Indiana did the unthinkable on Tuesday in Madison.
They found a way to get off to an even worse start than they did at home against Illinois a few weeks back.
Perhaps they were just being generous to IU fans who don’t like 9 p.m. tips. Because IU pressed the awful turbo button from the jump.
The Hoosiers somehow managed to fall behind by 22 just 7:22 into a high major college basketball game. There’s your evening back, IU fans. Have a good night’s sleep.
In what felt like the worst display of basketball in a generation, Indiana was only down by 12 around the same point in the first half against Illinois — before, yes, that one blew up to a 30-point deficit 15 minutes in. Different shades of inexplicable.
In between, there have been disastrous finishes when Indiana has managed to keep it close. That happened against Northwestern, Maryland and Purdue. You don’t need to be reminded of the nauseating details.
And let’s not forget about the joyous evening that started this run of six losses in seven games, a 25-point annihilation at an Iowa team that has won exactly one game since.
Close losses, blowout losses. Bad starts, bad finishes. It just doesn’t seem to matter much anymore. The only constant is losing right now.
And as was the case after the loss to Illinois, it doesn’t seem to make much sense to poke around at how the IU offense or defense looked Tuesday in Madison, or examine how each player performed. After all, this game was over in less than eight minutes. And by and large, it wasn’t pretty. You get it.
No, the topic at hand right now is an existential one: The state of the Mike Woodson era.
So let’s take a look at some comparison data and develop a report card on that instead.
With the loss at Wisconsin, Woodson is now 77-49 during his time at IU, and exactly .500, 36-36 in the Big Ten. Should winning roughly 6 of 10 games overall, and half of all Big Ten games be good enough for Indiana?
What got Woodson’s predecessors fired?
Woodson’s 61.1% overall winning percentage is better than the man he replaced, Archie Miller, who only won 53.6% of his games. Woodson is currently also better than Mike Davis’ 59.2%, but below Tom Crean’s last six seasons (66.6%). If Woodson were to finish the season 10-10 in the Big Ten and lose in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament he’d be at exactly 60% overall, or just a hair above Davis, without the national championship game run.
We’ll leave Kelvin Sampson out of this since he wasn’t fired for his team’s on the court performance.
Woodson’s 50% rate in the Big Ten is also better than Miller’s 42.9 winning percentage in the conference, but worse than Davis’ 57.3 or Crean’s 58.3 over his last six years.
If Woodson misses the NCAA Tournament this year he’ll be at 50% on making the Big Dance as well. Crean made four NCAA Tournaments over his last six years, as did Davis. Miller never made it, although he probably would have in 2020, so let’s say he’s at 25%.
Woodson has one NCAA First Four win and one Field of 68 win. Davis won seven NCAA Tournament games, Crean won six, and Miller of course won none.
So where does that leave us?
It seems fair to say the Mike Woodson era has been better than Archie Miller, although it also seems fair to say Woodson has had more talent. It is also clear the Woodson years have been worse than Tom Crean’s last six years, and slightly worse than Mike Davis’.
What would you have said if someone told you before Woodson was hired he’d be better than Miller, but worse than Crean and Davis?
And things are not trending favorably.
Indiana was ranked in the top-20 before the season. But with what Woodson has described as his most talented team, IU has lost six of seven games, with a 12.8 point average margin of defeat in those contests. Blowout losses have been a defining feature of the Woodson era, and now six of their nine losses this season are by 12 or more points, three by 25 or more.
Woodson has not beat a ranked opponent since 2023. He’s at risk of missing the NCAA Tournament for a second straight year, with what is currently a 5-18 record in Quad-1 games over the last two seasons.
For Miller, Crean and Davis, failure was the final determination on their report cards as Indiana’s head coach.
And it has become very difficult to see how the Woodson era ends in a different result.
No one really expected a win at Wisconsin, but then no one expected 26-4 in less than eight minutes.
And Woodson needs a miracle finish now.
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