Eastern men’s basketball lost to Indiana University 90-55 Sunday afternoon in Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.

This was a turnaround result after the Panthers were up 37-36 at halftime.

The game was Eastern’s second BIG10 matchup of the season.

Here are five takeaways from this matchup against the No. 17 ranked Hoosiers:

1.        Bad shot selection:

Like their game against Illinois, the Panthers shot under 40% from the field. Specifically in this game, the team shot 36.8%.

However, Eastern wasn’t shooting bad in the first half. Eastern shot 59.3% in the first 15 minutes of regulation. But something changed when they came out of the break.

That was bad shot selection.

“You got to recognize when things aren’t going your way,” Eastern’s head coach Marty Simmons said. “You can’t just keep feeding the monster. You got to slow down; you got to make sure your execution is at a high level– that you are getting the shots that you really want.”

Eastern’s low field goal percentage was the main reason for them only scoring 18 in the second half, almost less than half what they scored in the first half.

“A lot of bad shots led to transition buckets for them, which got them going, got them easy looks,” senior guard NaKyel Shelton said.

2.        Not spreading the ball around in the second half:

Eastern had two assists in the second half after recording six in the first.

“Sharing the ball in the first, we did well, and then the second half, obviously we didn’t,” graduate forward Kooper Jacobi said.

Even though six was still less than half of Indiana’s 14 assists, at the same time, the Panthers were moving the ball around a lot more effectively in the first half.

The efficiency showed up with Eastern’s halftime lead. In the second half, the team recording only two assists was evidently not effective.

“Ball movement, player movement, and I felt like when we did that, our level of success was far better than when we let their pressure speed us up and dribble the ball more we weren’t as successful,” Simmons said. “So, ball player movement was probably the biggest thing.”

3.        Too many turnovers:

The Panthers had 17 turnovers in the game. Six of them can be credited to bad shots because they were blocked. Eleven of the turnovers were steals.

Both teams caused eight turnovers going into halftime. In the second half, Eastern caused four while Indiana caused nine of their own.

So, the Panthers didn’t do a bad job causing turnovers, but they didn’t do enough to protect the ball themselves.

4.        The defense in the second half:

The Panthers gave up 54 in the second half after only giving up 36 in the first half.

“We did stay together on defense in the first half, and I think the second half we just got to do it better,” Jacobi said.

Along with Jacobi, Shelton also touched on the team’s performance in the second half against the Hoosiers.

“I think our effort went downhill [in the second half],” Shelton said. “We lost on the boards. We kind of quit defensively.”

5.        Good shots from the three:

Despite shooting 36.8% from the field overall, Eastern shot 35% from beyond the arc.

Junior guard Zion Fruster and Shelton led the long-range shooting with three made each.

“I was setting [Zion] up; he was setting me up,” Shelton said.

However, out of the seven threes that got in the net for the Panthers, only two of them were in the second half.

Graduate guard Artese Stapleton also recorded a three of his own, ending the game with 12 points, five steals and four assists.

Eastern’s next game is against Northwestern University. The Panthers will travel to Evanston to compete against the Wildcats on Friday.

Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m.

Bryce Parker can be reached at at 581-2812 or at baparker2@eiu.edu.