It’s year four of the Mike Woodson era in Bloomington. During that time, Indiana has played premiere nonconference opponents on neutral courts each winter.
Here’s how those games have gone:
2021:
64-56 W vs Notre Dame, Indianapolis
2022:
89-75 L vs Arizona, Las Vegas
2023:
77-57 L vs UConn, New York
74-66 W vs Louisville, New York
104-76 L vs Auburn, Georgia
2024:
89-61 L vs Louisville, Battle 4 Atlantis
89-73 L vs Gonzaga, Battle 4 Atlantis
89-73 W vs Providence, Battle 4 Atlantis
So that’s three wins and five losses.
Those wins? On a “neutral” court in Indianapolis that may as well have been a home game, a narrow win over one of the worst high-major teams in recent memory and a Providence team missing its best player after playing a game that started the previous evening.
Every single loss has been an inarguable blowout to another name brand program nationally.
Mike Woodson has said repeatedly since taking the Indiana job that he wanted these kinds of games. To show that his Hoosiers could compete with the very best on the national stage. Which made sense! It’s good for branding and metrics.
It’s not as great of an Indiana if every single one of those games is a blowout loss.
Like, these aren’t even competitive games Indiana is playing. It would probably be easier for fans to stomach if the team fought to a close defeat but these are double digit losses decided a while before the final buzzer sounds.
Here’s some perspective: Indiana, one way or another, will always be linked with the other programs in its area. That, for the southern region of the state, means Kentucky and Louisville.
Both of those programs hired new head coaches this past offseason: Mark Pope for the Wildcats and Pat Kelsey for the Cardinals. Both of those programs now, in year one, have more signature nonconference wins than Woodson’s Indiana has managed to earn in four years.
Pope’s Wildcats downed the Cooper Flagg-led Duke Blue Devils in the Champions Classic. Pope even generated a viral moment when he called out exactly what Cooper Flagg would do with the ball on Duke’s final offensive possession, which earned Kentucky a win with a defensive stop.
Kelsey’s Cardinals just blew out Woodson’s Hoosiers in game one of the Battle 4 Atlantis thanks to a 3-point shooting barrage and an aggressive defense. Probably not as iconic as the above game but a cathartic moment for a fanbase a year removed from watching the previous head coach say Woodson tricked him with a zone defense in a postgame press conference.
Indiana has taken time to come together though, right? The Hoosiers are typically playing their best basketball under Woodson in the closing weeks of the regular season, with a 2022 Big Ten Tournament run, 2023’s wins over Purdue and last season’s late winning streak coming to mind.
It’s a portal heavy roster with new pieces, of course it’s gonna take time to come together.
…. Which would be a great argument were it not for the fact that Pope and Kelsey both built their teams almost entirely through the portal and those rosters look to have things pretty decently figured out by now. Enough to win these games at least.
Indiana has simply taken too long to look like a good team under Woodson. Yes, the roster usually figures something out and pulls out wins, but by then the nonconference slate is firmly in the rearview mirror and the Hoosiers are making up for an okay at best resume.
These teams have put themselves behind the 8-ball every single year with these nonconference stumbles. By this point the fanbase has gotten tired of tuning into a product that has only ever disappointed them in these settings.
This year is different. Indiana built one of the most talented rosters in the country on paper through returning pieces and transfer portal additions. It looks every bit as lost as last year’s significantly less loaded team on paper.
Indiana can still come back, this isn’t a world ending level event. But it is an established trend that you can just expect every year with the current iteration of the program.
