Indiana fans expressed their frustration throughout Tuesday’s 94-69 loss to Illinois at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.
It started early, when fans booed coach Mike Woodson during pregame introductions. The boos carried on sporadically as the Hoosiers shot just 38.5% from the field, were dominated on the glass and offered little defensive resistance.
“Fire Woodson” chants broke out loudly from the student section as the Illinois lead grew to 20 points near the midway point of the first half. The loudest boos rained down on the Hoosiers as they walked into the locker room trailing 60-32 at halftime.
A noticeable portion of the Assembly Hall crowd left at halftime. Those that had brief moments to cheer as Indiana made a 10-0 run to start the second half and later cut the lead to 16 points. But it never really threatened to come back, and there was nothing to be excited about for the final 13-plus minutes as the Hoosiers were blown out again.
“Fire Woodson” chants broke out loudly from the student section as the Illinois lead grew to 20 points near the midway point of the first half. The loudest boos rained down on the Hoosiers as they walked into the locker room trailing 60-32 at halftime.
A noticeable portion of the Assembly Hall crowd left at halftime. Those that had brief moments to cheer as Indiana made a 10-0 run to start the second half and later cut the lead to 16 points. But it never really threatened to come back, and there was nothing to be excited about for the final 13-plus minutes as the Hoosiers were blown out again
The loss set a number of ugly Indiana records. Indiana gave up a school record 60 points in the first half. It lost by 25 points in a second straight game for the first time since 2008. Illinois achieved its widest margin of victory over Indiana in Bloomington since 1956.
What’s Woodson’s message to the fans to reassure them about the direction of the team?
“I love our fans and I respect our fans, but it’s up to me to get our players to play at a high level,” Woodson said. “That’s my job, and I’m going to continue to work in that area and hope that our fans will hang in there with us.”
Indiana senior Luke Goode had a strong message to fans postgame, too.
“I understand it. We got embarrassed,” Goode said. “We have to wear this jersey with more pride as Indiana basketball players. This program is too historical and too great to be represented like that. But to all those fans that were booing and are so negative on social media, just don’t switch sides when we get this thing turned around. We all got the confidence in our teammates, got the confidence in our coaches, so stay on that side when we start being successful again.”
So where does Indiana go from here? The Hoosiers fell to 13-5 overall and 4-3 in Big Ten play, good for seventh place in the new 18-team conference standings. They have a trip to Ohio State at 8 p.m. ET Friday, one of eight opportunities to pick up Quad 1 wins over the next nine games.
“We have two different options,” Leal said. “and I think as long as we can all get on the same page about the fact that we can win those nine games, turn the season around, we can make everybody’s dreams come true, right? So I think it’s just approaching every day with a new, fresh mentality and understanding we do have a lot of work to do. The work needs to be done.”
Recent losses to Iowa and Illinois don’t inspire confidence that Indiana will turn its season around, but Woodson, Goode and Leal aren’t ready to give up, based on postgame comments.
“We can’t let this be a snowball effect,” Woodson said. “We got a long way to go in this Big Ten. Do I think we’re good enough to win? Yeah, I do. I just got to get us to believe that and keep pushing these guys in the right direction.