Iowa 58, Indiana 43: back to square one...again.

Box score.

I've said over and over that IU's improvement won't be linear.  There will be fits and starts.  Almost all teams, including much better teams than IU, have bad games throughout the course of the season.  Still, I did not see this coming.  During IU's loss to Loyola (Md.), when IU was down 20-0 the play-by-play guy said something to the effect of, "I didn't think Indiana had turned the corner, but I thought they were beyond this sort of a half."  I think that's where I am with this loss.  As I said in my preview, I knew a loss was possible.  And Iowa win wasn't any bigger an upset than IU's recent wins over Minnesota and Penn State.  Still, I didn't think IU was bad enough to be dominated by a 7-12 Iowa team that didn't even play that well.  I don't mean to poor-mouth the Hawkeyes: they did some things very well.  Most conspicuously, the Hawkeyes rebounded 18 of their 31 misses.  IU had only 13 defensive rebounds.  I can accept that something like this could happen this season against Michigan State or Purdue.  I can't accept it against Iowa.  Still, Iowa shot only 47 percent from the field and had 21 turnovers to IU's 16. 

I'm not going to mention any individual performances because nothing from that game deserves any sort of acclaim.  Unfortunately, the schedule toughens up quite a bit now, so this may have been IU's last legitimate chance for a win in quite a while.