Hoosiers hand upset to No. 10 Irish
By BRIAN KESSLER
Sports Writer
Unranked Indiana taught No. 10 Notre Dame an old lesson Tuesday night — defense wins basketball games.
The Irish (4-1) weren't able to contain the Hoosiers (4-3) all night and Indiana stepped up its defense to hand Notre Dame its first loss of the season in front of a packed house at the Joyce Center, 86-78.
"I watched tape on Notre Dame and I really thought we could win this basketball game," Indiana head coach Mike Davis said. "Certainly you have to credit Indiana," Irish head coach Mike Brey said. "They were tougher than us the whole night. They were excellent defensively and they made big shots. We're not tough enough on the defensive end. We tried to identify that early when we were winning, but now maybe that will get the attention of our guys on that side of the floor."
Indiana sophomore guard Tom Coverdale, who had never made more than four field goals in a game, exploded a career-high 30 points on 11-of-15 shooting to pace the Hoosiers. He caught fire early and helped Indiana build a nine-pint lead with 12:51 left in the first half.
The Irish, however, clawed back to take a two-point advantage on a pair of free throws by Troy Murphy with 3:16 remaining in the first. But a Coverdale three-pointer from the top of the key as the buzzer sounded gave Indiana a 37-34 lead at the break.
"Coverdale had 16 points in the first half, but I was nervous that offensively we didn't take advantage of our opportunities," Davis said. "He hit a big three at the end of the half that gave us the momentum at halftime."
Ryan Humphrey scored the first two points of the second half to cut the lead to one, but Indiana went on a 13-0 run over the next three minutes behind the strong play of Coverdale and Kyle Hornsby.
"I wanted to change up our defense and mix in some zone, but we were down eight or nine and they were making shots," Brey said. "The only way to get back in the game was to make two or three stops in a row. And we couldn't do that."
After a technical foul on Indiana assistant John Treloar, Notre Dame cut the lead to eight with 11:18 left in the game. But every time the Irish got within single digits in the second half, the Hoosiers answered and built a commanding 15-point lead with 2:21 left in the contest.
Murphy, the nation's leading scorer who was playing on a bad ankle, was held to just 15 points and seven rebounds.
"I feel defensively that we can compete with anybody," Davis said. "I knew Jared [Jeffries] and Jeff [Newton] could give Murphy problems. He's a slow guy that takes his time making moves and I thought that if we stayed down and jumped high, we could contest his shots and cause some trouble."
All five Irish starters played nearly the entire game and scored in double figures. Ryan Humphrey scored a team-high 17 points and grabbed eight boards, while Graves added 14 points, despite 4-of-14 shooting.
Notre Dame shot just 38 percent from the field, while Indiana connected on 53 percent of their attempts.
Kirk Haston came off the bench to score 19 points for Indiana.
The Hoosiers also outrebounded the Irish 42-33.
"It's disappointing," Brey said. "We lined up to take care of business and this is a dose of reality in the fifth game. We were pumped up and this was a cold slap in the face."
"We'll learn from this game," Graves said. "It hurts and it stings, but it'll make us a better team and we'll see how we bounce back from it."
Notre Dame will look to rebound when it takes on Miami (Ohio) Saturday at the Joyce Center.
All Sports Stories for Thursday, December 7, 2000
