3 Takeaways from Indiana men’s basketball’s stunning loss to Northwestern

Indiana men’s basketball lost a game it needed to win tonight, and it did so in horrifying fashion, as all of the team’s worst tendencies cost it a winnable game and potentially an NCAA Tournament berth.

Cold shooting, being out-rebounded, fading in the second half, and the lack of interior offense are all familiar themes to this season, usually keeping Indiana out of games against more talented teams. Tonight though, it looked like Indiana would have collapsed against anyone, as it dropped what was supposed to be one of the most winnable games left on the schedule.

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The Hoosiers have now lost three straight, all in embarrassing fashion, and will likely be on the wrong side of the Tournament bubble when it’s all sorted out.

Here are 3 Takeaways from the game:

No Excuses

Indiana’s last two losses, despite the humiliating deficit, were somewhat understandable. Both Purdue and Illinois are locks for the NCAA Tournament, likely to get high seeds and will have good odds to make the second weekend. Northwestern is not that.

Not only was Northwestern not a good team in terms of their Big Ten record, but this was a team that Indiana should have beaten on paper. It was not one of the taller teams that Indiana has struggled to rebound against, as the Hoosiers have the higher average height between the two. Indiana got out-rebounded, nonetheless.

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Northwestern also allows a lot of assists, which should have meant easy buckets for Indiana inside, especially once the team started to go cold from deep. Indiana was able to exploit this in the first half, but then stopped going to Tayton Conerway and Sam Alexis in the second half, for some reason.

As a whole, it was clear that Darian DeVries was out-coached today. With home court. In a game he had to win.

That is going to be tough to sit with.

Tayton Conerway

For the second straight game, Conerway has come off the bench to be Indiana’s second leading scorer behind Lamar Wilkerson. He also had 3 assists versus one…

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Publish date : 2026-02-25 02:52:00

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