SEATTLE, Wash.— Less than a month ago, Indiana's tournament hopes looked bleak, but now they're as strong as ever.
Following the Hoosiers' loss to Michigan on Feb. 8, they were sitting at 14-10, just 5-8 in conference play, and had just announced Mike Woodson's departure at the end of the season. Everything surrounding the program was negative at that moment, but since then, Indiana has found a spark—one that was as present as ever in its matchup with Washington.
After the win against the Huskies—and a convincing win at that—the Hoosiers' NCAA Tournament hopes are at a season high, as the 78-62 victory over UW gives IU its third win in a row and fourth in its last five games.
While bracketologists across the country almost never completely agree, most slotted Indiana in the "last four in" category ahead of the Hoosiers' trip out West. While the Hoosiers certainly weren't comfortable ahead of their matchup with the Huskies, IU started its two-game road trip with a statement that other bubble teams simply didn’t make on Saturday.
While Xavier picked up a quality win over Creighton and North Carolina and Wake Forest beat up on lackluster ACC teams, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Cincinnati and SMU all took losses. Some were worse than others, but the fact remains that each of those teams couldn’t pull out a win, while Indiana did in a road environment more than 2,000 miles from home.
The Hoosiers did so in dominant fashion, making it known early that they came to play—and they didn’t let up. Malik Reneau and Luke Goode were sensational on offense, while almost every player on Indiana's roster was solid defensively.
"We’ve been playing much, much better basketball, and these last three games," Woodson said, elaborating, "these guys have come and showed up. You can call it that [playing less stressed]. I call it when you win, it eases the mind."
The Hoosiers' minds were certainly at ease in this one, as Indiana put together an impressive wire-to-wire performance that should set it up for an NCAA Tournament berth if it continues to play as well as it has these past five games.
While the Hoosiers' road toward a tournament berth isn't over, it's certainly been a bumpy one. As mentioned, after the Michigan game, Indiana's hopes of becoming an at-large team were dwindling, but it was more complex than that.
That was Indiana's seventh loss in eight games, but it was also its fifth straight loss, though all but one of those five came by more than single digits.
IU lost by nine at Northwestern, but its more heartbreaking losses came against Maryland, Purdue and Michigan—games where IU had the chance to tie or take the lead in the final possessions but failed each time.
Add on the UCLA game that IU had a chance to win in the final seconds, and you get a brutal stretch that most teams wouldn't respond well to, especially considering that many believed the Hoosiers were out of tournament contention.
The Hoosiers didn't just respond, though—they've put the whole country on notice. Some may call it desperation, but whatever it is, it's working for Woodson and his team.
"I take a lot of pride as a coach, man, in trying to get them over the hump. So I take it in terms of not getting it done in those games, but we are playing better and I’ve been saying that," Woodson said postgame after the win against the Huskies.
While the victory in Seattle is just a Quadrant 2 win in the eyes of the committee, it keeps one of the key pillars of Indiana's résumé afloat. The Hoosiers have yet to lose a game outside of Quadrant 1, as all of their 11 losses have come there, totaling a 4-11 record in the first quadrant.
With a 5-0 record in Quad 2, a 5-0 record in Quad 3 and a 4-0 record in Quad 4, Indiana's tournament résumé has grown to be very respectable, as taking care of business at Alaska Airlines Arena is a bigger deal than most realize.
A loss against Washington wouldn't have necessarily eliminated IU from at-large contention, but with most other bubble teams losing on the same day, avoiding an upset was a must—and the Hoosiers delivered.
After going down 5-3 early, the Hoosiers went on a 21-4 run that gave them a 24-9 lead, and they never looked back. This allowed Indiana to hold a double-digit lead for most of the game but, more importantly, win by 18 points.
This may just seem like your classic average-to-good team dominating a bottom feeder late in the season, but it may mean more to Indiana's résumé than most would think.
The 16-point victory against the Huskies is the Hoosiers' largest since Jan. 8 against USC, as IU had been in search of a one-sided victory for quite some time, and now it finally has another one.
This matters because margin of victory matters. The committee doesn’t just take wins and losses into account, but also how badly you won or how badly you lost. For a team like Indiana, which has several one-sided losses on its résumé, picking up a dominant victory was huge—and by doing it on the road, it's far more important than it seems on the surface.
With this win in its pocket, Indiana now has Oregon and a Quad 1 opportunity in its sights, but its win against Washington makes it an even bigger opportunity.
With seemingly everyone else on the bubble losing, the Hoosiers could give themselves more breathing room with a huge win against the Ducks, as I’m sure IU wants to avoid the First Four play-in games at all costs.
"Can’t win two games until you get the first one, so we were able to win tonight, and the Oregon team is a tough team, man, they play extremely hard, and we gotta go in with our A game and see where it leads us," Woodson said, really driving home the point that a 2-0 road trip would do wonders not just for Indiana's tournament hopes but also for hopes to potentially jump seed lines.
As for the game against Washington, it continues the Hoosiers' stretch of very solid basketball—a stretch that has not only reentered IU into tournament conversation but has also put them on the right side of the bubble with an opportunity to do more in the final two regular-season games.
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