IU lost comfortably Friday night, 91-79, at Wisconsin. Here are three reasons why:

Missing Kel'el Ware

Kel’el Ware was a surprise omission from the lineup Friday night, leaving the Hoosiers shorthanded as well as underdogs in Madison.

Ware was listed as questionable on the pregame availability report, then appeared at the arena in a walking boot. He wound up watching next to injured teammate Jakai Newton because of what the broadcast described as a lower-leg injury suffered in practice.

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It didn’t help against the Big Ten-leading Badgers. Indiana will hope with a week and a day between trips to Madison and Champaign that Ware’s leg will have time to mend. He’s crucial to this team’s success going forward, especially with Illinois up next.

3-point problems

Indiana’s improvement behind the 3-point line has not always followed the Hoosiers on the road. Friday night followed that script.

When the game was in the balance, Wisconsin weaponized the arc through Max Klesmit (26 points, five made 3s), making key shots to stem IU’s momentum any time it began to rise.

At the other end of the floor, the Hoosiers could not find answers. Mackenzie Mgbako and Trey Galloway, two of this team’s most dangerous 3-point shooters lately, combined to finish just 4-of-10, too many of them coming with IU chasing from far behind. Indiana finished outscored by 12 points from distance, too familiar a refrain for a team struggling to find quality results particularly away from Assembly Hall.

IU lost all over the floor Friday. But on a night when the Hoosiers needed some offensive punch, they once again only absorbed body blows from behind the arc.

A worrying lack of poise

CJ Gunn’s ejection for a Flagrant 2 foul, IU’s third standard flagrant in its past four games and the second ejection-worthy foul in that stretch, will grab the headlines. It was in reality little more than a placeholder for a performance from a team clearly lacking in toughness, togetherness or poise at the moment in the season when all three are needed most.

Whatever your opinion on Gunn’s ejection — he clearly made contact with Klesmit with his elbow, whatever his reasons — it was only one moment in an evening full of examples of Indiana losing all sense of itself and its collective toughness as a group.

Wisconsin runs looked like they counted for double on the psyche of a team whose own belief (and, as a result, effort) waxed and waned at the slightest adversity. Questions about leadership will only deepen after consecutive capitulations in the face of the Big Ten’s toughest opposition. Any sense this team was prepared to prove itself across two badly needed Quad 1 opportunities this week were dispelled as emphatically as they were worryingly.

Mike Woodson has a job on his hands in the coming weeks that transcends Xs and Os. His team comes apart far too easily when things get tough, and things are about to get tougher. If he cannot hold the Hoosiers together, this season will end badly.

Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: 3 reasons IU basketball lost to Wisconsin: No Kel'el Ware, Gunn ejection