Sigh
Well, it happened again.
Indiana men’s basketball lost its fifth straight game, falling to 5-8 in the Big Ten and 14-10.
This was supposed to happen, per the analytics, but computers cannot account for the effect that the news of Mike Woodson’s retirement would have on this game.
40 minutes into the beginning of the end of the Woodson era, I’m not sure anything changed on the court, but it was more interesting to watch for a variety of reasons.
Here are three things we learned:
The Vibes
I’m honestly not sure what I expected heading into this one, but the vibes were weird today. Which is probably an improvement over how things had been going before the Woodson news broke.
The most noticeable change was the lack of boos, even when Indiana came out flat and found itself trailing by 18. That easily would’ve set the crowd off weeks ago, but was met with something like passive apathy from the crowd today.
Then there was the broadcast, which spent a considerable amount of time discussing Dusty May’s connections to Indiana University. They didn’t make explicit that he will be a candidate for the job opening, but it felt like he was already in the interview process.
Luckily Indiana will not see Dusty again this year, so that particular weird bit shouldn’t come up again. It won’t change the fact that the season has been a failure though, or the fact that everyone knows a new coach is in order.
The Fight
With expectations far in the rearview for this group, the hardest thing to watch has been the recent run of close losses. The players are doing everything they can to reward themselves and the loyal fans with a win and are not seeing results.
This is, more or less, why Woodson retired when he did. It’s become clear that Indiana has the talent to compete with the top teams in the conference, but they are consistently not put in situations to win.
At this point, there’s really no reason to think things will go differently until Indiana has a new coach. If the news of Woodson’s retirement couldn’t get this group over the hump, I don’t know what will.
The Poetry
Sometimes the game presents itself in such a way that there’s really not much more you can say than the box score would indicate.
With little chance of a postseason, this game was most significant for Woodson’s legacy as head coach, and it featured all of the hallmarks of the Woodson era accordingly.
Everyone played hard, but appeared rudderless for long stretches. Indiana tethered its offense to their bigs and had to live with their respective limitations. The guard play was lacking.
There were some bright spots too, as there were in the Woodson era. Anthony Leal playing meaningful minutes will always feel good. Timely 3-pointers got Indiana back into the game, and Leal’s buzzer beater brought the crowd to its feet after the final whistle.
But it wasn’t enough to change the result. Indiana wasn’t good enough to beat Michigan, and dropped its 12th straight game to a ranked opponent. And that’s been the story of the last four years, more or less.