Now that the dust has settled from Illinois' stunning, last-second victory over Indiana on Thursday night, let's discuss a few of the questions that face the Indiana men's basketball team as they prepare for No. 10 Ohio State.
Should IU fans be worried?
When Tyler Griffey's lay-up went through the basket to defeat the No. 1 Hoosiers, fans in Bloomington were left feeling like this.
A road loss to Illinois was disappointing, but it was the fashion in which the Illini came back (a 25-to-10 run in the final ten minutes) that made the defeat devastating.
"When you get a chance to put somebody away you've got to put them away, and we didn't do it the other night with Michigan," coach Tom Crean said after. "We held on, and they made some threes late, but we had numerous opportunities in that game to put them away and we didn't do it and we didn't do it tonight."
IU's recent trend of letting teams hang around has to be a bit of a concern for the team, but I don't think that Thursday's loss to Illinois is an indictment of the Hoosiers' ability to win.
While a lot of people want to make that game all about IU's inability to finish, I think that the story of that game is more about Illinois than it is about the Hoosiers.
Against the No. 1 team in the nation, the Fighting Illini never gave up and took advantage of the mistakes that IU made.
The Illini scored 28 points off of IU's 14 turnovers compared to the Hoosiers scoring only 16 points off of Illinois' 10 turnovers.
When it comes down to it, you just have to give Illinois the credit that they deserve for the win.
The Hoosiers played good enough to win during the first 30 minutes of the game, but in the final ten minutes, the Illini wanted the win more.
With the importance of each game increasing as the calendar moves closer to tournament time, IU cannot afford these crunch-time lapses or Thursday's loss won't be the only time Bloomington is left devastated.
The one consolation that Hoosier fans can take away from this recent problem is that these problems are happening in February and not March.
There is still plenty of time for IU to work out the late-game kinks, so it's not time for Hoosier fans to be worried, yet.
How bad will a loss to Illinois look on IU's resume?
This question is tricky because the Fighting Illini's season can be broken into two parts: non-conference success and a Big Ten schedule filled with highs and lows.
Illinois won its first 12 games of the season, including a win over Butler in the championship of the Maui Invitational, and finished the non-conference schedule with a 13-and-1 record.
In the Big Ten, the Illini have now beaten two of the best teams in the conference, Ohio State and Indiana, but Illinois has bad losses to Purdue, Northwestern and two against Wisconsin.
Time will have to pass before we know which Illini team is going to show up for the rest of the season, but right now, I don't think this loss to Illinois is as big of a blow to IU's season as most people want to make it out to be.
Overall, the Illini have four wins against teams that are currently ranked in the top 25 or were ranked at the time of the game, so it's not like IU is the only victim to fall to U of I.
In a week where the number one, two, three and five teams all lost, IU's loss to Illinois should be looked at as just another sign of the parity that exists in college basketball this year.
What will the Hoosiers need to do to bounce back?
If you ask Coach Crean, the Hoosiers shouldn't look at Sunday's game against Ohio State as an opportunity to "bounce back".
"Like I tell them, we're going to be good, it's not about bouncing back - it's about making sure that you're getting better," Crean said. "If you spend a lot of time bouncing back and worrying about your mentality, then all of a sudden that cuts into your preparation. That cuts into what you need to do to win the game."
Whether you call it a bounce back game or not, the Hoosiers will need to take care of the basketball better to defeat the Buckeyes.
Against Illinois, IU committed 14 turnovers, including five in the final ten minutes that allowed the Illini to finish on a 25-to-10 run in that time.
In their three losses, turnovers have been a common problem as the Hoosiers are averaging 12.7 turnovers per game.
To change that, ball handlers like Kevin "Yogi" Ferrell and Jordan Hulls will have to be more efficient with the ball and then the rest of the team will need to follow their lead.
Ohio State isn't the best team in the Big Ten at forcing turnovers, ranking sixth in the conference, but having a guy like Aaron Craft defending the ball handler is something that makes the Buckeyes defense hard to play against.
If the Hoosiers are going to have success against OSU's defense, IU has to take care of the ball better.
