SAME OL' IU — The Weekly Opine

Like old newspapers, memories of IU’s glory days are fading. (Photo credit The Weekly Opine)

A broken record

A season that began last spring, with the promise of star players opting to return for another year, ended with another thud and quick exit from the only tournament that matters, the NCAA Tournament. Are you paying attention Big Ten headquarters?

(For the record, today’s column focuses on the Indiana men’s team. The IU women’s basketball team, led by outstanding, Big Ten Coach-of-the-Year Teri Moren, is in great shape as evidenced by the team earning a coveted #1 seed in the tournament. IU women smashed victories records and attendance records along the way. Yes, losing to Miami ended the Lady Hoosiers season. But they have a strong foundation and a winning culture. They just need to add a couple more athletes, like Bob Knight did when he brought in Keith Smart and Dean Garrett to mesh with Steve Alford & Co.)

Today, let’s attend to the once-again-teetering men’s basketball program that, like water finding its level, has alarmingly returned to the brink. The challenges facing IU are by no means insurmountable but will persist so long as Hoosier Nation (which includes coaches, players, fans) continue to tread water at the confluence of irrelevance and delusion.

Go ahead if you will, argue that IU is relevant again. And I will tell you that 2 wins and 2 losses, upon returning to the Big Dance in 2022, doesn’t cut it. Especially when suffering season-ending blowout losses in the Round of 64 to St. Mary’s last season and this season in the Round of 32 to Miami, by an average of 22.5 points.

Mental weakness

I picked IU to win one game in the NCAA Tournament. The reason being that IU did not demonstrate the mental fortitude to follow up on high level, tough wins. Remember the euphoria after beating Purdue in a hostile environment at Purdue? A few days later, back home at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, IU got plastered by Iowa. It was shameful seeing IU’s senior ‘leaders’ laughing on the bench, near the end of the blowout home loss to Iowa. Completely unacceptable and a sign of immaturity among the supposed team leaders.

IU men’s hoops has been shrouded in a fog of uncertainty for the better part of two decades. (Photo credit The Weekly Opine)

Indianapolis Star sports columnist Gregg Doyel posits IU quit against Miami. It’s hard to argue against Doyel’s conclusion. With about six minutes to play, IU decided they’d had enough and displayed an appalling lack of pride, fight and loyalty to their coach, to each other and to their school.

It reminded me of the end of the Bob Knight-era, when Pepperdine smashed IU by 20 points in a Round of 64 game. That day it was apparent Knight had permanently lost his team. And it turned out to be the last game Knight coached at IU. Watching the Hoosiers feebly submit to Miami, you had the feeling Coach Mike Woodson had, at least temporarily, lost his team.

Barely above average won’t do

Let me start by saying I like Coach Woodson. He seems like a good person, an earnest man who loves IU. He was a star at IU in the late 1970s and was hired partly because of his deep connection to Knight. Hence, Woodson received an early pass from many fans because of his ties to Knight. Questionable substitution patterns and strategy were glossed over as he settled into his new role.

But IU fans are as knowledgeable as any fans. (Not the delusional ones, but the ones who understand basketball.) It didn’t take long for reasonable fans to offer mostly constructive critique of Woody. I am among them. For example, Woody’s overreliance on talking about the NBA and pick-and-rolls and isolation. And his obsession with playing a 9 or 10-man rotation early in the season meant his starting five didn’t play enough minutes. His excessive substituting cost IU at least three easily winnable games.

So, Woodson needs to continue to evolve next season. Last year I gave Woodson a “B.” He deserves a “B-” this year. Why? Because this team, with a starting lineup consisting of a 6th year senior, a 5th year senior, a 4th year senior (1st team All-American), a junior and a supposed NBA lottery pick freshman, played too often without energy and purpose. They played scared and tentative in big games. Lackadaisical. Woodson is fond of saying, “And that’s on me.” Woodson too often was slow to make in-game adjustments, instead sticking with his NBA-style rotation script. He does deserve credit for adjusting to the loss of his erratic, mercurial senior point guard.

Woodson was also hired because of his NBA background. However, the expiration date, regarding the notion that players will go to IU because of Woodson’s NBA ties, will arrive sooner than later if players/parents continue to see an underperforming team with players possessing prime raw tools not being developed.

This season, Woodson got nothing out of Jordan Geronimo, a 6’7” junior who has shown promise. Maybe he’s a headcase?, but Geronimo is one of only a few IU players with elite, SEC-type athleticism. It was up to Woodson to bring Geronimo’s talent to the surface to become a solid, dependable contributor. Former IU Coach Tom Crean developed two athletic marvels, Victor Oladipo and O.G. Anunoby, both of whom now star in the NBA (I’m not saying Geronimo is destined for the NBA). As it stands, you can’t blame Geronimo if he enters the portal, seeking meaningful playing time elsewhere his senior year.

