MADISON, Wis. — Indiana coach Mike Woodson questioned his team’s toughness after the Hoosiers dropped their fourth consecutive game, damaging their sagging postseason hopes.
The Hoosiers fell behind 19-2 in the first 4½ minutes and never got the margin into single digits for the rest of a 76-64 loss at No. 21 Wisconsin on Tuesday. Woodson acknowledged after the game that the Hoosiers are running out of time in their bid to earn a spot in the NCAA Tournament after coming up short last season.
“We’re just not a tough team right now,” Woodson said. “We’re not. Mentally we’re not tough.”
Indiana (14-9, 5-7 Big Ten) was ranked as high as 14th in the AP Top 25 in late November, but it has stumbled of late. The Hoosiers were only 65th in the NET rankings even before Tuesday’s game.
They weren’t playing so bad during this losing streak, at least until Tuesday.
They led 31-25 at halftime of a 79-70 loss at Northwestern. They fell 79-78 at home to No. 18 Maryland when the Terrapins’ Rodney Rice hit a 3-pointer in the final seconds. They suffered arguably their most heartbreaking defeat of the season Friday by losing 81-76 at No. 7 Purdue in a game that featured six lead changes in the final four minutes.
Then they never gave themselves a chance at Wisconsin, a place where the Hoosiers have lost 21 straight times and haven’t won since 1998. Wisconsin led 26-4 less than 7½ minutes into the game.
“We have a game like we did at Purdue where we really competed for 40 minutes, then we come in here and we lay an egg based on how we started the ballgame,” Woodson said. “You spot teams on the road 20, it’s going to get tough to get back in them. Again, that’s on me, man. We’re pushing and pulling and scraping and just trying to get what we can get. Guys just didn’t step up again tonight.”
Indiana dug itself an early hole as Wisconsin went 5 of 6 from 3-point range in the first 4½ minutes. Wisconsin’s two 7-footers – Steven Crowl and Nolan Winter – opened the game by hitting 3-pointers.
“Their bigs got away,” Woodson said. “That was the difference. I thought Malik (Reneau) and (Oumar) Ballo did an awful job in terms of guarding the bigs.”
Indiana’s slide likely will lead to more questions about Woodson’s future going into the last part of the season. He got Indiana to the NCAA Tournament in each of his first two years before the Hoosiers went 19-14 and turned down an NIT bid last season.
Indiana has eight games left to try to revive its postseason hopes. Five of those games are home, including a Saturday matchup with No. 24 Michigan.
“It’s not rocket science,” Woodson said. “Right now our backs are against the wall. We’re not playing great basketball. We’re playing in spurts. I thought the last three games prior to tonight we played pretty good ball, and we came up short. We just win maybe one or two of those, you’re feeling good about yourself. I’ve got to figure out a game where we can get these guys back feeling good about themselves and see where it goes from there.”
