IU basketball doesn't seem to care a whole lot about IU basketball anymore. Why should we?
This is IU basketball, and nobody cares. Nobody’s impressed. Not the other team, not game officials. Not in this state, not in other states. Not at football schools, not anywhere. The Hoosiers dropped another dud of a game to another dud of a program, 83-74 Saturday to a Penn State team going absolutely nowhere.
The Hoosiers have lost four in a row and seven of their last nine, they’ve been swept by Nebraska and now Penn State, and are 0-2 combined against Rutgers and Northwestern. At this rate more losing could be in the program’s best interest, and I generally hate that way of thinking. Losing is almost never a good idea, but there are exceptions, and the 2023-24 IU basketball team has finally found a way to be exceptional:
Keep losing, and the team might get the reset it needs after the season.
Coach Mike Woodson isn’t getting it done, and almost everyone outside of the IU basketball office knows that, but as we’ve discussed at length — and won’t do it much more here — the school cannot fire Woodson. Not after three seasons. It would look terrible, and looks wouldn’t be deceiving.
Unless.
INSIDER: IU is a bad team playing badly. And Mike Woodson says blame him.
Unless the Hoosiers (14-13) don’t win another game this season — which could happen. Check their remaining schedule. See an easy win on there? Me neither. Entering Saturday, the easiest-looking game left was the one they just lost by nine to a 13-14 Penn State program that recently kicked its leading scorer off the team.
IU basketball hasn’t been this bleak since that 6-25 season of 2008-09, but there were mitigating circumstances 15 years ago: The Hoosiers were starting over after an NCAA investigation that gutted the roster.
This is different. IU finds itself at the intersection of poor play and poor effort, and the results are devastating. And not just on the scoreboard.
Not even the game officials respect IU. Did you see what happened midway through the second half?
Official distracts Mackenzie Mgbako at line
The Hoosiers are trailing 63-54 with about 8½ minutes left. IU freshman Mackenzie Mgbako is at the foul line, and the Bryce Jordan Center is quiet. The place should be jumping, because that’s the other team shooting free throws, and that’s IU for crying out loud, but if it weren’t for its NIL war chest, the IU basketball brand wouldn’t be worth a plug nickel anymore.
So the place is quiet, as I was saying, only official Paul Szelc is carrying on a conversation with Penn State’s Nick Kern. Look, it happens. Players and officials banter during dead balls all the time. Only, have you ever seen it happen now?
In the lane? When the other team is shooting free throws?
Szelc is talking to Kern and Kern is giving him a polite chuckle, but Szelc must think he’s really funny, because he’s just laughing and having a good old time. Meanwhile, about 12 feet away, Mgbako — an 83.1% foul shooter — is missing. Mgbako then misses the next one, a common occurrence for the Hoosiers on this and any other day ending in the letter -y. IU was 14-for-25 from the line Saturday, including 5-for-13 in the second half.
The Hoosiers don’t need to be distracted to miss a free throw, is my point, but when’s the last time you’ve seen an official do it?
If Paul Szelc doesn’t respect the IU brand, well, he’s not the only one. On social media, on that Elon Musk abomination we used to call Twitter, two people back home are posting about watching the game at Buffalo Wild Wings. One’s in Evansville and the other’s in Bloomington, and in both cases the guy on social media is describing a sports bar in Indiana that doesn’t have any interest in an Indiana basketball game.
The apathy around the Hoosiers is astounding, but it’s hard to show interest in a program that shows such little interest in itself. Did you see what happened in the last 10 seconds?
Mike Woodson took some blame? What?!?
The Hoosiers are trailing 80-71 with 29 seconds left, and IU coach Mike Woodson has decided the game’s over. The way his team shoots — it was 1-for-14 on 3-pointers at that moment — it makes sense. No coming back from this one. Woodson just wanted to go home.
Penn State’s D’Marco Dunn is dribbling out the shot clock, but with a few more seconds left on the game clock, Dunn has a decision to make: Take the turnover, or launch a 3-pointer. Dunn launches, and Mgbako lunges at him. Why would Mgbako do that? Can’t tell you, but he does, and he plows into Dunn for three free throws. Dunn makes all three. At the other end, IU sophomore C.J. Gunn shoots a pointless 3-pointer, and it goes in. The Hoosiers finish 2-for-15 from behind the arc.
That capped a game that started well for IU. The Hoosiers were deflecting passes and trapping on the perimeter and leading late in the first half. They were doing something that seemed out of place until I realized what I was watching: Effort.
The effort, the focus, drifted from there. Malik Reneau (game-high 27 points) lobbed an entry pass over a defender to Anthony Walker under the basket, then lifted his hands in dismay when Walker mustered the energy to extend a single hand as the ball floated just beyond his grasp.
Later, IU trailing 54-51, Trey Galloway had a clear path to the rim on a layup but didn’t use two hands. He did that thing pro players sometimes do, dribbling with his left hand and then scooping up the ball with his left hand and in the same motion throwing it off the glass with his left hand. It looks cool, when it goes in.
This one didn’t go in.
Related: Trey Galloway is righthanded.
Kel’el Ware, who went to the bench with two fouls for the final five minutes of the first half, picked up his third and fourth fouls in the opening minutes of the second half, one a silly reach from behind and the other an even sillier foul, 25 feet from the basket, hedging on a ball screen and banging into the ballhandler for his fourth foul. He left the game with a placid look on his face.
Ware’s earlier foul trouble is where this game got away from the Hoosiers. Woodson has this rule that a player with two fouls in the first half has to sit the rest of the way. Mgbako picked up his second foul with almost 15 minutes left in the first half and went to the bench, and the Hoosiers got away with it. But when Ware picked up his second foul and went to the bench with almost five minutes left in the half and the Hoosiers leading 27-26, IU got away with nothing.
Penn State’s Ace Baldwin went on a one-man 8-0 run — he scored eight points, IU scored zero — as a 32-32 tie became a 40-32 Penn State lead late in the first half. The Hoosiers never led again. Best part of that story?
Ace Baldwin was playing with two fouls.
Woodson was in no mood to appreciate the irony afterward, but he wasn’t his usual fire-breathing, finger-pointing self. He did something else as he spoke morosely, something that seemed out of place until I realized what I was hearing: Accountability.
“I’m upset with the way we played, the way I’ve coached this team the whole season,” he said.
“I won’t blame my players,” he said another time, after months of blaming his players. “I will always put it on Mike Woodson.”
Doyel after earlier loss: IU basketball coach Mike Woodson sure does blame his players a lot
You wonder if someone has gotten through to Woodson about his finger-pointing. You wonder if he feels pressure to save his job. You wonder if the Hoosiers could actually lose their next four regular-season games, and then the Big Ten tournament opener.
You wonder if that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IU basketball hits another low under Mike Woodson: swept by Penn State
