Assembly Hell Michigan pitiful in 35-point defeat Indiana 85, Michigan 50 By Jacob Wheeler Daily Sports Writer BLOOMINGTON - The press room in Indiana's Assembly Hall resembles a classroom, as nine rows of mini-desks face the menacing podium. The only things missing from the school atmosphere, perhaps, are a chalkboard and an "All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" poster. This is Hoosier coach Bobby Knight's classroom - a place where he's hammered home the ABCs of college basketball, almost since students wrote their lessons on wooden slates. Though he's seen hundreds of players pass under his tutelage in 29 years as Indiana's head coach, they have all memorized Knight's most important lesson: defense. The Hoosiers (5-2 Big Ten, 15-3 overall) schooled Michigan with a defense as suffocating as a smoke-filled room last night in an 85-50 drubbing that the freshmen-laden Wolverines (3-3, 12-5) won't forget anytime soon. The stunning debacle was Indiana's largest margin of victory over Michigan ever - even worse than a 112-79 defeat nine years ago in Bloomington. As the Big Ten race heats up and the margin of error falls accordingly, rest assured Michigan won't see many permeable defenses. The road ahead only gets tougher, as Michigan faces Michigan State and Ohio State at home next week - two teams that made the Final Four last season. "This game couldn't have been any worse," a dejected Michigan coach Brian Ellerbe said in Knight's classroom. "I don't think the game was about (our poor) shooting. It was about competing and executing, and we didn't do that." With the victory, Indiana remains in striking distance of first place in the conference, as Michigan slipped into a tie for fifth place with Penn State. The Spartans, Buckeyes and Purdue all share the top spot with 4-1 records. Indiana wreaked havoc on Michigan's offense immediately after tipoff, closing off all open looks at the basket. The Wolverines didn't score until 3:49 into the first half, as their usual offensive schemes - a baseline layup by Kevin Gaines, a Jamal Crawford fadeaway, or a LaVell Blanchard jumper from the foul line - were rendered all but impossible. Michigan shot just 18.9% from the field in the first half, and failed to convert a 3-point attempt. The Hoosiers, feeding off their coach's patented airtight defense, compiled a series of scoring runs: 7-0, 14-0, 11-0, en route to a 45-18 halftime lead. During one 10-minute stretch in the first half, Indiana outscored Michigan 32-5. "When (the Wolverines) made mistakes, their first instinct was to get a quick basket," Ellerbe said, summing up his freshmen's collective frustration. "You can't do that against good teams." Ellerbe, who has coerced his team into better second-half play a handful of times this season, could do nothing to stop the onslaught last night. Michigan's shooting improved only slightly after the break, sinking one-third of its shots in the second half. But the growing frustration was starkly evident at the free-throw line, where the Wolverines converted only 52.4% of their "gimmes." The climax came during a one-minute stretch early in the second half, when Josh Asselin, Leon Jones, and Gaines collectively missed six consecutive foul shots. Knight, who is known as much for his sporadic emotional outbursts as well as his team's stifling defense, was all smiles after the blowout. At an apparent loss for words to describe how one quality team could beat another by 35 points, Knight walked around the perss room, shaking hands with every journalist and asking each one, "How are you?" "I told Ellerbe, 'These things happen to everybody when things don't go your way.' It happened to us at Michigan (in a 112-64 Michigan victory two years ago)," Knight said. Indiana used a deadly inside-outside combination on offense, and patiently worked the shot clock when no immediate options presented themselves. Center Kirk Haston led his team with 19 points (17 in the first half alone) and 11 rebounds, and sharpshooting guard A.J. Guyton scored 18 points, including two 3-pointers. Michigan's lone bright spot, though Ellerbe refused to admit it as such, was Blanchard's 19-point, 13-rebound performance - the sixth double-double of the season for the athletic freshman. AP PHOTO Josh Asselin and the entire Michigan basketball team had trouble guarding Indiana's Kirk Haston, who had 19 points and 11 rebounds in the Hoosiers 85-50 schooling of the Wolverines. Originally on page 9A in the 1-26-2000 issue of the Daily.