‘It threw us off’: Indiana basketball went zone and disrupted Louisville’s flow leading to late surge for the win

NEW YORK — Indiana basketball was looking to avoid an 0-2 showing in New York and a massive upset on Monday afternoon. Despite a halftime lead, Indiana saw itself trailing for the majority of the second half until a critical in-game adjustment was made by head coach Mike Woodson to lift the Hoosiers to a 74-66 win over Louisville.

That adjustment was a zone defense. Yes, zone.

Nobody saw it coming and it was just the move Indiana needed to come away with a win.

“Woody did a good job with his team … They made adjustments and they picked up the adjustments quickly,” Louisville head coach Kenny Payne said postgame. “I knew Woody wouldn’t play zone, at least I thought I knew. He tricked me.”

Louisville was up 56-51 with 9:54 left in the game when Indiana made the shift to zone. The Cardinals would go on to make just two more field goals — one dunk and one layup by Skyy Clark with four seconds remaining in the game.

“It threw us off,” Louisville guard Skyy Clark said. “We started playing tentative, holding the ball … the biggest thing was just playing way too tentative.”

“It forced us out and we stayed out too wide and didn’t move the ball we way were were,” Payne added. “We telegraphed passes … we didn’t make the correct reads … we got stagnant in the zone and didn’t make the adjustment.”

The Cardinals went just 2-of-10 the remainder of the game.

The move to the zone was a clear result of very poor individual defense, especially from the perimeter players for Indiana. The inability to keep the opponent in front of them caused numerous breakdowns once the quick Louisville guards got into the paint. It was either a finish at the rim, drop off to a big or kickout for a three.

Louisville’s guards were tremendous all game attacking down hill — mainly Clark scoring the ball and Ty-laur Johnson making plays for his teammates.

“We couldn’t stop their step up pick and rolls,” Woodson said postgame about the change to zone. “Had we continued down that path, (Kel’el) Ware and Malik (Reneau) would’ve fouled out of the ball game. It was the right thing to do and probably caught them off guard since I don’t normally play zone … but we were aggressive enough and rebounded out of it.”

“Coach Woodson don’t like playing zone defense so it was something to adjust to,” Indiana basketball senior guard Xavier Johnson said postgame. “They (Louisville’s guards) were getting downhill a lot and we had to change the game. It opened everything up for us even offensively.”

Indiana would go on to finish on a 23-8 run after it went to its 2-2-1 to 2-3 zone defense. That included a 13-2 run in the last 3:38 of the game.

“The zone saved us tonight, we made some big plays coming down the stretch,” Woodson said. “We were able to just give them (Louisville) one shot and then we got the ball and were able to come down (and make plays).”

A day after getting out rebounded by 22 to UConn, the Hoosiers won the rebound battle by four on Monday. The Cardinals came into Monday’s matchup grabbing 40.8 percent of their misses on the offensive glass and averaging 16 offensive rebounds per game. Indiana limited them to just eight offensive rebounds.

In total, Indiana held Louisville to just 35.7 percent from the floor and forced 11 turnovers — five coming after Indiana went to its zone defense.

Indiana was led by Xavier Johnson who finished with 14 points, including 9-of-12 from the foul line. Kel’el Ware and Malik Reneau each had 12 points — including 16 combine in the second half. Anthony Walker added 11 points — nine in the first half — off of the bench.

While there are still some major questions needing to get answered, Indiana survived and a win is all that matters at that stage.

The Hoosiers move to 4-1 on the season and go 1-1 in the Empire Classic.

“It’s all you can do, keep working,” Woodson said. “The bottom line is, we won. That’s what I look at.”