Additionally, IU’s assistant coaches need to sit down. Too many coaches are involved in management of IU’s games with assistants constantly standing up and jockeying to get in Woodson’s ear. That should be happening at practice and in the locker room at halftime, and occasionally in a timeout huddle. But to have assistants jumping up and down like pogo sticks must be distracting to Woodson and the players. Whose voice(s) are the players listening to?

The delusion contagion circulates at Big Ten Headquarters, too. (Photo credit The Weekly Opine)

The Big Fraud

Big Ten loyalists thump their chests about being the best conference in the country. I beg to differ. The Big Ten fills up their arenas probably better than any conference. The B1G has sweet TV deals that are the envy of other conferences. But the on-court product is not commensurate with all the tongue wagging. As we see every year come tournament time, the Big Ten is inferior to the SEC, ACC and Big East. Eight B1G teams made the Big Dance. Only one, Michigan State, advanced to the Sweet Sixteen.

Big Ten teams plod along, compared with the SEC, ACC, Big East, etc. The Big Ten relies on cows whereas the other conferences deploy gazelles. As Fairley Dickinson proved against Purdue, and Miami proved against IU, quickness and determination nullify height. And energy feasts on dispassion and confusion.

Get focused

Too many IU fans are wildly delusional, as are some of the players, who last summer openly boasted about winning a national championship as if saying it over, and over again, would make it come true. And too many fans focus on irrelevant junk like headbands.

It demonstrated a lack of focus when Miller Kopp decided to don a headband (for the first time in his 5-year college career?) in the tournament. Anybody who has played sports knows you do not change your routine on the eve of playing in the tournament. Kopp brought attention to himself and created an unnecessary, unforced distraction. The coaches should have told him no, not now, you are not suddenly going to start wearing a headband.

Similarly, Tamar Bates should be told no more bringing his toddler to post-game press conferences. No one questions that he loves his baby girl. Bates, who had a subpar season, capped off his sophomore year by shooting 0-12 in the Big Dance. Bates needs to focus on playing ball and improving his game. Holding his baby on his lap at pressers is selfish, and not fair to Bates’ teammates as some attention is shifted to the baby.

Jalen Hood-Schifino proved he’s not ready for the NBA. But since he’s been told he’s a lottery or near-lottery pick, he’ll likely turn pro. JHS had a very good freshman year, yet is mistake-prone and takes too many bad shots. (How does he take 22 shots to All-American Trayce Jackson-Davis’ only 10 shots in the Miami game?) If Hood-Schifino is as serious about his craft as everyone says, he’ll return for his sophomore season.

On the other hand, Xavier Johnson can go. I said in my recap last year X should have been kicked off the team after driving 90 mph, evading pursuing cops (a felony) and then lying twice to the cops after they pulled him over. I hope X’s petition for medical redshirt is denied. He’ll be 24-years-old by the time next season begins. Time to move on from the hotheaded X.

Also, Woodson should stop hosting “pro day” whereby NBA scouts attend practice. Does inviting pro scouts to watch practice build team cohesiveness? Or does it turn the focus from “we” to “me?”

Delusion about the stature of Indiana’s men’s basketball program afflicts a large swath of Hoosier Nation. (Photo credit The Weekly Opine)

Among Hoosier Nation, too many fans have no clue what it means to be great. They subscribe to the “everybody gets a trophy” mantra. Seeing the number of fans on social media calling this season “great” is hilarious and an indication how far the bar has been lowered at IU.

As a freshman attending IU, I witnessed the undefeated 1976 team – a team voted by national sports media as the greatest college team of all time. I know what greatness looks like. I observed the manner in which that team handled their business. The 2023 Indiana team isn’t even on the same continent as greatness. Trayce & Co. were just good. Serviceable, inconsistent and at the end, not championship caliber.

Bottom line, Coach Woodson needs to focus on recruiting tough-minded, competitive, athletic players capable of rising to the occasion every game, not just the games against Purdue and Illinois. Most importantly, the IU men need to establish an unwavering winning culture. Getting distracted by headbands and babies and NBA scouts are not signs of a winning culture.

Indiana’s loudmouth assistant coach, Yasir Rosemond, infamously and stupidly said he’d “kiss [anyone’s] ass” who can find 25-30 players who will get drafted ahead of Trayce Jackson-Davis. After IU’s win at Purdue Rosemond, who obviously needs to be told to shut up, crowed, “This ain’t the same Indiana!”

Well, right now it is the same Indiana. Shouldn’t be, but it is.