‘We’re playing as good as any team in the country right now’: Indiana basketball enters Big Ten Tournament with extreme confidence as season hangs in the balance

College basketball is dissected into three ‘seasons’. Preseason, regular season and then postseason play. For Indiana basketball it has been a roller coaster ride ever since the preseason, but despite all of that, it ended right where it was projected as postseason play begins.

Coming into the year, Indiana was picked to finish sixth in the Big Ten. After a 4-10 stretch in January and February, Indiana was sitting at 12th in the league. It was a far fall from where it was projected and where it had been the previous year — second.

Indiana had the talent to be a middle of the pack Big Ten team. That was expected at the beginning of the year after losing its All-American forward and Big Ten Freshman of the Year — both draft picks in this summer’s NBA draft. But, as disappointment rang down from the fans, Indiana dug deep and found a way to crawl out of the major hole it was in and finish as expected, sixth.

Now it’s riding a four-game winning streak into the Big Ten Tournament and is playing its best basketball of the year. It also is a team that — when healthy — looks like it can make a run this week.

But, as it has been all season and especially over the last few weeks, it’s one game at a time for Indiana.

“We’re playing as good as any team in the country right now based on the last four games,” Indiana basketball head coach Mike Woodson said following Sunday’s win. “We got to take it a game at a time, man. I’ll never jump ahead.”

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Over the recent four-game winning streak, making the winning plays late in games has lifted Indiana. While closing games out was problematic for Indiana early in the season, it has now been what the Hoosiers have leaned on over the last two weeks.

Whether it was making seven of its final eight shots to beat Wisconsin or 11 straight field goals and then 13-of-14, sparking a 15-0 run to open the floodgates midway through the second half against Maryland. Or, if it was holding Michigan State to just one made field goal in the final 4:30 and closing it out at the free throw line. The script has flipped and Indiana is now winning the games it was losing just a month ago.

Three of the four wins to close out the season were by five points or less.

“It shows our toughness and resilience,” Mackenzie Mgbako said after IU’s win over Maryland. “We’ve been in positions like that before so it’s good to be able to climb back and fight for the dub.”

“I mean, I think this is a different team going down the stretch,” Senior guard Xavier Johnson said following Indiana’s win over Michigan State. “The old team of a couple games ago would’ve probably quit. I don’t think we take punches well. But now I think we really do take the punches well. We want to hit back and win games.”

While toughness and ‘making winning plays’ has certainly helped the cause late in the season, the reason for the winning streak is on the tails of its defense.

During the 4-10 stretch, Indiana was giving up 76.9 points per game while opponents were shooting 43 percent from the field and 35 percent from three on 8.1 made 3s per game. That was heightened even more during the recent four-game skid where opponents were scoring 80.8 points per game and shooting 39.8 percent on 9.8 3s per game.

During its four-game winning streak opponents are scoring just 67.5 points and 42 percent overall and 29.5 percent from three.

“Just got to keep working, man, and believing in what we’re doing,” Woodson said. “You know, in this stretch when you look at the stat line across the board it’s kind of scary. It’s nice. We have gone through stretches since I’ve been here where we played like that. But it’s kind of nice to see because guys, they haven’t quit. They continue to work and practice and trying to get better as a group. That’s kind of nice to see from a coaching standpoint.”

“We just got to keep executing doing what we did not doing as of late. We got to let our defense create offense for us.”

Defense to offense. That has been a point of emphasis for Mike Woodson. Getting stops has allowed Indiana to play out in the open floor and utilize some of its quickness and athleticism that both he and the other players have harped on for much of the season.

“We’re playing faster and guys are making shots,” Woodson said about the winning streak.

Indiana has seen its offensive efficient skyrocket. It is shooting 54.7 percent from the field and 43.6 percent on 3s during the last four games, a far cry from the previous few months. Those numbers are up 10 percent and 12 percent respectively from the 4-10 stretch in January and February.

“We’re playing good basketball at the right time which is good, but we can’t really focus on the past,” Senior guard Trey Galloway said. “We got to focus on the present and the future. We have to keep winning games and take it one game at a time.”

So, as Indiana basketball begins the Big Ten Tournament on Thursday, it will again lean on the toughness and ‘no quit’ mentality it has forged over the last few weeks.

Despite likely still a Big Ten Tournament Championship needed in order to make the NCAA Tournament, it’s that time of year when ‘madness’ happens.

“It’s coming down to the point,” Johnson said. “Where it’s March.”

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