IU Can Lose Big: Afraid of a Less Optimistic End of Season

    I was floating on a winner's high after my Indiana men's basketball team outdid the highly ranked Purdue Boilermakers in West Lafayette last Saturday night. Purdue is the best in the Big Ten and one o of the top five teams in the country. My Hoosiers made it to 20-9, with some poor performances, but they beat Purdue for a second time, this time on the road. Two more home games to go, against a miraculous Iowa squad and a decently playing Michigan team.

    We lost a close game to Iowa in the Corn State a couple months ago, but Indiana was supposed be improved now, and this was in Bloomington... 

    The Hoosiers got punked by the Hawkeyes. Right off the bat IU was down 16-5, Iowa shooting perfectly and hitting multiple threes. Perkins (from Indianapolis) and Murray were a two-man wrecking squad. IU gave up 47 in the first half, scoring 36 itself. If Indiana could rally in the second half, then all would be well. But no, Iowa kept up the torrid scoring. Final score 90-68, Indiana suffered its worst blow out at home since 2017, when the new Archie Miller's crew were crushed by IUPU-Fort Wayne! Ouch, that was a terribly inauspicious start to things back then.

    So here we are now, a ranked team with some seriously flawed games and playing tendencies. In this game outscored by 33 in three pointers. We cannot let that happen and expect to win. We lost like that in a terrible loss to Penn State. We have not solved Northwestern. Battled and bottled by Rutgers in Piscataway, Kansas and Arizona had their ways with the Hoosiers.

    Out of the 10 losses thus far, most of them came through defensive debacles. The wins occur when the Hoosiers can stop the opponent. The offense has to be efficient. They do not blow out too many teams, either, which is an indicator that IU may not be the world beaters this year.

    Their best wins? Xavier, Purdue twice, and.. beating Michigan by one in Ann Arbor, and overcoming the Scarlet Knights by six at home. 11 Big Ten wins, over Illinois twice and a struggling Wisconsin without their best player... 

    We need to beat Michigan this Sunday and play well in the Big Ten tourney. And get Xavier Johnson back from his broken foot two and a half months ago. Tamar Bates and Jordan Geronimo would help of they played better off the bench.

    It could happen. IU could make a strong run. But we could get blown out, like we did by St. Mary's last March 2022, and we have too many times all season.

Go IU. Fight better battles.