Hard but necessary lessons

The 2008-09 installment of IU men’s basketball has been an exercise in lessons: lessons in patience, lessons in competitiveness, lessons in just about everything.

These Hoosiers got two of their most important lessons Wednesday night in a 72-66 overtime loss to Michigan:

Play hard and with the competitive execution Tom Crean has preached all year, and you will succeed against talented Big Ten competition. Fall back into bad habits and ignore some of basketball’s most basic tenets – shot selection, limiting turnovers, making free throws – and all that success will mean nothing.

Tom Crean’s team played with more confidence in the first half Thursday than I have seen out of them all year. The Hoosiers ran the floor well, cut apart Michigan’s 1-3-1 zone and stifled the Wolverines defensively.

They battled impressively in the second half against an more talented opponent, holding Michigan off until the absolute last and nearly coming away with an unexpected victory.

But they let things slowly fall apart, these Big Ten newcomers.

Up 20 with less than 19 minutes left, IU surrendered their best opportunity for a statement game in a season likely devoid of many.

There were ample opportunities to stay in control in the last two minutes, or stop Michigan from scoring, or at very least just burn as much time off the clock as possible.

Instead, inexplicably poor shot selection, a clear lack of offensive urgency and an inability to make free throws (free throws!) led the Hoosiers down a road not paved in yellow bricks, but one they’re familiar with this year.

They faded predictably in overtime, considering how little experience this team actually has with that kind of pressure. Two-of-eight from the free throw line and 0-for-4 from behind the arc tell that story well.

“It goes without saying this would have been a great win for this team,” Crean said after the game, stripped of his necktie but not his determination. “We could have just closed this team out, but we’ve just got to continue to learn what 40 minutes is all about.”

Yes, this is a young team, and I know they play hard. No, they don’t have the requisite experience to compete every day in the Big Ten.

But as a program and a fanbase, IU basketball has two choices laying at its feet right now, two possible definitions of this season, if you will.

Fall back on the old line that this team is just young, and anything above simply hustling to beat all hell is too much to ask.

On the other hand, begin to look at this team like at least an allowable Big Ten squad – which close losses in their first two games suggest they are, or at least have been recently – and don’t accept that these kinds of losses are inevitable.

Celebrate, absolutely, that this team does play hard and is frankly much better than I think we all expected just two months ago. They stuck with and almost beat a mercurial Michigan bunch that has won 12 of its 15 games to date and beat UCLA and Duke. That deserves respect and excitement for the possibility of games yet to come.

But this team is learning, and it should be accepted and understood that some of these lessons – however painful – are necessary, and should not be shrugged off as unavoidable.

It’s no lie that you get no points for trying, and Crean and his team want no moral victories.

Asked if Wednesday’s loss was still in some small way gratifying, Crean answered the only way he could have or should have.

“Would it be enough for you?”