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There's a certain weight that the five banners on Assembly Hall's north side carry within the Indiana basketball program.

In large caps and plain-bold type, they spell out the accomplishments of the handful of times Indiana has summited college basketball's mountain, leaving an otherwise blank red canvas to tell countless stories of their own. Those stories include ones of legends on the court and on the sidelines. Stories of perfection, of resilience, of triumph. Stories of moments that are forever engrained in the never-ending lore of one of the game's most fabled programs.

Also on that blank canvas is expectation, scrutiny, and vulnerability. Part of which comes from the sheer attention Indiana accumulates when under the national spotlight. Other aspects draw from the near misses at immortality, the standouts who never staked claim to one of their own, and the 35-year drought that's unfolded since Keith Smart's fading mid-range jumper found nylon at the horn in New Orleans.

Mike Woodson is one of the more notable icons to not have a direct hand in one of those titles. An Indianapolis kid, he arrived on campus a year after Indiana's 1976 season of perfection and departed a year before Isiah Thomas' 1981 title run. There's an evident banner-sized hole that Woodson's IU teams were never able to fill as a player.

Now the head coach, he's tasked himself with leading his alma mater back to where he feels they belong: on top of the college basketball pyramid.

"It's a big void," Woodson said, recalling upon his experiences ahead of Indiana's second round NCAA Tournament matchup on Saturday. "You don't come to college basketball, especially at Indiana, back during that time and not expect to win a Big Ten or a national title because that's how it should be, and that's how it was under the great Bob Knight."

Indiana is where in four years, Woodson became an NIT champion, Big Ten champion and scored over 2,000 points. To Woodson, donning the candy stripe warmups and representing a university and program that has made so much history is a privilege. In his own case, he was given the opportunity of a lifetime to stay home and play for his home school. After conversations with Knight when it was his time to come out of high school, he canceled his recruiting visit to Purdue that he had set. There was no other place Woodson wanted to be rather than Bloomington.

But after an 11-year career as an NBA player and 23 years as an NBA coach and an NBA title, nothing could substitute for the NCAA title he thought he should've lifted. So, when the Hoosiers were searching for a new head coach two years ago, it's the reason why he answered the call home.

"He bleeds Indiana basketball," Trayce Jackson-Davis said on Saturday. "I think that's the reason why he came back because he wanted to help put this place back on the map."

Woodson said that he's always known he could be a successful coach, but not in a "braggadocious way" – he just honestly thought he could produce winning teams regardless of where or who he coached. In a New York Post interview that was published just days after Woodson originally took the Indiana job, the now-Hoosier head coach was asked to define Indiana basketball and the magnitude of the role he was stepping into. He's carried that same confidence since he first shook Scott Dolson's hand, accepted the job and held up a jersey with his old number on it.

"The best. The greatest," Woodson said. "I just gotta get it back on top where people are talking about Indiana basketball again. That’s the only reason why I’m here."

He's aware of the expectations and the large-scale microscope he's under for being responsible for Indiana basketball – it's not much different from when he wore that same jersey himself over 40 years ago. He's experienced both success and humbling moments of failure in some of basketball's biggest markets, so pressure to perform is nothing new to him. He shares those same expectations of himself because ultimately, Woodson is aiming to finally be the one to end a notorious drought that has now spanned generations.

"I've been able as a coach to learn on the fly and deal with the media," Woodson said in Albany. "And Indiana hasn't changed, just like New York Knicks, they hadn't changed. When I played there in 1980-'81, it was the same, and it's still the same. And I don't mean that in a bad way, I love the New York Knicks. Indiana has been the same from the time I stepped foot in there in '76 until now. It hasn't changed.

"Our fan base has been great, and our media expects us to win, and that's how it should be."

In all, there's not a lot he hasn't experienced as a player or coach in the game that's consumed his entire life's work. Thompson said Saturday that Woodson loves to remind his team that he's been around the game longer than they've been alive. The math isn't exact, but Woodson has lived close to three of his players' lifetime's around the game of basketball alone.

With that comes not only the wisdom and heaps of invaluable experience necessary to lead a team, but the drive to do what the Quinn's and Isiah's of Indiana basketball did. As far as winning a title, he's not apart of that conversation as a player. But he can do so as a coach.

Above all else he's about his own business, and his business is basketball. Whether that means meeting with the coaching staff for hours on end each day or sticking his neck out for his players in situations of need, he's hellbent on doing whatever it takes to bring the pride and glory back to his first and forever home.

"I think he's just done so much in his career that at this point in his career, he's seen it all, he's seen so much basketball and experienced so much, that nothing gets to him now," Kopp said. "And he understands the big picture of it all. He knows it's about the guys in the locker room and the guys in the staff, and everybody included in the everyday process.

"So he's just focused on us and doesn't care about really anything else."

Woodson is a notoriously tough nut to crack – there's few things he comments on or pays any attention to that don't involve basketball. He isn't fazed by outside distractions or commentary. He has zero social media, and Miller Kopp confirmed he still has a flip phone.

"He's old school," Jackson-Davis said. "He doesn't know what anyone says, nor does he care."

But as more layers of Woodson reveal themselves, he'll shoot it to you straight: he didn't get it done as a player, and that's left a hole in him that he may have once thought he'd never have the chance to fill. However, as the Hoosiers' stretch run continues one game at a time, he's been blessed with the position to possibly do so as a coach. He'd be damned if he didn't give it a shot.

"I didn't come back to IU just to coach Indiana basketball. I want to win some Big Ten titles and a national title," Woodson said.

"We've got a chance, just like all the teams that are left in this tournament. I'm not selling them on anything less than that."

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