the teams’ first meeting, won by Indiana 80-62. But it was a different Michigan team that showed up Sunday.
“Michigan played really well,” Knight said. “The thing that really hurt us was a combination of our not paying attention to defensive conversion and Michigan really going at the offensive end of the floor to start with. That got things going in the absolute wrong direction for us and certainly the right direction for them.”
Indiana (18-8, 9-5 Big Ten) is tied with Michigan for fourth place in the conference with two games to go before the inaugural Big Ten tournament in Chicago next month. The two teams will probably meet again in the quarterfinals on March 6.
First, Indiana has games against second-place Illinois on Tuesday night and at sixth-place Iowa this weekend.
“I really haven’t decided on any changes yet,” Knight said. “I really don’t know how we’ll go about trying to get ready.”
The 112 points by Michigan were the most ever scored against a Knight-coached Indiana team. The Hoosiers scored the final six points of the game to avoid tying the worst defeat in the school’s 91-year basketball history. In 1905, Indiana lost by 54 points at Ohio State.