IU basketball struggles with Minnesota's zone, missing open 3-pointers

That Minnesota was playing a zone was no surprise. Injuries had chopped the Golden Gophers’ roster down to eight players, and with a significant height disparity against one of the top post players in the country, it made sense to play a flexible defense that allowed for easy double-teaming.

Indiana knew all this. It had prepared to play against a zone. It had the personnel to break the zone. It didn’t execute, and the Big Ten cellar-dwelling Gophers stayed competitive until the final minute.

IU struggled to penetrate the zone early. When it got enough ball movement to get the Gophers stretched thin and scrambling, the Hoosiers missed open looks from 3-point range in the midst of an ugly shooting night: 41.1% from the field, 28.6% (4-for-14) from deep and 61.1% on free throws.

“If you’re not making shots against the zone, it’s just tough,” IU interim coach Yasir Rosemond said. “It’s not many trick plays you can come up with.”

Three reasons Indiana won again:IU made it harder than it had to be, but Trayce Jackson-Davis carries Hoosiers by Minnesota

The Hoosiers had trouble getting inside the zone early, where Trayce Jackson-Davis could get opportunities on the block. Instead, IU swung the ball around the perimeter, and Minnesota had little trouble keeping up with the ball. Jackson-Davis scored when he had the opportunities, but there was a curiously high number of possessions in which he didn’t touch the ball.

As IU became more consistent at getting the ball inside, either to Jackson-Davis or Race Thompson at the high post, looks from deep opened up. The Hoosiers just didn’t take advantage. On consecutive possessions late in the first half, Trey Galloway and Miller Kopp missed wide open shots set up by ball movement shifting the Minnesota zone.

It didn’t help that Rosemond emphasized defense in his rotations. Malik Reneau scored 10 points in 12 first-half minutes but didn’t play in the second. With Minnesota running out smaller, quicker lineups, Rosemond tabbed Thompson to play the bulk of the second half and guard the Gophers’ leading scorer, Jamison Battle. Thompson scored 4 points in his second game back from a leg injury, unable to create for himself the way Reneau had.

The saving grace on offense, as has been the case so many times this season, was Jackson-Davis. He got the ball down low more consistently in the second half. Even when the possession didn’t end with a post-up, the goal was just to get the ball to the rim, Rosemond said, and give the big man a chance to get a rebound and a putback if all else failed. He had seven of IU’s 10 field goals in the second half and finished with 25 points and 21 rebounds.

Meanwhile, the offensive performance from the rest of the Hoosiers wasn’t consistent, but it was just enough to keep Minnesota from selling out to stop Jackson-Davis. Double teams came to the post and sometimes out near the baseline as he tried to face up, but they weren’t as extreme as some of the looks he’s seen at other points this season. Kopp buried a 3 to give IU the lead entering halftime and finished the night with all but one of the team’s triples.

“I don’t know what kind of zone they were trying to play,” Jackson-Davis said. “I thought that, at first, they were just gonna shrink it in and not let me get the ball, but they kinda started getting wide, I think because we started hitting shots. But it’s just something that we’re gonna have to work on at the end of the day.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana Hoosiers: IU tops Minnesota despite offensive struggle