Hoosiers fall on senior day- are they worthy to go dancing?
By TYLER SMITH
ISL Editor
BLOOMINGTON — Another day, another drought. The Indiana Hoosiers were in a great position to knock off another ranked team on Saturday, but a six-minute scoring drought buried them once again. The Wisconsin Badgers put together a late run and knocked off the Hoosiers on senior day at Assembly Hall by a final score of 60-56.
The Hoosiers led 51-44 with less than seven minutes to play. They only made two of their final 15 shots, as the Badgers celebrated at least a share of a Big Ten Championship on Indiana’s court.
“We played hard and I thought we played really tough,” said Head Coach Archie Miller. “Give Wisconsin credit. They’ve won 8 in a row. They’re big ten champs for a reason. Being able to convert some easy ones in the 1st half wasn’t there… We had our opportunities to separate the game, and also in the last few minutes to convert… and we came up short.”
Playing in their final home game of their career, Devonte Green and DeRon Davis both played well in the first half, but neither scored in the second half of action. The seniors combined to score the team’s first 11 points of the game and finished with a combined 20 points.
Both players thanked Tom Crean and his staff for recruiting them, as well as the current coaching staff, fans, and teammates for making their experience great at Indiana University.
“We have a deep team with lots of guys,” Miller said. “It would be easy for guys to kind of sulk, and that’s neither of these two guys. They need to be commended on their attitude and effort.”
So what’s next for the Hoosiers? They finished the regular season at 19-12, and 9-11 in the Big Ten. They’ll be the No. 11-seed in the Big Ten Tournament and will have to play on the first day of the tourney on Wednesday in Indianapolis.
Normally, this wouldn’t be a resume worthy of an NCAA Tournament bid. But this year? It’s probably enough. The bubble is weak, and the conference was stacked. Indiana still doesn’t have any “bad losses” on their resume. It’s very possible that a loss on Wednesday would push them out of the Big Dance, but a win on Wednesday should be enough. Hoosier fans have nightmares over the conference tournament, so it’s understandable to feel a little uneasy right about now.
Since I’m always looking for the bright side of things, here’s something to chew on: The loss against Wisconsin probably takes Indiana away from the 8/9 seed conversation, which is a good thing. A 10 or 11-seed would give the Hoosiers a much better chance of making it to the second weekend. I know I’m jumping the gun here, but it’s March.. where anything can happen.
Before Saturday’s loss to Wisconsin, 80 of the 81 expert brackets had Indiana in the field. Since losing to the Big-Ten Champs won’t hurt them much, the Hoosiers just have to make sure to avoid a bad loss next week.
Before Archie Miller gave up the mic on senior day, he said this: “We’re not done. I think this group has a chance to make a few runs in it. It starts in Indianapolis. And when our name gets called on Selection Sunday, we’ll get ready for that.”
In his postgame press conference, he talked about his team’s chances- “The bottom line, our strength of record is a top-25 team. If you don’t put in a top-25 strength of team, someone is going to have to answer for that.”
That’s a wrap from the beautiful Assembly Hall portion of the schedule. It’s tournament time for this unpredictable Hoosiers team.
