Author Archives: Kent Sterling

Indiana destroyed at Minnesota, and Archie finally promises “drastic changes” #iubb

Archie Miller was rightly upset after IU failed to show up at Williams Arena, but was it too little too late.

Indiana fans are mad – rightly mad.

The season that started with such promise has unspooled into a hideous chaos of passivity, stoicism, and malaise.

At 12-2, Indiana looked like a team that could overcome its obvious flaws to post wins.  As the Hoosiers posted consecutive wins against Northwestern, Penn State, Louisville, and Butler in December by a combined eight points, it was clear they had issues.  But those issues brought wins, so fans overlooked them.

It appears the coaching staff did too.

In his postgame presser after today’s outrageous 84-63 loss at Minnesota, Archie Miller said, “We have to make some drastic changes,” and “We’ve got to get some guys’ attention.”  Sadly, the Hoosiers are already out of The Barn.

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The time to get their attention was weeks ago – when the weaknesses could be overcome, and the season was still salvageable.

Injuries, talent level, and the continuing evolution of the roster from those recruited by Tom Crean to Archie Miller’s targets are cited as reasons for IU’s struggles.  They are all valid, but there is also a troubling lack of toughness and grit.

If the Hoosiers were scrapping, fans could see beyond the losing to a culture of relentless resolve and focus being built.  Is a lack of toughness the reason IU was blown out today?  There were other factors, but it sure didn’t help.

Whatever happens from this point forward, hearing Miller talk about getting his players’ attention is going to sound as weak as his players level of competitiveness.  The results of their attention being gotten need to be obvious.

Miller is obviously a good coach, but so far at IU he has appeared patient and reasonable as he’s conducted this rebuild.  He called for urgency from his team.  His team needs urgency from him.

Miller needs to make it clear to everyone following the IU program who’s driving the train here –  a bunch of 18-22 year-olds or the adults in charge of the program?  If Miller wants urgency, he needs to behave with some.

My old boss Tom Severino used to say, “The first mistake you make is mine to correct.  If I don’t lead you to correct what led to the first mistake, I own the second one.  The third time that same mistake is made, it belongs to my boss.  We are never getting to the third mistake.”

Indiana has now lost 10-of-11.  At this point, accountability extends to the very top of the chain of command at Indiana University.

Kent Sterling hosts the fastest growing sportstalk show in Indianapolis on CBS Sports 1430 every weekday from 3p-7p, and writes about Indiana sports at kentsterling.com.

Pacers and Indy Eleven want cash for facilities – the city and state should say yes to them

You either get it or you don’t.

Sports make a city go.  That was the philosophy Indianapolis city leaders adopted in the late 1960s, when they decided sports would define this community.

That was a moment of pure prescience.  The specific goal was to host a Summer Olympics.  That dream will likely never come to fruition, but the focus of sports built Market Square Arena, the Hoosier Dome, Bankers Life Fieldhouse, and Lucas Oil Stadium.

It allowed the Pacers to join the NBA, and brought the Colts from Baltimore.  The NCAA came to Indy from Kansas City, and with it came a Final Four every five years.  The Super Bowl came in 2012, and the NBA All-Star Weekend is coming in 2021.

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Restaurants and hotels opened, and a downtown once derisively called “Nap-town” became vibrant and fun.

Just as important is the branding that comes with major league sports teams.  What universities have discovered is that when football and basketball teams succeed, application rates explode.  Indianapolis has seen intense growth in large part because of the sports culture of the city.

Now, the Pacers want some additional subsidies in an agreement with the city and state that will keep the team in Indianapolis for another 25 years.

Give it to them.

I’m not going to bore you with a bunch of guesses about specific economic impact of sporting events and franchises.  Instead, I invite you to drive to Louisville – a city without a professional team, and St. Louis – a city that turned cheap and lost the NFL Rams.

In which of those three cities would you prefer to live?  Fortunately for you, I have already lived in all three, and can save you the trouble of experiencing all of them.  You would choose Indianapolis.  Hands down.

The Indy Eleven, an entry in the United Soccer League, is asking for public funding of a 150-million, 22,000 seat stadium.  We should say yes to that too.

Cities that say yes win.  Cities that turn cheap and decide tax dollars should be spent elsewhere lose.  It’s that simple.  The tipping point for soccer’s popularity in America has finally come.  Indy can embrace the bright future of soccer, or deny it.

This city has always said yes, and that’s why it has flourished.  Saying yes rather than listen to doubters is the primary reason Indy is Indy.  We say yes, not because it always works out, but because when it does work out – it REALLY works out.

