Indiana men’s basketball ended a disappointing season with an overwhelmingly disappointing performance.
IU bowed out of the Big Ten Tournament on Friday with an ugly 93-66 loss at Target Center in Minneapolis. The Cornhuskers ran away with the game in the first half by going 12 for 20 from 3-point range, creating too large a deficit for IU to manage.
Multiple reports emerged as the game ended — which a source with knowledge of the situation later confirmed to The Daily Hoosier — that the Hoosiers (19-14) would decline a potential NIT bid to focus fully on recruiting. So this officially ended their 2023-24 season.
And this game, in many ways, symbolized the frustration of Indiana’s entire campaign.
IU played down a starter, as Trey Galloway missed his second straight game with a knee injury. But between Xavier Johnson’s multiple extended absences, and Kel’el Ware missing a few games, IU rarely had its initial starting lineup fully available this year. Head coach Mike Woodson frequently referenced “not having a full deck” throughout the season, with those situations in addition to Jakai Newton missing the entire year.
IU faced Nebraska three times this season, which resulted in three lopsided UNL victories. These Huskers are a bad matchup for the Hoosiers, which often had trouble against high-volume 3-point shooting teams that could apply scoreboard pressure from outside the arc.
On Friday, specifically, Indiana didn’t stand a chance once Nebraska sharpshooter Kesei Tominaga got rolling.
“They just started knocking down threes. We started losing defensively,” Johnson said after the game. “Tominaga started getting hot, and it was call it a day from there.”
Indiana, as a team, never really evolved over the course of the season. The team’s biggest weaknesses in November remained glaring weaknesses in March.
Strong outside shooting opponents caused problems for IU all season. The Hoosiers attempted fewer 3-pointers per game than any other power-conference team — because they didn’t have enough strong outside shooters to rely on. Mackenzie Mgbako shot 32.7 percent on the season from beyond the arc, and he was the team’s only real 3-point threat.
IU had others who could knock down some threes, sure. But Galloway was the only player besides Mgbako attempted a significant volume of 3-pointers, and the senior suffered major regression in 3-point efficiency.
Outside shooting was never going to be Indiana’s strength this season, and it became a weakness too often.
“We didn’t make enough shots,” Woodson said. “I thought coming down the home stretch these last five games, we shot the 3-ball extremely well. But early on and midway, we struggled to shoot the 3-ball. And then we struggled to make free throws.”
Indeed, these Hoosiers ranked among the program’s all-time worst free-throw shooting squads.
They went 13 for 13 at the foul line Friday, but they were 344th in the country (out of 362) with a 65.7 free-throw percentage going into the game. Indiana was in the top 100 in the nation in free-throw attempts per game, but converted them at such a poor rate that it was the clear difference between wins and losses on several occasions.
Only one player — Mgbako — finished with a free-throw percentage above 80. Just two — Anthony Walker — finished above 70 percent.
Indiana, at its best, could dominate the post. But this Hoosiers squad wasn’t constructed in a way that could hang in against teams like Nebraska.
Had the Hoosiers finished off good performances against Kansas at home or Illinois on the road — both games they had chances to win in the final minutes — the conversation would be different right now. Of course, IU’s résumé would also look better if the team more thoroughly handled weak non-conference opponents like Florida Gulf Coast, Army, Louisville, and Kennesaw State.
But IU lost 14 games this season, and nine of them were double-digit margins. The Hoosiers suffered five losses by 20 points or more. IU’s average margin of defeat was 14.8 points. Close losses and blowout defeats count the same in the standings, but too often, this group wasn’t competitive.
“Every loss is frustrating because you go in the game with the game plan and you try to get your team to play at a high level. I know when they do, we’re a pretty good basketball team, and we’re very competitive,” Woodson said. “We’ve just got a lot of work to do this summer to get back and get our team back on top.”
Indiana’s late-season five-game winning streak only perpetuated the letdown of this season. It came too late to give IU any realistic chance at an NCAA Tournament at-large bid, but it finally displayed the extent of its talent and showed what could’ve been possible if things came together earlier.
The pieces never quite fit together as well as anyone could’ve hoped, but roster had talent.
“We kind of put it all together the last five games prior to coming into this game, and we pretty much looked like a team. We made threes. We made our free throws. The ball was moving, and we got a lot of assists. A lot of good things were happening in that five-game stretch,” Woodson said. “But we met a team tonight that was really good and well-coached, and we had nothing for them.”
But the Hoosiers did still have some positives to take away from this year. One of their strongest traits was their consistent resilience — effort was rarely a team-wide issue, even when facing large second-half deficits. That fight paid dividends with a few big comeback victories along the way, but mainly spoke to strong leadership in the locker room.
Ware and Mgbako, while maybe not yet completed products, developed a lot as the season went along and now look like potential future NBA talents. Malik Reneau had an up-and-down season in some ways, but there’s no denying the big leap he took from his freshman year to his sophomore year. Gabe Cupps — maybe more out of necessity than by design — gained a lot of experience as a freshman that could benefit him later on. Bloomington native Anthony Leal transformed from an end-of-the-bench veteran to perhaps one of IU’s most important reserves and someone who can really help next year’s squad.
Indiana is facing a critical offseason, with no signed recruits after five-star Liam McNeeley decommitted. The Hoosiers will have at least three open scholarships — and that number could easily grow depending on who leaves for the NBA Draft or the transfer portal. And this team has major needs to address to get back to the NCAA Tournament.
Woodson and his staff will have a lot of work to do when the transfer portal opens on Monday. They started discussing that before the season ended, and those conversations can now become their primary focus.
“From a talent standpoint, this summer will be spent watching a lot of film on players because we’re going to lose some players, I’m sure, and we’re going to have to build around the core guys that are coming back,” Woodson said. “We’ve just got a lot of work to do this summer to get better. I don’t want to sit here this time next year and not be playing in the tournament.”
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