TRAGEDY; Indiana Hoosier Basketball coach is very angry and has announces his resignation today After facing…
In the last two weeks, Indiana has embarrassed its brand so much by receiving more cheap-shot, flagrant fouls than wins. Other than not having to watch them for eight days, there isn’t much positive to say about this program after another humiliating loss against Wisconsin on Friday. My piece.
MADISON, Wis. — My mother turned 92 years old on Thursday, and I know I’m biased, but she’s the sweetest woman in the world. I get most of my personality skills from her, especially the one where you live life with positivity and find the good in people.
From the time we were all little kids growing up in Northwest Indiana, we heard the phrase from her over and over. “If you don’t have anything nice to say,” she would tell us in her never-angry soft voice, ”then don’t say anything at all.”
That’s not always the easiest advice to follow as a sports columnist, especially when you’re that glass half full guy who’s writing about an Indiana basketball program that used to be a blueblood, but is now just ”an embarrassment” to Don Fischer, the radio play-by-play who has poured his heart and soul into this Hoosiers program for 51 years.
So when I wake up on a frigid, bone-chilling morning in Madison before the sun even rises, I’m struck with a real dilemma. I’m trying hard —really, really hard — to think of something nice to say after Indiana lost 91-79 to the first-place Wisconsin Badgers on Friday night at the Kohl Center.
The score is deceiving; it wasn’t really that close. And it was their second embarrassing loss this week after a 21-point beatdown by Purdue on Tuesday in Assembly Hall, the worst home lost in 90 years to the hated Boilers. My mom was 2 years old in 1934 when the Hoosiers lost 47-13.
Epic horribleness.
So I’m trying to be nice and spin this the right way, but I’ve got nothing. Nothing at all. I spent postgame pondering this, and couldn’t write even the first word because I was so angry. A few Wisconsin crafts beers and a good night’s sleep didn’t even help.
And then it hit me. I got it. I’ve finally found something nice to say about this frustrating Indiana basketball team that is noncompetitive in big games.
So, let’s go. Here it is, my one positive thought.
I don’t have to watch this team for EIGHT DAYS!
Right now, that’s a really good thing. Thanks to a quirk in the schedule, Indiana doesn’t play against until next Saturday. That’s eight days from Friday’s disaster to a meeting with No. 14 Illinois in Champaign, which is very rare in what is normally a wintery grind in the heat of the Big Ten season.
There is clear unanimous thinking on this one, too. Hoosier Nation is frustrated, disgusted, angry — and ready to bolt. Year 3 of the Mike Woodson experience at Indiana is coming off the rails. It’s eye-scratching bad possession after possession, but that’s not the real problem.