Say yes to the Indy Eleven and the Pacers.  Understand that today’s yes leads to better, happier, and more lucrative tomorrows.

it’s that simple, and we are enjoying the fruits of a half-century of knowing it.

Kent Sterling hosts the fastest growing sportstalk show in Indianapolis on CBS Sports 1430 every weekday from 3p-7p, and writes about Indiana sports at kentsterling.com.

KU’s Bill Self and AD Jeff Long unhappy with NCAA’s decision on Silvio DeSousa – Kansas needs to look in mirror

Two truths need to be acknowledged by Kansas bigwigs who are yelping about the NCAA declaring sophomore basketball player Silvio DeSousa ineligible for this season and next.

Shoe companies want return on their investment and the NCAA is a member organization – not an autonomous ruler.

An Adidas bagman named T.J. Gassnola paid DeSousa’s guardian $2,500 to secure the recruit’s commitment to Kansas Basketball.  Adidas and Kansas have an unsigned agreement to an extension of its partnership worth $191 million over 14 years.

That’s a lot of jack if Kansas Basketball sucks.  If Kansas maintains its standing as one of the top 10 programs in college basketball, it’s still a lot of jack.  Adidas isn’t Adidas because it throws money around without recouping it at least 2.5 times.

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Protecting its investment makes sense for Adidas.  Throwing cash at someone like DeSousa’s guardian makes business sense.  To expect Adidas to allow Self to procure top ranked recruits without a helping shoe is illogical.

Here’s a transcript of a text exchange between Gassnola and Self:

Gassnola, 2:52 p.m.: Hall of famer. Thank you for the help with Getting this extension done. Thx brotha

Self, 2:53 p.m.: I’m happy with adidas. Just got to get a couple real guys.

Gassnola, 2:58 p.m.: When the time is right. I will need to call on you to back me on some things. Have to make a few changes and keep getting better. Iam tired of fighting internal wars when it comes to the Jayhawks

Self, 3:00 p.m.: Ok. But why would rivers fight. What did we I ever do to him

(Note: It’s not clear whom Self is referring to. There is a Chris Rivers who is an Adidas executive in charge of youth basketball.)

Gassnola, 3:06 p.m.: nothing. He is a great guy. I just think ppl get intimated by me, and are jealous of our relationship. I will fix it TRUST me We can’t be successful with insecure ppl

In my mind it’s KU bill self. Everyone else fall into line , to f—ing bad , that’s what’s right for adidas Basketball

And I know Iam RIGHT. The more you win, have lottery pics. And you happy

That’s how it should work in my mind

Self, 3:12 p.m.: That’s how ur works. At unc and Duke

Gassnola, 3:14 p.m.: Kentucky as well

Gassnola, 3:14 p.m.: I promise you. I got this , I have never let you down Except ( Dyondre) lol.  We will get it right

Cloying blather from Gassnola aside, this falls short of a smoking gun linking Self to knowledge of NCAA violations, but it’s impossible to fathom a complete lack of awareness by Self that lines were being crossed.

Long says he has lost faith in the NCAA.  Self says punishing DeSouza is 100% wrong.

Maybe Long’s faith would be restored if Self was the target of the NCAA’s wrath instead of DeSousa.  I doubt that’s what he meant.  Maybe Self could save DeSousa’s eligibility by acknowledging his complicity in Adidas giving DeSousa’s guardian some walking around money.  Yeah, right.

If Kansas told Adidas to keep its $191 million, guys like Gassnola would lose their motivation to funnel kids to schools so that coaches like Self can excel.  That isn’t going to happen, ever.  No one walks away from $191 million over principle.

Yeah, DeSousa is getting screwed, but someone has to pay for the wretched excess in college basketball.  Right?  If the NCAA goes after Self, then who’s next, and who’s next, and who’s next?

The anger at Kansas isn’t because cheating didn’t happen.  It’s because it happens in a lot of places, and there is bitterness over being singled out.

At the NCAA, they don’t want to bring the hammer down on cheating.  If all cheaters were exposed, Lehigh, Yale, Brown, and Holy Cross would play in the 2019 Final Four.

Kent Sterling hosts the fastest growing sportstalk show in Indianapolis on CBS Sports 1430 every weekday from 3p-7p, and writes about Indiana sports at kentsterling.com.

