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    Monday, June 16

    Illinois at IU basketball: The report card — Mike Woodson gets an F

    Mike SchumannBy IU Basketball 102 Comments
    Photo by Seth Tow for TDH

    As many of you know, we typically file a report card after every IU basketball game, win or lose.

    And each time we take a comprehensive look at the offense, the defense, the coaching and the players.

    I guess we can do some of that real quick as it relates to Indiana’s 94-69 loss to Illinois on Tuesday.

    The Hoosiers allowed a dismal 1.22 points per possession to Illinois.  That was their third worst performance of the year, slightly behind embarrassing losses to Louisville and Nebraska.  And Illinois’ 1.54 points per possession in the first half, and 60 total points, tell the real story.

    The offense scored just .897 points per possession, also the third worst effort of the season, following the game at Iowa on Saturday, and again, that stinker vs. Louisville.  IU had just 51 points with under seven minutes to go in the game.  They probably wouldn’t have crossed the 60 mark, but Illinois took their foot off the gas a bit.

    Call the offense and defense what you will.  Fs, Ds, whatever.  Just plain ugly works.

    And the players, yeah, there were probably some bright spots, if you look hard enough.  Oumar Ballo had 16 points and 15 rebounds.  That’s pretty good if you ignore the fact he was ejected from the game and played lethargic defense.  There were positive moments from others, but they were all overshadowed by a disastrous evening in Bloomington.

    Can we just get to the heart of the matter?  Can we talk about the head coaching situation at Indiana?

    Because Mike Woodson has an F.

    No, not just an F for the game.  He has an F for his tenure at IU right now.  And it’s the kind of F you have when it is getting late in the semester and only an A on the final exam can save you from failure.

    Woodson lost his second straight game by 25 points.  That had not happened at IU since the first year of the post-Kelvin Sampson rebuild in 2008-09.  It was Woodson’s fifth loss by 15 or more points this season, and that has now happened 22 times during his time at IU.

    Photo by Seth Tow for TDH

    On Tuesday Woodson suffered the second worst Indiana loss in Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall history, with the worst coming in the second year of that post-Sampson rebuild.  And he now owns four of the nine worst losses in a building that has been open for more than 50 years.

    And all of this is coming in a year when Indiana opened the season in the top-20, and Woodson himself said he had his most talented roster since taking over in Bloomington in 2021.  He was right about that.  Indiana has talent.  But they don’t have a team, they don’t play as hard as their opponents, and they aren’t hard to gameplan for.

    And all of that points back to the coach.

    Woodson tried to ease his way into this hot seat season with an easy nonconference schedule.  It ranks 159th according to KenPom.  So with that long runway and a relatively easy start to the Big Ten, naturally Indiana got off to an decent looking start on paper, going 13-3 overall and 4-1 in the Big Ten.

    But it’s becoming clear that was all smoke and mirrors.

    It was quite clear to the students, who fresh off winter break and ready for some Big Ten basketball, were chanting “Fire Woodson” in the first half, as the Hoosiers fell behind to Illinois by 30.  Very few of them remained for the second half, free to catch up on studying they saved for later during the football season.

    28 points was Indiana’s largest halftime deficit at home in at least 25 years according to ESPN.

    And the fans who left didn’t miss much after the break.

    IU missed their first 13 threes of the game, Ballo got tossed, and Woodson even disrespected legendary broadcaster Don Fischer by not giving the radio crew a postgame interview.

    So yeah, it’s a big fat F for the game for Mike Woodson.

    And the absurdly bad play and audible calls for Woodson’s job felt like a toothpaste is out of the tube moment for his job security.  The last time we saw similar scenes was in 2021 at the Big Ten Tournament in Indianapolis, and Archie Miller was fired days later.

    Woodson’s performance this season is rapidly spiraling towards an F.  And by the day, his tenure at IU seems closer and closer to being labeled a failure.

    His final exam, the final 13 games of the Big Ten season, can salvage Woodson’s job.  Long averse to changing his starting lineup, all options appear to be on the table.

    “I got to make some changes. We haven’t been getting off to a good start in terms of who we been starting,” Woodson said Tuesday evening.  “I got to put guys in there that I think is going to get us off to a good start and see if we can maintain it over a 40-minute ballgame.”

    But the problems seem to run deeper than just tinkering with the lineup at this point.  It’s more than just one 40-minute ballgame.

    And it’s getting late.

     

    For complete coverage from the game:

    The Daily Hoosier –“Where Indiana fans assemble when they’re not at Assembly”

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