Mike Woodson Thinks He’s Done His Job at Indiana — I Beg to Differ

Mike Woodson thinks he’s done his job in three years as the head coach at Indiana. He said so after the final game of the regular season. If the 65-year-old truly believes he has done what is required of him in his first three campaigns in charge of his alma mater’s basketball program, then someone needs to shake some sense into that man. And if this is what Woodson considers as having done his job, then Indiana can and should do better.

Two weeks ago, Indiana’s athletic department leaked that Woodson would return as the school’s head basketball coach next season. The next day, five-star forward commit Liam McNeeley followed with his own announcement: he was de-committing from the program and asked out of his Letter of Intent. This all came in the middle of a five-game winning streak for the Hoosiers. That kind of good news/bad news scenario has been a feature of Woodson’s three-season tenure, not a bug.

After making his pronouncement, Woodson’s Hoosiers entered the Big Ten Tournament as the No. 6 seed. They inched past Penn State 61-59 in the second round, then got absolutely hammered by Nebraska 93-66 in the quarterfinals. It was the third time the Huskers had beaten Indiana by more than 15 points this year. Woodson watched the end of the game from the locker room after being ejected with a few minutes to go. IU, far off the NCAA Tournament bubble, declined an invitation from the NIT, meaning that for the third straight season Woodson’s program wrapped up the campaign with a blowout loss. In 2022 the Hoosiers exited the first round of the NCAA Tournament with an 82-53 defeat at the hands of St. Mary’s, and last season they were run off the floor by Miami 85-69 in the Round of 32.

While Woodson has produced mild success during his first two seasons in Bloomington, his third campaign was a huge step back, and the future of the program looks bleak. The Hoosiers finished the regular season 19-14 and 10-10 in the Big Ten. While that might not too awful on the surface, they finished the season ranked 98th in the NET, and 93rd on KenPom. They were 14-13 and had lost eight of 10 before winning five straight near the end of the season. Given that the roster included three former five-stars and four seniors in the rotation, the Hoosiers have fallen short of expectations.

Indiana also finished the season without a truly good win. They whiffed in the non-conference schedule and the only wins that look good in the Big Ten have huge caveats attached. Indiana beat Wisconsin at home on February 27, but the Badgers were in the middle of a stretch where they lost eight of 10. The Hoosiers beat a highly-rated Michigan State team but no one has been able to figure out what to make of the Spartans all season. They also beat Ohio State on the road but that was a week before the Buckeyes fired Chris Holtmann. The season was a complete and utter mess. It was the basketball equivalent of Madame Web, a product far inferior to the sum of its parts.

Woodson’s defenders point to the fact that Indiana made the NCAA Tournament in each of his first two seasons, something that hadn’t happened in the five seasons before he arrived. They are correct, but those results need context. The Hoosiers finished 21-14 during the 2021-22 season and were 9-11 in the Big Ten. They needed to win two games in the Big Ten Tournament — one of which featured a miracle comeback — just to earn their way into a play-in game. They won their First Four contest against Wyoming, then got trounced by St. Mary’s.

In Year 2, much was expected of Woodson’s squad. He had All-American center Trayce Jackson-Davis in his senior year and Jalen Hood-Schifino was a five-star freshman who would go on to be a lottery pick. The roster also featured two other seniors and a junior in the starting lineup even after senior guard Xavier Johnson was lost for the year. Those Hoosiers should have contended for a Big Ten title and made waves nationally. Instead, they finished 23-12, went 12-8 in conference and ended up three games out of the Big Ten title chase — despite beating champion Purdue twice. That team suffered a number of astonishing losses — at Penn State, at Rutgers, a 22-point home blowout loss to Iowa, and again to Penn State in the Big Ten Tournament — and was hammered by Miami in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. There’s no way to look at that season as anything but falling short of expectations.

Those two seasons qualified as a success if making the NCAA Tournament is Indiana’s goal. Given the tradition, resources and fan support the program has at its disposal, reaching the tournament should be the absolute floor of expectations. Following those two seasons up by falling flat with a talented roster…