Indiana Basketball – Five people to blame for Indiana not really being Indiana since 1994 #iubb

Indiana Basketball is not what it once was, and hopefully Zach McRoberts and Juwan Morgan are seen as players who helped turn the culture around.

Indiana’s Basketball team has lost seven straight games, and people are wondering why a promising season has spun wildly out of control.

Injuries, scheduling, effort, coaching, and toughness are among the many guesses being proffered by fans and media.  All are correct to one extent or another, but Indiana Basketball has been a consistently mediocre program with occasional departures in positive and negative directions since 1994.

Rebuilding toward consistent excellence has been a difficult challenge for a variety of Indiana coaches, and the latest tasked with getting it done is Archie Miller.  Holding him responsible for the two seasons he has been the coach is mostly unfair.  Holding him responsible for the overall state of the basketball program is stupid.

I’m not certain Miller is the right guy to rebuild Indiana into a consistent winner (I feel much better about him than any of the previous three), but he was doubtless not a party to IU’s precipitous decline over the last quarter century.

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Here are the people and circumstances that landed Indiana Basketball in the rubble fighting for relevance:

5 – Bob Knight never should have allowed Dan Dakich to leave Bloomington.  Dan was the obvious heir apparent to Knight during the latter portion of his decade as a Knight assistant.  The Knight culture was clearly successful, and Dan was the standard bearer.  A secure leader will always have his successor in place, and Dan was that guy.  Knight tried to make himself indispensable by surrounding himself with men incapable of succeeding after his departure.

His staff in 1999-2000 included his son Pat, but only a lunatic would put his kid in a spot to follow a legend in that same role.  Knight proved himself to be exactly that kind of lunatic when he walked away at Texas Tech and bequeathed the program to Pat.

4 – AD Clarence Doninger should have had a plan to replace Knight in place when zero-tolerance was enacted.  Only fools thought Knight would ultimately survive IU president Myles Brand’s zero-tolerance edict, and as the AD, Doninger was responsible for finding the next coach during the period the inclubant survived.  The most important responsibility of an AD is hiring the coaches of the two revenue generators of the department.  Doninger left himself without an option when Knight was fired.  It was either promote Mike Davis or lose the roster.

3 – AD Rick Greenspan should have been fired with Kelvin Sampson.  Why allow the boob who didn’t know better than to hire Sampson to replace him?  This made no sense at all.  While Sampson was the head coach at Oklahoma, the NCAA issued a report citing more than 550 impermissible calls made by Sampson and his staff to 17 different recruits.  Inviting Sampson into Assembly Hall was an act of sheer stupidity that should have immediately cost Greenspan his job when he repeated his crimes in Bloomington.

It’s widely believed that IU president Adam Herbert demanded Greenspan hire Sampson to lead the basketball program.  Regardless, Greenspan should be held accountable for executing the hire.

2 – Mike Davis should have been replaced after his interim year.  Davis led IU to the National Championship game in his second year running the show, so arguing for his dismissal prior to that season borders on the silly, but he was not ready for the job – even by his own admission.  An AD needs to understand hiring in order to succeed, and hiring requires a grasp of fit.  The decision to extend Davis was based upon prudence, not fit.

Now Davis wasn’t going to fire himself, so why is he held responsible?  Because, according to the story I heard from someone who was there, Davis refused to recruit Mike Conley, Jr.  Everyone knew that Conley and Greg Oden were a package deal, and Davis only gave meaningful attention to Oden.  In fact, Davis enclosed a letter to another recruit and addressed the envelope to Conley.  Yikes!  Recruiting five-star recruits in Indiana requires not insulting them.

1 – Not Tom Crean.  I hold Crean accountable for IU’s woes not one little bit.  It’s true that Tom was a poor fit, but Tom didn’t hire himself.  All Tom did was the best job he could every single minute of every single day he was on the job.  That should be applauded, not derided as we assess culpability for Indiana no longer being Indiana in the world of college hoops.

Kent Sterling hosts the fastest growing sportstalk show in Indianapolis on CBS Sports 1430 every weekday from 3p-7p, and writes about Indiana sports at kentsterling.com.

Indiana and Butler Basketball teams need to look in the mirror and answer a very important question

No one looks forward to adversity, but everyone is thankful for it after it is overcome.

Indiana and Butler have basketball programs experiencing some serious adversity right now.  Butler is in last place in the Big East after losing to Marquette.  Indiana lost its seventh straight last night at Rutgers.

That’s the magic of college.  It’s where what has come easily gets hard.  Academics, Athletics, social interaction – it’s all a little more complicated, and requires an understanding that the only correct answer for those challenges is diligence.

