A bad defeat at the hands of Nebraska Monday night has Indiana mired in a three-game losing streak, and things don't get any easier in the next two weeks.
Still, IU head coach Archie Miller refuses to let his team look ahead.
"It's all about Purdue," Miller said. "You can't get caught up in the schedule because if you get caught up in the schedule, at the end of the day, you're worrying about the wrong things."
The Boilermakers play host to the Hoosiers on Saturday at 2 p.m. ET in West Lafayette, having gone 3-1 since Big Ten play resumed in early January. Indiana, meanwhile, is searching for answers after going 1-3 during the same stretch.
Starting with Purdue, IU has four of its next five games on the road. Of those five, three - including the Boilermakers - are considered Top 15 teams according to KenPom.com's rankings. Michigan (No. 6) and Michigan State (No. 3) are the other two.
"We've got to get back to work. We've got to put some things together here," Miller said. "Our guys gotta start to regroup, and our staff has got to do a good job with that. We have to prepare to play Purdue. That's the biggest game on the schedule. At the end of the day, that one means a lot, and our guys gotta be much, much more dialed in than we were today, and we've got to be much better on Saturday to have a chance to compete against them."
That regrouping effort will likely include addressing the slow starts that have continued to plague Indiana and become a negative part of its identity.
The Hoosiers have played from behind early in the first half in three of their last four games. In some cases - Nebraska, Michigan - the deficits were insurmountable. In other cases - Maryland - they actually avoided the slow start but failed to sustain it. The home game against Illinois required IU to rally to win.
For Indiana to fix its mistakes and avoid a snowball affect on its losses, above all else it needs to rediscover the toughness and resiliency it showed prior to the re-opening of league play rather than peak ahead in its schedule.
"We've got to get our grip," Miller said. "We've got to get our grip back out on our identity. We've got to start to play harder again. We've got to get our defensive sort of rules and stuff. I think there's just too much slippage, and from an offensive perspective we'll see what we can do to keep getting better, but we just need some guys to play with some more confidence, and tonight we didn't have enough guys playing at a high level. Hopefully we can get there and get it back."
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