Mission: Victory

Coming within seven points of North Carolina is fine.\nBeing up on University of Connecticut by 13 and losing by five is OK. \nBut it's time for an IU win.\n"We're in a situation where we're almost in a must-win on Wednesday," said senior forward Mike Roberts. "We lost two in a row, but at the same time, the last two games we've lost are games we could've won. So it's not like we were last year, where we just gotten killed and we were trying to find ourselves like, 'Man, are we even going to be able to compete.' But at the same time, we're in a situation where we really need to win some games."\nTonight Indianapolis native Chris Thomas makes his last visit to Bloomington, as IU plays host to unranked Notre Dame at 7 p.m. on ESPN. \nThe Hoosiers, led by junior Bracey Wright's 17.5 points per game, enter tonight's game 2-2, coming off a blown 13-point lead Saturday against No. 7 UConn.\n"(Tonight) is going to be a tough game," said IU coach Mike Davis. "They're very good. A really experienced team. It's going to be a tough task for us."\nBut in losing to UConn, IU made significant improvement running its offense effectively. \nDavis said he thinks his team's mindset is improving.\n"I think it's good," he said. "You just want to get a win. We lost two games because of lack of execution offensively. I thought we executed better against UConn for a longer stretch. I think the mindset is good. We need to win the game on Wednesday to stay in that mindset."\nIn the Hoosiers' way stands a Notre Dame team that hasn't won in Bloomington in 19 of the last 25 games. The Hoosiers hold an eight-game winning streak against the Irish dating back to 1995.\nSenior Ryan Tapak said he thinks tonight's game is more important because it's at home.\n"It's a very big game," he said. "We have lost two straight, and we need to get back on track. We also need to protect home court. We need to have the mindset that we can't lose at home the rest of the year."\nIn the midst of one of the hardest schedules in the nation, Roberts knows the IU faithful are one key to victory and playing typical Hoosier basketball is another\n"Hopefully (we have) another rowdy crowd like we had against North Carolina," Roberts said, "Just going out there and playing as hard as we can, and hopefully getting our record over .500."\nWith their offense finally clicking this past weekend, the Hoosiers know that they need a win -- badly. But the Irish feature a starting five with three seniors and two juniors. \nNotre Dame junior guard Chris Quinn leads his team in scoring with 14.5 points per game and is followed by Thomas and 6-foot-9 forward Dennis Latimore with 11 and 10.5 ppg respectively. \nAfter playing North Carolina and UConn, and with Kentucky, Missouri and Charlotte on tap, the Hoosiers are a different team than last year. The men in crimson and cream, though some are surprised by their potential for success, are leaving everything on the court this year and making their opponents work harder.\n"I didn't know if we'd be ahead of UConn by 13," Roberts said. "We just (need to) compete on every possession and make them work, and lets just see what happens. We have a philosophy: Play until you're so tired that you ask coach to take you out. If we do that, play as hard as we can on every play, we'll be in the game."\nThe difference between this year and last can already be seen, Roberts said. \n"I think last year, unfortunately, we lost a couple of games real big early and kind of broke our spirit a little bit, and (it) hurt our confidence so much we didn't really ever recover from it. And I think this year, right now, we still have our confidence knowing we can compete. So we just have come out there every night and bring it."\n-- Contact senior writer Josh Weinfuss at jweinfus@indiana.edu.