Madison, Wis. – Indiana Coach Mike Woodson questioned his team’s endurance after Hoosiers dropped the fourth match, destroying their falling hopes after the season.
Hoosiers remained behind from 19-2 in the first 4½ minutes and never got a margin to individual numbers for the rest of the loss 76-64 to No. 21 Wisconsin On Tuesday. Woodson admitted after the match that Hoosiers ends time to get a place in the NCAA tournament after last season.
“We are simply not a hard band now,” said Woodson. “We are not. Mentally, we are not difficult. “
Indiana (14-9, 5-7 Great Ten) was in 14th place in AP Top 25 at the end of November, but recently it stumbled. Hoosiers had only the 65th place in the net rankings before the Tuesday match.
During this lost series they did not play so badly, at least until Tuesday.
Hoosiers led 31-25 in the break 79-70 losses in Northwestern. They fell 79-78 at home No. 18 Maryland When Terrapins’ Rodney Rice In the last seconds, press the 3-point indicator. They probably ran their most painful defeat on Friday of the season, losing 81-76 to 7 No. 7 Purdue In the game, which contained six lead changes in the last four minutes.
Then they never gave themselves a chance to Wisconsin, a place where Hoosiers lost 21 times and have not won since 1998. Wisconsin led 26-4 less than 7½ minutes to play.
“We have a game like in Purdue, where we really competed for 40 minutes, and then we come here and lay an egg based on how we started the ball game,” said Woodson. “You will notice teams on the road 20, it will be hard to come back to them. Again, it’s me, man. We push, pull and scrape and just try to get what we can get. The guys just didn’t do “don’t accelerate again tonight. “
Indiana dug up with an early hole when Wisconsin passed 5-on 6 of the 3-point range in the first 4½ minutes. Two 7 feet Wisconsin- Steven Crowl AND Nolan Winter I told the game, hitting 3 points.
“Their Bigs escaped,” said Woodson. “It was a difference. I thought Malik [Reneau] AND [Oumar] Ballo did a terrible job when it comes to protecting large ones. “
The Indiana slide will probably lead to further questions about the future of Woodson in the last part of the season. He led the Indiana to the NCAA tournament in each of the first two seasons, before Hoosiers went 19-14 and rejected the NIT offer last season.
Indiana has eight games to try to revive their hopes after the season. Five of these games are at home, including Saturday duel from No. 24 Michigan.
“This is not a rocket learning,” said Woodson. “At the moment our back is against the wall. We don’t play great basketball. We play in the grooves. I thought that the last three matches before the evening we played a pretty good ball, and we left short. We just win one or two of them you feel good.
