My Two Cents: Indiana's Disappointing Season Will Be Defined By All the Blowout Losses
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — There was about five minutes and change left in Indiana's Big Ten Tournament quarterfinal game against Nebraska on Friday night, and a funerial pall hung sadly through parts of the Target Center.
The outcome had long been determined thanks to a 17-point run by the Cornhuskers at the end of the first half. Hoosiers fans — at least the few hundreds who actually made the trip north — sat silently while the other fan base gleefully shouted ''Go Big Red.''
Even though the referees had absolutely nothing to do with the final result, Indiana coach Mike Woodson was yelling and screaming incessantly at the three-man crew. Veteran official D.J. Carstensen, the long, tall and bald guy — not that there's anything wrong with that — had seen enough. He had already given Woodson one technical, and with 5:20 left, he gave him another one and sent him off to the locker room.
And with that whistle, Carstensen did what Indiana athletic director Scott Dolson and Board of Trustees boss Quinn Buckner couldn't do during the often-ugly 2023-24 basketball season.
He told Mike Woodson that he couldn't coach Indiana basketball any more.
Left to fend for themselves in the final minutes of this lost season, the Hoosiers played out the string and walked off defeated, pounded by the Nebraska Cornhuskers — you hearing that, the Nebraska Cornhuskers? — 93-66 in a half-empty arena.
It was the third time in two months that Nebraska had embarrassed the once-proud program with a double-digit defeat. They played in Lincoln in January, Bloomington in February and now here. Nebraska won the three games by a combined 58 points.
Fifty-eight friggin' points.
Incredible.
The Hoosiers finished with a 19-14 record, a winning season salvaged only by a five-game winning streak that ended on Friday. There is no NCAA Tournament bid coming, and that's the bar that must always be reached at a historic — notice I didn't use blueblood? — program like Indiana. It was such a disappointment that the Hoosiers also won't play in the NIT, opting instead to moving on to next year.
That, I suppose, is a good thing, because we've really seen all we need to about this edition of Indiana basketball. We know what they are. And we don't like it much. None of it.
This team has a few nice players, and we all see that. Even Cornhuskers coach Fred Hoiberg, like Woodson a former NBA coach, called Indiana's front line of Kel'el Ware, Malik Reneau and Mackenzie Mgbako ''one of the best in the league,.''
He's not wrong, but as we've mentioned often, all three are good players that still have gaping flaws in their games. They get exposed by good game plans now and then — and they certainly did Friday night — but there's also a massive talent drop-off after that on Indiana's roster.
And that showed on Friday night, too. It was sad.
That will be the final snapshot of a storyline that played out throughout this season in a very ugly way. This team was not capable of beating good teams. Even worse, they couldn't even be competitive.
This team, sadly, will be remembered for the getting the crap kicked out of them on a regular basis. And that is not only incredibly sad, but also totally unacceptable.
One last time, let's remember all the dumpster-fire carnage in their premier games on the schedule:
- They lost by 20 points (77-57) to defending champion Connecticut on Nov. 19 at Madison Square Garden in New York.
- They lost by 28 points (104-76) to Auburn on Dec. 9 in Atlanta, and that was after roaring out to a 22-10 lead. Only lost by 40 the rest of the way.
- As we mentioned, they lost three times to Nebraska, falling 86-70 in Lincoln on Jan. 3, 85-70 in Bloomington on Feb. 21 and 93-66 Friday night.
- They lost at home to bitter archrival Purdue on Jan. 16, falling 85-66. It was the worst home loss in the rivalry in 90 years. They also lost by 20 at Purdue (79-59) on Feb. 10, and never had a chance.
- They lost twice to a bad Penn State team by a combined 23 points. Beating them Thursday night in the tournament was like putting lipstick on a pig.
That's how this team will be remembered, for all the beatdowns. And there were really no memorable wins. They beat Ohio State twice, but the Buckeyes were underperforming so bad at the time that they fired their head coach — Chris Holtmann — during the season.
The Hoosiers beat Michigan in Ann Arbor in December, which seemed nice at the time but, as it turned out, everyone did that. Michigan went 3-17 in the Big Ten and Juwan Howard, a school hero like Woodson, got fired, too.
The only two wins that were impressive were late home victories over NCAA teams Wisconsin and Michigan State. But for most of the swill fan base, those weren't high points because they were actually rooting AGAINST Woodson and his team. That's what a portion of this fan base does these days, root for losses.
Things are not good at Indiana right now. Hell, that's being kind. It's bad, really bad. There was at least some momentum during Woodson's first two years, with the Hoosiers back in the NCAA Tournament after six long years.
Things were trending.
But there's literally nothing trending right now. Nothing at all. Woodson and his staff were supposed to bring in a huge haul in the 2024 recruiting class, but right now there is no class. They swung and missed repeatedly, and then bragged about at least sitting at the table.