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Learning through adversity is uncomfortable, but the lessons last a lifetime.

Indiana and Butler players need to each look in the mirror and decide what he is willing to do.  There is a phenomenal scene written by David Mamet in “The Untouchables” that illustrates the challenge that lies ahead for each Hoosier and Bulldogs over the next six weeks.

“What are you willing to do?” is THE question for Indiana and Butler.  Are they willing to work, rest, sacrifice, subvert personal desires, get physical, take risks, and focus on making teammates better?

Are the coaches willing to be temporarily loathed to lead their athletes to a deeper understanding of what competing as though the result is deeply important actually feels like?

This morning on both campuses, there are basketball players making the decision to avoid or embrace the difficult road.  If they volunteer for the tough road, there is no guarantee of success, which is what makes sitting on your ass playing Fortnite so alluring.

The tests of fortitude and will keep coming one after another – both play Saturday (Butler against Seton Hall; IU travels to Michigan State).

Great comebacks all start with a group of people in a room who believe in themselves and one another.  The athletes at Indiana and Butler are miserable this morning – or they should be.  The way out is to embrace the difficulty of the moment, and then to hold each other accountable to the work and sacrifice necessary to achieve their goal.

We don’t know this morning what these two teams are willing to do, but we will learn that throughout the next six weeks.

And so will they.

Kent Sterling hosts the fastest growing sportstalk show in Indianapolis on CBS Sports 1430 every weekday from 3p-7p, and writes about Indiana sports at kentsterling.com.

In silly popularity math, the Pro Bowl is the sports equivalent of Kylie Jenner; neither are going anywhere

The Pro Bowl may not mean anything to you – or to the participants, but that doesn’t make it meaningless.

Who are we to argue with success?

The Pro Bowl makes no sense.  It’s an all star game for the NFL that offers no competitive friction, and even hard core football fans have zero allegiance to either the NFC or AFC.

Players celebrate a year of meaningful football with an afternoon of making sure no one is put at serious risk for injury.

It defies all the rules of a quality sporting event, and yet people watch.  Last year, an average of 8.6 million viewers tuned in for the Pro Bowl.

For context, the Virginia vs. Duke college basketball game (the most viewed of the season so far) was watched by an average of 3.76 million.  The 2018 Indy 500 attracted 4.9 million.

It’s easy to argue that this exhibition is a totally unworthy of an NFL event, but it’s even more difficult to persuade anyone with the NFL or ESPN that 8.6 million pairs of eyes should be scattered elsewhere on the Sunday prior to the Super Bowl.

We can carp and gripe about the Pro Bowl, or similar all-star events, being nothing more than a self-congratulatory showcase that is much more style than substance.  But it brings eyes and thus value.

It’s the sporting event equivalent of Kylie Jenner.  She has well over 100-million Instagram followers and a net worth estimated at $900-million.  Why?  She’s famous.  Why is she famous?  I don’t know.  What does she do to earn money?  She’s famous.  Again – why is she famous?  Again – I don’t know.

We can argue with it all we like, but despite our solid points that emphasize the silliness of the event (and Kylie’s wealth), we will lose.

Indiana’s losing streak hits six – let me propose a fix that allows fans to help

Indiana fans can help Archie, or get out of the way. But they shouldn’t make the job tougher.

Indiana is not playing good, tough, collective basketball, and fan frustration is about to explode all over Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.

Seven weeks are left in this season, and it appears to be heading to a destination all Indiana fans have are way too familiar with – disappointment.

The majority of the last 25 seasons have seen the same crazy annual cycle – wild optimism, occasional solid play fueling greater optimism, mediocre play, crushing depression.  Wash, rinse, repeat.

Here’s an idea.  Let’s control what we can (expectations), let players do their job (improve), and allow Archie Miller to coach without concern for our feeble emotional bleatings and calls for him to be replaced.

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Indiana is not what it was during the 1970, 1980s, and the first half of the 1990s – a basketball program capable of winning an NCAA Tournament every five years, contend in two of the other four, and win a Big 10 title every other year.  Expecting a return to that level of routine excellence is insane.

Be patient, understand that building a culture can take time, and allow Miller to restock the shelves with Indiana talent.  Take a deep breath.  Know that 90% of what you say or write on social media is at best harmless, and at worse a poor reflection on a fanbase that needs to be a positive force as recruits and their families evaluate IU.

