Illini Show Indiana It Still Has Rebuilding To Do

Home court advantage must be worth a hell of a lot in basketball.  The court is exactly the same size, and the rims are 10-feet off the ground in every arena, but IU played with malaise at Ohio State on Wednesday and then with a significant edge in hustle Assembly Hall against Michigan and Illinois.  

Purdue got beat at the Kohl Center, and Ohio State was handled with relative ease at Minnesota.  All were upsets on paper, but if you want to win at home in the Big Ten, you better get a good night sleep and stay away from the bacon at the team breakfast. 

Indiana is still playing without a clear cut personality.  I know more and have more concrete expectations while watching Purdue, which is unnerving and sickening.  During the game broadcast, the Big Ten Network showed street shots of downtown Bloomington, and I didn’t recognize too much.  There was a store that looked as though it sells both rugs and copies, which is an interesting business model.  My familiarity with the basketball being playing in the place where I spent a sweet six years informs my emotional response to losses like this.  

Campus Casino (the people who had the idea to combine cheap beer and video games 20 years before Dave & Buster’s), The Penguin, The Reg, and Walnut Knolls are all either gone or operating under a different name.  Indiana’s basketball uniforms, warmups, and the arena look the same, but the basketball is different.   

Allowing penetration and kicks the way it used to be done and jacking up shots early in the shot clock during Illinois’ late second half run are things we almost never saw before this grim decade.  If the Hoosier did that during the 1980s or 1990s, they got an earful from the white-haired lunatic in the red sweater.  I’m not pining for a return of the General.  He was a bonafide nut who was over-the-top abusive to Todd Jadlow during a game I watched from the third row behind the bench in between Pauly Balst (financier to the stars), Senator Richard Lugar, and Ryan White.  

I’m still not sure about whom I was more shocked Knight would use such a stream of profane epithets in front of.  Easily offended is something I’ve never been accused of being, but my stomach hurt after listening to Jadlow being dressed down like that.  

This Hoosier team is better than the group with whom we suffered last season, but there is still a long way to go if Indiana is going to stand for the same level of excellence it enjoyed back in the day.  The first order of business is getting to work on foul shots.  You can’t win if you can’t shoot, and if you can’t hit a 15-foot set shot more often than you miss, you can’t play.  

I hate to single out kids, but just what the hell is Devan Dumes doing jacking up shots every time he touches the ball?  That kind of inane shot selection deserves a seat with the managers.   

Indiana will always have a huge fan base because of the passion built through years of excellence, and I will always be one of them, but at some point this tide must turn.  All areas of the defense must improve markedly, the help-side rotation in particular.  Offensively, shot selection is a constant issue.  

Maybe I’m overreacting.  Maybe IU was tired in the second half, and that affected the Hoosiers' intensity.  Dan Dakich said something very smart in the Big Ten Network postgame, as he always does: “A basketball game lasts the perfect amount of time.  Forty minute is just right to find out who is the best team.”  Tonight, for the first 20 minutes, IU looked ready to compete.  They hung on through the first ten minutes of the second half.  But Illinois proved itself superior in the last ten minutes.  

Illinois goes to 3-0 in the Big Ten, and IU drops to 1-2.  Next up for the Hoosiers is a trip to Ann Arbor for a 9 PM tilt with the 8-6 Michigan Wolverines.