Last week, five-star shooter Liam McNeeley, the type of player the Hoosiers desperately need, asked out of the National Letter of Intent he signed in November. Indiana released him later this week and now Woodson doesn't have a single recruit in that class.
Not a single one. How can that possibly be?
Indiana has 12 scholarship players right now and only two — Xavier Johnson and Anthony Walker — are out of eligibility.
Woodson's first task is to recruit his OWN players. It starts with Mackenzie Mgbako, a talented freshman with enormous potential who's not NBA ready but will be some day. Woodson and assistant Calbert Cheaney are the two best small forwards in Indiana history. They need to keep him, and make him a top-10 pick next year.
Malik Reneau learned a lot from Trayce Jackson-Davis last year, and he's a lot like Mgbako. He might have an NBA career someday, but not right now. He does some good things in the post, but he needs more pieces in his game. Getting him to come back is important, too. He's a big man to build around for sure.
And then there's the curious case of 7-foot center Kel'el Ware. He showed massive improvement throughout the year, and had seven double-doubles in the final three weeks of the season. He has NBA skill, but there are still so many flaws in his game.
He's not strong enough, and doesn't have enough moves inside. All those double-digit losses to good teams? Ware got destroyed by Connecticut's Donovan Klingan once and Purdue's Zach Edey twice. They are both dramatically better centers. He was 2-for-8 shooting in the loss to Auburn, and was completely outplayed by Kansas center Hunter Dickinson, going 3-for-12 in that narrow loss.
The NBA drafts on potential, and he certainly has it. But they've seen all his failures, too, plus the questions about his motor. The old-school guy in me knows he could benefit from another year in college. Woodson needs to sit him down and convince him of that. He also needs to drop a big bag of cash in his lap from Indiana's ever-growing NIL accounts because, let's be real, that's how college basketball works these days. Talent goes to the highest bidder.
Seniors Trey Galloway and Anthony Leal are both coming back for their bonus COVID year, and that's great, more for the fact that they're great kids who love Indiana than they are for getting a roster great enough to win NCAA games.
The rest of Indiana's roster is a crap-shoot. Freshman Gabe Cupps was thrown to the wolves this season, and he was in way over his head. But he's got potential and might be a quality Big Ten point guard down the road. He needs to stay. Fellow 2023 recruit Jakai Newton missed this entire season with a knee injury, and I'm really looking forward to watching him play next year, too. Don't let him get away.
But the others, C.J. Gunn, Kaleb Banks and Payton Sparks, didn't do a lot to help Indiana win games this season. Gunn had some games like Friday, where he hit a lot of shots late in garbage time. But at times when push came to shove, he was overwhelmed on the defensive end and his shot selection is questionable at best.
Banks and Sparks didn't step up at all in a year where Indiana really needed their front-court depth. Every time Woodson went to the bench, it produced disastrous results. I thought for sure that Banks would be a good college player, but he's just never gotten any better.
So that's what is weird. Indiana will need at least four productive players in the transfer portal. That's the bare minimum. Hell, they might need seven or eight before it's all over.
That is current-day college basketball at its worst. I hate it.
Woodson has hit a few recruiting home runs during his three years back home in Bloomington, but this cycle has turned into an outright disaster. He's getting routinely criticized for it, and rightly so. I don't get why assistants Kenya Hunter and Yasir Rosemond — allegedy great recruiters — aren't getting ripped more either. Why are their jobs safe?
I'm usually one for playing as many games as you can, and playing in the NIT might have been worth it. Indiana has said no, so they can hit the ground running on Monday when the transfer portal opens. I'm fine with that, I really am. They need a complete restart, so don't be distracted.
So Woodson and his staff need to get cranking. This kind of season cannot happen again. The fan base won't stand for it. Neither will the big-dollar boosters, no matter how close Buckner and Woodson are.
Downward trends aren't good, and it's time to fix that right now. I have absolutely no idea what this team will look like in November, and I am supposed to know. But that's college basketball these days.
That kind of makes me sad. Indiana is a mess right now, and I have very little faith in the current people cleaning up their own spills. I hope they prove me wrong.
Related stories on Indiana basketball
- GAME STORY: Indiana's season ended with another thud on Friday night, getting blown out by Nebraska 93-66 in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Tournament. The loss took the shine off their five-game winning streak and left them with a final record of 19-14. CLICK HERE
- WHAT MIKE WOODSON SAID: Here's the full video and transcript of Mike Woodson's press conference following Indiana's 93-66 loss to Nebraska in the Big Ten Tournament. CLICK HERE
- WHAT FRED HOIBERG SAID: Here's the full transcript and video of Fred Hoiberg's press conference following Nebraska's 93-66 win over Indiana in the Big Ten Tournament quarterfinals. CLICK HERE
- PHOTO GALLERY: Indiana's basketball season came to an end on Friday night. The Hoosiers got blown out by Nebraska in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Tournament, losing 93-66. Here are the best photos from the game. CLICK HERE
