As IU players walked back to the bench trailing 20-9 against UNLV, IU Coach Tom Crean motioned for his players to calm down. They needed to slow down and breathe.
That’s what I have tried to do in the five days since IU lost two of its three games at the Maui Jim Maui Invitational — breathe.
Because in the moment, things were bad. The Hoosiers flat out struggled in three games against three teams that likely won’t even make the NCAA Tournament. These were not the results of bad shooting or simple mismatches. These were worrisome fundamental issues.
This is where the breathing comes in. It’s November, and addressing these issues now is better than having to do it come March.
What was so difficult to watch was how simple these struggles were. We aren’t basketball coaches. We aren’t necessarily experts, and I will never pretend to know more than Crean about the game.
So it was difficult to see opponents drive so easily to the rim with what looked like such minimal effort from the defense. As a viewer, I couldn’t help but be dumbfounded as interior defenders refrained from putting a body in front of the basket instead of watching from a few feet away.
This is a talented team. It really is. That is why it is so disconcerting to see it play so poorly.
Freshman center Thomas Bryant was supposed to be the elite rim protector to complete this team. Senior point guard Kevin “Yogi” Ferell even said so in July.
Instead, Crean said in his postgame press conference the Hoosiers don’t have the frontcourt they were expected to possess.
Maybe all this will be is three days in Maui when IU learned to fix some issues. The trip might be the outlier. As I said, it’s November basketball. North Carolina and Virginia lost games they shouldn’t have, and they will likely be fine.
I was actually considering writing a signing day column two weeks ago about how Crean went from the hot seat to a stable position. It appeared he had a borderline top-10 team and had put the program in the position to succeed next season, even after some departures.
Maybe he still has a top-10 team, but now his seat is back on the burner. Despite the last two seasons being far from impressive, the struggles didn’t seem to be a result of poor coaching.
Now, he has a team that is supposed to be good, and people are becoming frustrated with the execution.
That reflects on Crean. Junior forward Troy Williams’ mother even made a Facebook post about needing to get Williams out of Bloomington. She took it down shortly after and apologized.
Wednesday’s game at Duke will probably not be an indication of how good IU is, either. Duke is an extremely talented team and has one of the best home-court advantages in basketball. IU is probably going to lose that game.
So the months that follow will answer the question of whether Maui was simply a bad week or an early indication of a rough season.
Either way, it’s November. Breathe.
brodmill@indiana.edu
