Resilient Hoosiers Find A Way

It wasn’t necessarily pretty, but Indiana (IU) found a way to get it done yesterday against the #9 ranked Nittany Lions of Penn State. Yeah, you read that right, Penn State (PSU) is/was the #9 team in the country, and for a stretch spanning from the end of the first half and well into the second half, they looked it. IU had built an 19pt. first half lead and it looked as though they may run away with the game. Their defense was suffocating and their offense was fluid. PSU looked a little shell-shocked, rattled, and uninspired for the first time this season, and IU’s early onslaught on both ends of the floor played a huge part in them looking that way.

IU was clicking on all cylinders. I mean early on their play was a thing of beauty. They got positive contributions from everyone that saw the floor. They were defending at a very high level, they were battling on the boards, they were disrupting PSU, they were sharing the ball, they were running the floor, and more importantly, they were hitting shots. The perfect example of all of that was a sequence that saw them force PSU into a tough and contested shot, they got the rebound and the pushed the ball up the floor, first with a few dribbles, then with a pass. That was followed by a few more dribbles and another pass in the direction of big man De’Ron Davis would had ran the floor. Davis jumped with his back to the basket, extended his right arm and caught the pass over his head and behind him. An unbelievable catch in traffic and off balance, but I was certain it would result in a travel. I was wrong. Davis, all in stride, touch passed the ball to a streaking Trayce Jackson-Davis who finished the play off with a crowd raising thunderous dunk!

That was as close to as loud as Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall (SSAH) had been all year. Unfortuantely, a short time later moans and groans would fill SSAH instead of cheers. I, and I’m sure everyone else in attendance knew that PSU would make a run. Teams in the Big10 don’t usually get blown out, especially really good teams such as PSU. That run in fact did come, and it came quick. PSU scored the final six points of the half to go into the locker trailing by 13. They scored the first 10 points of the second half and the run reached 30-4 before IU settled down and started attacking on both ends of the floor again. Like I said before, I knew the run would come, but I had no idea it would reach that level.

Adversity and how we handle it is what defines us more times than not. And make no mistake about it, how IU would respond in this game to the PSU run, could very well define their entire season. Many felt heir postseason hopes hinged on this game. A win wouldn’t guarantee anything, but a loss would have been devastating to any dreams of playing in the NCAA Tournament. IU responded. They really responded. The job that Justin Smith and Race Thompson did on PSU star Lamar Stevens, who had been the main catalyst in the PSU run, was phenomenal. They shared duties and they got it done. Everyone else seemed to feed off of that and the entire defense responded. They out toughed the very tough Nittany LIons. Rebounding and getting to the 50/50 balls first had returned. They flat battled. Something that we haven’t always been able to say about this team.

More times than not basketball is a game of runs, and this game was no different. Hell, even the referees got in on the action and ran to the scorers table time and time again to call a foul. Seriously, they did. To the tune of 46 times to be exact. That’s right, there were 46 fouls called in this game. If that wasn’t bad enough, the inconsistency in the calls was ludicrous. Complete muggings taking place under the basket with no call being made, followed by a hand check 25+ feet out on the floor being called. The only thing consistent in the refereeing was that they were consistently bad. It was a nod to both teams that they were both able to make runs and to play through some of the nonsense. Surprising enough, there was a lot of flow in a game that was constantly interrupted by the repeated trips to the scorers table.

IU was up 19 points, fell behind by 6 points, and won by 8 points. There was absolutely no quit in them. That hasn’t always been the case this year. But anyone clamoring for Archie Miller to be let go as the coach of Indiana University needs to take a deep breath and objectively look at the growth of this team. They are slowly but surely taking on their coaches personality on the floor. Archie Miller was a tough as nails player, as were his Dayton teams. This team is getting there. Aside from Rob Phinisee, they appear to finally be healthy. They are also becoming a team. They are supporting each other, whether on the floor or on the bench. They are getting contributions from a lot of different players. Their depth is not a hindrance, meaning there is not a lot of drop off in production when a substitution is made. I have to believe that this progression would have already taken place, even as early as last year, had injuries not decimated our regular rotation players.

Is this team flawed? Absolutely. Are they starting to understand to play to their strengths and control what they can control? Yeah, I believe so. In my personal opinion, when IU is defending like they are capable of, sharing the ball, and giving maximum effort, they can play with anyone in the country. When they aren’t, (see Michigan on 2/16), they are mediocre at best. They followed up that lackluster performance at Michigan with great toughness and grit to win on the road at Minnesota. They then followed that up with yesterday’s resilient win against PSU. It doesn’t get any easier, in fact it gets harder with trips to Purdue and Illinois this week, and then they finish up the regular season with two home games against Minnesota and Wisconsin.

The past two wins, coupled with a 2-2 record in the last four games more than likely gets them in the tournament. Which by the way is exactly where even the naysayers wanted IU to be by year three of the Archie MIller era. In other words, it hasn’t always been pretty. In fact, at times it’s been downright ugly. But here we are with four regular season games remaining and the Hoosiers are on the cusp of returning to the NCAA Tournament. It’s a place where fans, especially old guys like myself, grew up seeing IU every year. Well, I for one think those days are closer to returning than they are getting further away.

Indiana was resilient yesterday. As fans, let’s be resilient in our support for them. They’ve come together here of late, let’s do the same. Negativity amongst a team can be debilitating, within a fan base it can be also. We all, players, fans, and coaches alike just want to be winners. i’m just thankful that the minority doesn’t speak for the majority. It’s a process to build a culture, especially when you’re trying to do it with players you didn’t recruit, but it’s starting to take shape. I for one am glad I never got off of the wagon and truth be told, never will. There some still straddling the side of that wagon, and I understand that. I just hope that they can put their wants aside for the remainder of this season and help push this team into meaningful March basketball.

Go Hoosiers!