We tend to think of ourselves as a great fanbase – passionate defenders of the realm; a group that only wants the best.  Has it ever occurred to any of us that we might be one of the reasons for the program to be stuck in the middle of a quarter century of failing to meet expectations?

It should, and we should embrace our potential roles in fixing it.

Calling for Archie’s head is ridiculous, premature, and does nothing to help him succeed in the way we would like.  Being hyper critical of players who work a hell of a lot harder than we realize does nothing to motivate them to continue to pony up.  Assailing an athletic administration that is trying to represent and please a broad and demanding spectrum of factions is challenging under the best of circumstances.

I’m not saying that blindly praising them is the road to a championship, but understand that Tom Crean left this thing completely boogered.  Rebuilding Rome (or Bloomington) can’t be done in a day.

If you need to express outrage, do it like we used to – throw a $30 recliner off the Walnut Knolls balcony – or just scream for five seconds and order another beer.  Then relax and laugh with friends.

In Hoosiers – the cinematic bible of basketball in Indiana – Rollin cleared the Hickory gym for Norman Dale to allow the coach to do his job.  We need to metaphorically do the same thing.  I don’t know if Archie is the absolute right guy for this job, but I can damn sure tell you that if we make it more difficult for him, we will be partially responsible for his failure.

Let’s get out of the way – clear the gym.  Let Archie do his job – tear ’em down, and build ’em back up.

Let’s give Archie the best chance at success rather than make it tougher for him and the Hoosiers.

Kent Sterling hosts the fastest growing sportstalk show in Indianapolis on CBS Sports 1430 every weekday from 3p-7p, and writes about Indiana sports at kentsterling.com.

Victor Oladipo’s injury – weird for an elite 26-year-old athlete; path back foggy for Pacers all-star

Victor Oladipo faces a long and uncertain road back to the court.

Forty-eight hours ago, like 98% of Pacers fans, I had only a vague idea of the existence of a quadriceps tendon.

Now, we know where it is and what it does (attaches the quadriceps muscle to the knee and knee cap).  We also know that the quadriceps tendon in Victor Oladipo’s right leg snapped with 4:05 left in the second quarter of Wednesday night’s win against Toronto.

That tendon will be reattached to the knee cap during a surgery that will be performed soon.  Holes will be drilled into the knee cap and cables will secure the tendon in place.

What we don’t know is how long Oladipo will be lost to the Pacers – could be six months, or it could be longer.

The problem is that this injury does not happen very often to 26-year-old pro athletes, and so predicting recovery time and protocol for rehab is an inexact science to say the least.

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This injury ended Charles Barkley’s basketball career, but he was 10 years older than Oladipo.  Tony Parker ruptured his quad tendon, and has returned to play.  He was already in decline, so it’s hard to say whether the injury accelerated the erosion of his physical talents.

When I spoke to Ralph Reiff of St. Vincent Sports Performance on my radio show yesterday, he said he would prefer a torn ACL over a torn quadriceps tendon because there are many more ACL tears and the protocol for recovery and rehab is much more exact because of the extensive experience with that injury.

Good news from Reiff was that there is no reason to believe that a recurrence of a quad tendon tear is more likely that the original injury.

The bad news is that we don’t know whether Oladipo will be ever be as explosive as he was prior to the injury, and his explosiveness was his greatest athletic attribute.

Oladipo is a remarkably positive person, and that will help him deal with the challenges ahead – both physical and psychological.

Whether that means he’s back for the beginning of the 2019-2020 regular season, no one knows.  Whether he’s back to 100% of what he was -ever, no one knows that either.

No matter how much we learn about torn quad tendons, the future is unsure for Oladipo – and the Pacers, who will play at least the rest of the 2018-2019 regular season and playoffs without him.

Kent Sterling hosts the fastest growing sportstalk show in Indianapolis on CBS Sports 1430 every weekday from 3p-7p, and writes about Indiana sports at kentsterling.com.

Victor Oladipo wheeled off court – may be lost for the season; What do Pacers do if that’s true?

If Vic is out for the season, the Pacers have a decision they likely had not pondered.

When Victor Oladipo crumpled to the floor with 4:05 left in the first half of last night’s game against Toronto, fans wondered if this promising season crumpled with him.

The rest of the Pacers continued to fight to earn the win against Toronto, but the question of what the ceiling is for the team minus Oladipo for the rest of the season remains.

Winning one game without their all-star is one thing, but 35 games remain in the regular season.  Winning without Oladipo is not unprecedented – the Pacers won seven of 11 earlier this year as he convalesced with a far less serious knee issue – but succeeding in the playoffs is a tough putt without a top 25 player in the NBA.

