BLOOMINGTON — Trey Galloway looked distraught.
He walked into the media room at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall on Wednesday with Mackenzie Mgbako after Indiana’s 85-70 loss to Nebraska, already knowing the sorts of questions he was about to hear in the postgame press conference.
They’d come from an obviously disappointed locker room, following IU’s third straight loss. The senior’s voice sounded heavy as he spoke. His hair was disheveled, as though he’d been pulling it in frustration. He resembled someone who’d just pulled an all-nighter.
Galloway just appeared exhausted, as if Indiana’s disastrous season had worn him down.
“We’ve got to really stick together,” he said. “We’re right there, and we show spurts where we can be really good. Like I said, just stick together.”
The Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall atmosphere turned desolate quickly, as Nebraska started the game strong. As Kesei Tominaga splashed 3-pointers on one end and Indiana shots clanked off the rim, the crowd grew restless.
The fans were ready to boo just about anything. They booed as head coach Mike Woodson called timeout with Indiana down 22-11 just over eight minutes into the game. They booed after Malik Reneau missed a free throw later in the first half, making IU 3 for 6 from the foul line at the time. They booed as Tominaga and the Cornhuskers tore apart Indiana’s defense. The fans loudly booed the Hoosiers off the court at halftime, down by 20 points. They even booed a group of fans participating in the on-court “Simon Says” halftime show.
The Hoosier faithful has booed at plenty of men’s basketball games this season, but never as frequently and fervently as Wednesday. Galloway knows those sorts of negative reactions just come with the territory.
“I mean, it’s part it. I can’t worry about that,” he said. “I’ve got to worry about helping my team, and we’ve got to be focused on each other and can’t worry about the outside noise. Just be a unit and stick together.”
The energy in the arena changed in the second half. Indiana turned the game around after halftime, outscoring the Huskers 25-8 to get within three points by the under-12 media timeout. A few fans left at halftime, but the remaining crowd was finally engaged as the Hoosiers chipped away at Nebraska’s lead.
But once the Huskers responded with a 14-1 run to essentially put the game away, Assembly Hall became resigned to Indiana’s fate. The fans had seen this story too many times, and they knew how it ended.
By the time Sam Hoiberg hit free throws to put Nebraska up by 12 points with 2:09 remaining, the student section — which typically stands for the entire game aside from timeouts — was seated. A young woman behind the media row subtly let out a disappointed, “Well, f*** them.”
These sorts of scenes have become common in Bloomington. Indiana’s lost 12 games this season, including five at home, and IU’s had to overcome spells of poor play during plenty of home wins. It’s wearing on the players.
“They’re down a little bit. You expect to be down,” Woodson said. “The only way you come out of a rut, come out of a situation that we’re in, you’ve got work your way through it. Nobody is going to feel sorry for Indiana basketball. They’re not. My locker room is down. As a coach, I’ve got to keep pumping them up and see if I can get them to overcome being down and get us back into winning ways.”
The root causes of this loss were all too familiar. The Hoosiers shot 58 percent at the free-throw line, largely thanks to a 5-for-13 clip by Kel’el Ware. They shot 19 percent from 3-point range — somehow only their fifth-worst mark of the season — and allowed Nebraska to shoot 42 percent from beyond the arc on the other end. Costly individual mistakes loomed large, like Galloway’s career-high six turnovers.
Indiana’s resolve to make a comeback attempt wasn’t new, either. The team’s shown that fight on several occasions this season, regardless of the score. But it only turned losses into wins against Morehead State and Ohio State. Most of these second-half runs play out like Wednesday’s — the Hoosiers make the game interesting again, and then run out of steam.
IU’s season is getting bleaker with every passing game. This maelstrom is only spiraling faster, and fans are only growing more discontent. “Fire Woodson” chants broke out in sections of Assembly Hall multiple times on Wednesday.
With five games remaining in the regular season, the Hoosiers don’t have enough time left to address everything they need to fix. And at 14-12, their current level could easily see them finish with a losing record for the first time under Woodson, and just the second time in 12 years.
Wednesday’s bleak scenes marked a new low in this rapidly deteriorating campaign. And with three weeks left, there’s no telling how much worse it could get.
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