MADISON — Wisconsin guard Max Klesmit had 18 straight points in the second half of a 91-79 win over the Indiana basketball team on Friday night.
Klesmit hit four 3-pointers during that stretch as he pushed his team’s lead to 20-plus points.
What could Indiana have done better to defend him? Keeping track of where he was on the floor might have helped as he put up 23 of his 26 points in the second half on 8 of 11 shooting.
“Just losing him,” IU coach Mike Woodson said, of what went wrong. “When we doubled, we didn’t rotate correctly. It’s a lot of miscues.”
While Indiana was without starting center Kel’el Ware — he was a late scratch with a foot injury — his absence wasn’t the problem.
“We got beat off the bounce a lot tonight,” Woodson said. “That generated a lot, they made 25 free throws (on 29 attempts). That’s a bit much. We gotta get that fixed.”
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Indiana scored 53 points in the first half, but gave up 52 points on 16 of 24 shooting.
“Who is playing defense? Nobody,” Woodson said, with a shake of his head.
The Hoosiers came into the game giving up 73.3 points per game (No. 232 in the country). They held teams to under 70 points in each of Woodson’s first two seasons.
It was the second most points Indiana has allowed this season after giving up 104 points in a loss to Auburn. The Hoosiers are 1-9 during Woodson’s tenure when giving up 85 or more points and five of those games (1-4) have come this season.
The only time IU gave up more than 85 points or more during Woodson’s first season was in a game against Syracuse that went to double-overtime.
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“You can’t think you’re just going to outscore teams on the road,” Woodson said. “You’ve got to play defense on the road and rebound the ball. And I thought we were there from a rebounding standpoint, but 91 points, you’re not going to beat anybody on the road.”
Woodson took the blame for the poor performance as he’s done with the team’s previous defensive lapses, but once again called out the contributions he received from the seniors. He described Trey Galloway’s play during one stretch of the game as “horrendous” and said he cost the team 10 points.
The problem for Indiana is figuring out how to fix the issue.
“I think everybody understands what’s going on (defensively),” Indiana forward Malik Reneau said. “It’s just a matter of fact of going out there and doing what’s told to them. Other than that, I really can’t tell you too much.”
Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Indiana basketball’s defense taking step in the wrong direction
