No. 21 Indiana Struggles Offensively, Falls at Maryland, 66-55

COLLEGE PARK, Md — Sometimes, experience really does matter.

In the head-to-head matchups of point guards, Indiana freshman Jalen Hood-Schifino had his roughest night as a Hoosier in the 66-55 loss at Maryland on. Tuesday night. He missed his first 11 shots, and then had to watch his counterpart, Jahmir Young, go off for 20 points. 

That doesn't tell the whole story, of course, but it sure tells a lot of it. It was the worst of Hood-Schifino's 19 college games, and one of the better ones for Young, a transfer from Charlotte who's a Maryland native that's played in 107  college games.

Hood-Schifino wound up shooting 1-for-14 on the and scoring just three points. It was a night-and-day departure from Saturday night, when he scored 20 first-half points against Ohio State. 

You take the good with the bad, and hope for a quick turnaround with No. 1-ranked Purdue coming to Bloomington on Saturday.

"We just couldn't find any offense,'' Indiana coach Mike Woodson said. "Shit happens, man. You aren't going to make shots all the time. I thought some of the shots he was pressing a little bit and try to keep us in it.

"He'll bounce back. He's had. too many good games for us for that to take him down. We've just got to regroup.''

Indiana played well early went on a 9-2 during the midway part of the first half, grabbing a 22-15 lead. But then they really had trouble scoring, making just 2-of-10 shots toward the end of the half, with four turnovers.

Maryland didn't shoot it particularly well in the first half, but the Terps kept a clean sheet, not committing a single turnover. And when Indiana went cold, they went on a 15-4 run themselves to take control. The got the lead up to eight on several occasions and went to the halftime break with a 37-29 lead.

Indiana got off to a hot start in the second half, scoring the first six points, with Race Thompson scoring the first five. They got to within two points at 37-35, but would get no closer. Maryland went on another run to get the lead back into double digits.

Indiana got the lead back down to five with 5:56 to go, but Hood-Schifino missed a jumper in the lane, and the Hoosiers had another turnover. Maryland scored on four straight possessions, which pretty much wrapped it up.

For an Indiana team that has been playing well, winning five straight games, this was certainly out of character, especially for Hood-Schifino, who had 24 points last week, and 33 a few weeks earlier against Northwestern.

This, certainly, was an outlier.

"It wasn't their 2-3 zone because we saw the same zone at Iowa and almost scored 90 points,'' Jackson-Davis said. "We just weren't hitting shots. With Jalen, you've just got to learn from your mistakes. He's been one of our rocks this year and he's been a good guard for us. We've just got to put this behind us, because we've got a big game on Saturday.''

Jackson-Davis stuffed the stat sheet again. He had 18 points and also pulled down 20 rebounds, something that had never been done before in the Xfinity Center.

With the loss, Indiana is now 15-7 overall and 6-5 in the Big Ten. Next up is a meeting with No. 1-ranked Purdue on Saturday at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall. The two state rivals will play twice in three weeks.

They'll need to shoot better on Saturday. They were just 37 percent from the field against Maryland. Trey Galloway made both of his three-pointers — he's over 50 percent for the year — but the rest of the team was just 1-for-9 from deep.

Race Thompson was the only other Hoosier in double figures with 11. Miller Kopp had seven, and Galloway and Malik Reneau had six each.

Maryland, who's also 15-7 and 6-5 in the Big Ten, is now 6-0 in league home games. 

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