So the question for Pacers president Kevin Pritchard is whether to marshal all resources for April and May is a worthy pursuit, or whether a fire sale of expiring contracts to gain assets for 2020 and beyond is the best play.

Thad Young, Darren Collison, Tyreke Evans, Bojan Bogdanovic, and Cory Joseph are all going to be free agents after the season, and each would be a nice no-risk piece down the stretch for a championship contender looking for depth.

The Pacers might be able to gain young pieces and draft picks to fortify the roster next year and beyond when some or all of those players sign elsewhere for next season.

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As we try to predict Pritchard’s behavior, it’s important to know he has great respect and appreciation for his players.

He likes these guys – he REALLY likes these guys.

If Oladipo dislocated his patella in a way that might allow him to return in eight weeks or so, Pritchard might try to find a piece that allows the Pacers to compete in the now, rather than build for the future, but I doubt it.

If I had to bet on what Pritchard does, my money is on staying the course with the guys he has.  The Pacers deserve the opportunity to do what they can to compete right now.  The Pacers have never tanked, and I can’t believe Pritchard would deconstruct because of an injury to Oladipo.

Of the three choices – stand pat, deal to make team better for this season, or deal to improve in 2020 and beyond – I go with stand pat.

That seems to be the Pacers preferred path.

If you would like to share your thoughts – here is my Twitter poll:

Kent Sterling hosts the fastest growing sportstalk show in Indianapolis on CBS Sports 1430 every weekday from 3p-7p, and writes about Indiana sports at kentsterling.com.

Indiana University Basketball fans are insane, and there is apparently no cure! #iubb

Can you believe the day Romeo Langford committed to IU was less than a year ago?

Don’t take offense to the headline – I’m right there with you!

Every year, we invest in the believe that this will be the year the glory of ol’ IU returns to Assembly Hall.  Every year, we shake our heads in dismay.  Wash, rinse, repeat.

This year, hope seemed reasonable because it’s Archie Miller’s second year (experts say it takes two years to learn to play pack line defense), the highest ranked recruit in over a decade came to Bloomington, a sharpshooter grad transfer from Cali was going to knock down threes and stretch defenses, and Justin Smith’s vertical improved by nine inches!

Look out Big 10!  Look out Final Four!  Hell, if Loyola could get there from Rogers Park, how hard could it be for Indiana to make it from Bloomington?

Click here for a $1 comprehensive dental exam done by the best dentist in Indiana – Dr. Mike O’Neil at Today’s Dentistry

Last night, I hit a new low.  After a loss to Northwestern, I felt optimistic because the Hoosiers played hard, and were once seen smiling as though they enjoyed playing the game together.

There was a time when losing to Northwestern was unthinkable.  Now I take solace because players showed effort and offered evidence of joy.

These are facts about Indiana Basketball – not theories or beliefs, but facts:

  • The youngest of the alums who last celebrated a National Championship at Showalter Fountain as IU students will turn 50 this year.
  • Steve Alford, the hero of that team, is 54.
  • There is not an undergrad at IU with any cognitive memory of Indiana’s last trip to the National Championship game, Final Four, or Elite Eight (unless he’s on the six-year plan – there’s nothing wrong with that, by the way).
  • In 21 Big 10 Tournaments, every traditional Big 10 team has won at least once – other than Minnesota, Northwestern, and Indiana, (that is not the high rent district of the conference).  In the last 10 Big Ten Tournaments, IU has won a total of four games.

And yet, somehow, we continue to delude ourselves into buying into the “Brighter Days Ahead” theory.

Next year, we’ll find reasons for hope in the arrival of Trayce Jackson-Davis and – maybe – Keion Brooks.  We will declare the one-year NBA apprenticeship of Romeo Langford to be a failed experiment (through no fault of his own), and the return to health of Jerome Hunter and Race Thompson as game changers.

The likely truth is that Indiana Basketball is what it is.  Players and coaches will come and go, and we will continue to invest hope because that is how human beings are wired.

Next time we buy a scratch off lottery ticket, we will briefly dream of wealth.  Next time we watch Indiana, we will dream of effort, execution, and occasionally accurate shooting.

We’re nuts.  And that’s fine.

Kent Sterling hosts the fastest growing sportstalk show in Indianapolis on CBS Sports 1430 every weekday from 3p-7p, and writes about Indiana sports at kentsterling.com.