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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

The long and winding road

Kelvin Sampson can explain it to you quite simply.\n"Teams are better at home than they are on the road," he said in a press conference the day before IU's home win against Michigan on Jan. 27. \nWhen pressed by the same reporter to expand on the topic, he scoffed at the notion. \n"I've only answered that one 50 times in the last five years," he said. "There's nothing more to it than that. Teams are better at home. It's been like that since dirt."\nOf course, there are plenty of reasons why teams are better at home -- the crowd, court familiarity and in the case of IU's 81-75 loss to Iowa on Saturday, Mr. Adam Haluska and the Hoosiers' lack of assertion on the boards. But, in the end, it can really be boiled down to Sampson's simplistic explanation.\nUsually, only the elite of the elite finish with a respectable road record.\nThis team certainly has proven it can compete on the road, no question about it. They haven't been blown out once all year. But, there's quite a difference between playing tough and competing on the road and actually winning the game. IU is 2-6 away from Assembly Hall this season. \nIt seems near impossible that IU could stun No. 2 Wisconsin on Wednesday, snapping the nation's longest winning streak at 17 games in the process, and yet falter against a pedestrian Iowa team Saturday. But there the Hoosiers were, floundering in the second half, as Haluska -- no matter how erratic he looked at times -- dropped in shot after shot. Credit Iowa, a team that's been coming around in recent games.\nBut such is life on the road. And such is life in the Big Ten conference. \nThe Hoosiers embarked on what I called the most crucial stretch of the season with games at Connecticut and Illinois and home bouts against Michigan and Wisconsin the last two weeks. IU went 3-1 during that stretch.\nThis next slot of games should prove equally difficult. The Hoosiers, instead of sitting comfortably in third place in the Big Ten, now find themselves fighting to stay afloat.\nSure, IU doesn't have to play Big Ten powers Wisconsin or Ohio State again, but four of its six remaining games this month are on the road. Iowa is now only one down in the loss column to the Hoosiers. Michigan, Purdue, Illinois and Michigan State are looming close behind as well. \nWith the exception of the Hawkeyes, IU plays all those teams again this month. Three of those four are on the road.\nIt's gut check time for Sampson and his team. \nIf they can't figure out how to eek out a few wins on the road in the back half of their Big Ten journey, Sampson's debut season might not turn out as we've all been envisioning it.

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