It wasn’t clear whether outgoing IU basketball coach Mike Woodson would meet with the media following his team’s 70-67 home loss to Michigan, and just a day after the school officially announced his “retirement” coming at the end of the season.
To his credit, Woodson showed up. But it came with a caveat: An IU spokesperson said up front Woodson wouldn’t be taking any questions about his upcoming departure.
The problem with those ground rules was Indiana’s loss to the Wolverines on Saturday afternoon looked a lot like many of Woodson’s 49 other losses during his time as head coach. So any question about why the Hoosiers lost to Michigan wasn’t too far off from why Woodson’s tenure is ending very soon.
Those themes quickly merged. And with the end in sight, Woodson struck a more reflective tone that provided what seemed like the answer to the question no one was allowed to ask.
“We haven’t been the same team for a while. And for whatever reason we’ve dug a hole,” Woodson said. “I’ve done a terrible job in really putting them in the best position possible to win, I think.”
Whether you’re talking about blowout losses in The Bahamas, 25-point losses to Illinois and Iowa, late-game failures, or a massive first half deficit at Wisconsin, Woodson is right — Indiana has been terrible far too often this season.
It was the Illinois game in particular that seemed to be the beginning of the end for Woodson. He told the CBS crew carrying the Michigan game Saturday that he was offended by the booing and very vocal calls for his job that night. Play-by-play man Bill Raftery said that night “got to the soul” of Woodson.
The Hoosiers fell behind by 30 points in the first half against Illinois and IU suffered their second-worst loss ever inside Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.
“All hell broke loose, and we just haven’t been the same,” Woodson said.
The program — players and coaches — showed on Saturday it still has a soul.
Indiana fell behind 43-25 in the first half against a Michigan team contending for the Big Ten title. Here we go again, right? The fans booed the team as they went into the halftime locker room.
But there was far less vitriol on this day. Woodson was mostly cheered during pregame introductions. The end is in sight, after all.
And behind a lineup primarily consisting of Malik Reneau, Trey Galloway, Mackenzie Mgbako, Luke Goode and Anthony Leal, IU fought back and tied the game at 59 with 4:08 left. For all the outside noise swirling around the team and staff, the Hoosiers showed considerable resilience.
“It’s been emotional. We’re dealing with young men, young kids that’s trying to figure it out,” Woodson said.
“Emotionally, these kids have taken a beating a little bit. “You’ve got to tip your hat and give them a lot of credit — I do — because they could have folded it up and called it a night. But they fought the second half. Michigan scores a lot of points. We held them to 70 points, and the second half they only scored 27 points.”
The road ahead doesn’t get any easier for a team looking for answers and clearly still competing for a lame duck coach.
The Hoosiers travel to Michigan State on Tuesday, then host UCLA and Purdue at home. That’s three more Quad-1 games for a team now 2-10 in such contests.
Will anything change over the final month?
The first 16 minutes of the second half today suggests maybe. The rest of the game says probably not.
“I think our guys got wonderful intentions, man, and they do want to win,” Woodson said.
Woodson said Saturday he wishes he knew why the talent on his team hasn’t translated to on-court success. But the answer was right in front of him Saturday: Inconsistency.
The lethargic first half, and the inability to finish late, cast a shadow on his team’s 34-16 run. Indiana’s loss to Michigan illustrates the true identity of this team, and much of the Woodson era. Confounding inconsistency has become the hallmark of IU basketball over the last four years, half-to-half, game-to-game, week-to week.
And it’s the reason why the program is about to embark on a new era.
The Daily Hoosier –“Where Indiana fans assemble when they’re not at Assembly”
- You can follow us on Twitter: @daily_hoosier
- Find us on Facebook and Instagram
- Seven ways to support completely free IU coverage at no cost to you.
