It’s over. It’s been over.
Keeping it brief today because, frankly, there are better ways to spend your time than engaging with Indiana men’s basketball at this point. Use the time you save by not reading a third observation to do something that makes you happy.
Indiana went on the road and lost a game it was expected to lose to a Penn State team playing with the desperation and urgency you’d love to see from Indiana at this point in the season.
The Hoosiers lost for the same reasons they’ve lost five of the last six now. A huge discrepancy in 3-point scoring led to a double digit halftime deficit that could not be overcome no matter how hard Indiana played.
Here are Two Observations:
Not Good Enough
Once Xavier Johnson went down, the margin for error for this team became razor thin. Given the roster construction, Indiana would have needed near perfect play from all of its role players to stay afloat.
To be fair, even a more balanced roster would struggle to win games while going 2-15 from 3-point range in college basketball in 2024. It’s hard to fault Mike Woodson for relying on his bigs in the paint when the rest of the team can’t hit the wide-open kick outs that style generates.
Like the free throw struggles, this appears to be related to confidence, which is unsurprising given how disastrous this season has been. The vibes are bad and nobody is going to play at their best when everything surrounding the program is so tense.
I don’t really know if or how this can be fixed before the end of this season. It looks like something that can be only remedied by seeing enough shots go down, but that break through game may not be coming.
The hardest thing to stomach about these last few games has been the effort we’ve seen from Malik Reneau, Kel’el Ware, Mackenzie Mgbako, and Trey Galloway. They’ve done everything they can to keep Indiana competitive and it just has not been enough.
Not Desperate Enough
If this stretch of bad play costs Mike Woodson his job, you’ll have to wonder what could have been had he coached like his job was on the line. Benching Mgbako and Ware for foul trouble in the first half is exemplary of the lack of urgency we’ve seen the last few months.
Ware quickly grabbing two fouls to start the second half may have vindicated Woodson in that specific decision in today’s game, but it’s more about the big picture here. Everyone in the arena and watching on TV has heard the boos rain down from Assembly Hall lately.
In his defense, Woodson has led Indiana on great bounce-back stretches in each of his first two seasons. He earned an NCAA tournament bid in year one with a spirited Big Ten Tournament run behind Johnson and won 8-9 games in a stretch of conference play last year after dropping three straight.
The opportunities for that kind of season-saving run are running out though, and it’s hard to envision this team being capable of such a stretch the way things have looked lately. Pressure will only continue to mount until the Hoosiers start to play like there’s something on the line when they take the court.