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Indiana men’s basketball entered February with about as much momentum as it could’ve had, looking every bit like a team making a push to reach the NCAA Tournament in head coach Darian DeVries’ first season at the helm. It’s entered March having lost four consecutive matchups, with Sunday’s loss to Michigan State being the latest.
Just about all of the Hoosiers’ problems were laid bare against the Spartans in Assembly Hall. Michigan State won the rebounding battle, Indiana’s 3-point shooting started cold and there wasn’t enough scoring outside of Lamar Wilkerson and Tucker DeVries, who each missed 10 attempts from the field in productive but inefficient outings on offense.
Compare this team to the one from a month ago. The Hoosiers ended January with a blowout win at Rutgers, a statement victory over rival Purdue at home and a last-ditch gritty road triumph over UCLA in overtime. Nick Dorn emerged as a third scorer in Tayton Conerway’s absence. Now there’s a losing streak rather than a winning one and only one of Dorn’s past seven starts has resulted in a double digit scoring in the box score.
Indiana’s last four game losing streak immediately preceded the aforementioned and emphasized three game winning streak. This is a team that’s already responded when things have looked grim, doing so well.
Only they had time then. They don’t now.
There are still very real opportunities, starting with a home game against Minnesota and a trip to Ohio State as the Buckeyes have surged past the Hoosiers in any reasonable bubble discussion. After that is the Big Ten Tournament, where Indiana played its way into the field back in 2022.
This season isn’t over, far from it, but it’s trending in that direction pretty quickly.