There have been statistical patterns, but the reality is that Indiana basketball has found a lot of different ways to lose games in the 2024-25 season. Some are more memorable than others.
There are the blowouts, of which there are far too many, in which Indiana was never competitive. The losses to Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, and Illinois fall in this category.
There are the close losses, which can be further divided into a few sub-categories.
The losses to Maryland and Purdue came down to bad scheming on crucial late-game possessions; while Indiana’s game plan against UCLA worked fine, the shots just didn’t go in.
Mike Woodson has seemingly done everything in his power to figure things out, trying countless starting lineups, zone defenses, and different offensive schemes, all to the same effect – more losses.
With potentially just five games remaining in his Indiana coaching career, the fourth-year head coach still has no answers for how to fix his final season at the helm. “I wish I had the answer,” he said. “Guys are searching. I’m searching as the coach in terms of trying to get them over the finish line. I’ll never put it on the player.”
Woodson did mention the layup and open 3-pointer that Indiana missed down the stretch, but didn’t name who missed those shots and instead focused on a pair of defensive laps on prior possessions as similarly demonstrative of the team’s execution issues.
“I look at the five points that we gave up within two possessions, an out-of-bounds play, and then a point blank-straight drive where the guy got hit, and he made the bucket. Those were two critical defensive stops that we couldn’t come up with and still had a chance to win the game,” Woodson said.
Clearly, this is a team that’s struggling to execute for more than just a handful of plays in each game. Even the open layup that Indiana missed came off a rebound from an off-balance Myles Rice shot that Woodson described as the result of a “botched” play.
Next up for Indiana is Purdue, a team that delivered Indiana one of its many heartbreaking losses already this season in Mackey Arena. Whether he finds the answers this week or not, Woodson knows there’s only one path forward:
“We’ve had our ups and downs, but we’ve got a week to see where we are and get ready to toss it up next weekend.”