The lows have been quite low for IU men’s basketball in 2015.
There have been calls for IU Coach Tom Crean’s job and debates over whether or not an NCAA Tournament appearance is the given it once was.
The expectations people like myself imposed on this team are long gone. But as 2016 approaches, viewers look at this team as maybe Crean wish they had all along — a work in progress.
I look back to Big Ten Media Day and wonder if Crean was more aware of this team’s weaknesses than we realized.
When peers like Michigan State Coach Tom Izzo suggested IU was the second best team in the Big Ten, Crean joked Izzo hadn’t seen the Hoosiers practice. When I made the slight indication this team had expectations in the range of the 2012-13 team, Crean quickly pointed out this team doesn’t have the veterans and four 1,000 point scorers that team did.
Three brutal losses and plenty of unconvincing bottom tier wins later, and the Hoosiers are now the team with a chip on its shoulder. Whether or not the adversity will result in genuine improvement is a whole other question.
Down 16 points in the Crossroads Classic against Notre Dame, the sky appeared to be falling.
I was ready to write the season off. It seemed unfixable.
Yet the Hoosiers buckled down, held the Fighting Irish to 1-of-8 shooting in the last eight minutes and pulled off the comeback.
The issues at hand all season did not dissipate in Tuesday’s win against Kennesaw State. It was still too easy for the Owls to penetrate to the basket and IU struggled on the boards for much of the game.
The Big Ten season simply comes down to one thing: can the Hoosiers rediscover those final eight minutes against Notre Dame?
The best thing that could have happened to this team is the cynicism that currently surrounds it. Pressure should provide motivation, and there is no shortage of pressure on Crean and his collection of highly-skilled players.
Kennesaw State was proof the Notre Dame comeback didn’t suddenly fix the team. The comeback simply provided tangible evidence that this team has guts. It can play quality defense when it knows what it’s doing.
We shouldn’t hold IU to the expectations we once held them to before the season. We should hold this team to those final eight minutes against Notre Dame.
And as the Big Ten season begins for IU on Dec. 30 at Rutgers, we should return to the doubts Crean displayed that we may have skipped over at Big Ten Media Day.
No matter what you think of Crean as a coach, he took Marquette to a Final Four and has seen great teams. He seemed to know back in October this team had a long way to go. He knew it needed to develop more depth.
I will not deny he could have done a much better job with this team early in the season. I will only say the team seemed to figure something out in those eight minutes with Notre Dame. Progress was actually shown.
If Crean and his team can take some of that progress and implement it in Big Ten play, there may just be hope for the Hoosiers in 2016.
