Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
Support the IDS in College Media Madness! Donate here March 24 - April 8.
Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

Despite distractions, IU still a contender

For all the chaos and uncertainty surrounding the IU basketball program these days, the Hoosiers looked largely unfazed against Wisconsin. If not for a lucky banked 3-pointer by the Badger’s Brian Butch, IU would most likely have won the game and kept pace for the conference lead. Putting NCAA violations aside, this team still has a lot to play for.\nOn Wednesday night, the Hoosiers proved to be more like the eye of the hurricane than the hurricane itself. All that could change, however, \nif Kelvin Sampson is fired \nor resigns midseason, which \nis likely to happen sooner \nthan later.\nWhen asked if the outside chatter affected the team after the loss, D.J. White vehemently shook his head and said, “Nothing outside of us hurt our team. We were a family tonight.”\nThat family will be severely strained, however, should it lose its father figure. It’s difficult to speculate what kind of an impact a midseason coaching change would have on the team, but one has to think the psychological burden from the public’s response to the NCAA’s investigation is already having an effect on \nthe players in some way, shape or form.\nWhen IU meets Michigan State Saturday night, it will be a matchup of the preseason darlings of the Big Ten. The Spartans were selected as the top preseason team in the conference with the Hoosiers following in second. However, Michigan State has hit some nasty bumps throughout \nthe first eleven games of its conference schedule. They have three conference losses, including losses to Penn State and Iowa, a game where they only scored 36 points. Another loss would make their chances of gaining at least a share of the conference championship perilously thin.\nThe Hoosiers are in a similar position. IU needs to win this game to keep pace with Wisconsin and set up a showdown with Purdue next Tuesday. A home loss to Michigan State would severely increase IU’s degree of difficulty in earning its first share of the Big Ten championship since 2002.\nLike all of Tom Izzo’s teams, Michigan State is built on fundamental basketball and rebounding. The rebounding battle will be critical for both teams. White still leads the league in rebounds at 10.6 per game, but the Spartans’ Goran Suton is second in the category.\nEric Gordon and Drew Neitzel will square off in one of the most anticipated head-to-head offensive duels of the conference season. But forward Raymar Morgan is the real offensive threat for Michigan State, averaging 15.6 points \nper game.\nIU has improved its efficiency over the last two weeks. The Hoosiers turned the ball over a season-low five times against Wisconsin and only six times against Ohio State, an encouraging trend heading into the homestretch of the season.\nThe key to this game and every game the rest of the season will be the players’ response to the backlash from the coaching staff’s violations. Can they continue to improve and develop as a team with an increasing number of distractions? Will they grow closer \nor fall apart should their coach be dismissed? \nIt’s a tall order for a group of young men that have become the victims of their coaches’ mistakes, but they don’t have much of a choice.

Get stories like this in your inbox
Subscribe