BLOOMINGTON – Which Indiana basketball team will show up Thursday night when the Hoosiers play host to Tennessee Tech?
Will it be the team that five days ago scored the first win over a top-25 ranked team in the Archie Miller era or the one that got beat at home by 20 points to an in-state mid-major school?
The one thing that is certain is beginning Thursday the Hoosiers (6-6) have two more non-conference tune-ups before resuming Big Ten play at Wisconsin on Jan. 2. IU plays host to Tennessee Tech on Thursday at 8 p.m. and then has a week off before hosting Youngstown State on Dec. 29. Both games will be televised on the Big Ten Network.
Indiana fifth-year senior forward Collin Hartman said he’s hoping IU can learn a lesson with losses like the one it sustained to Fort Wayne on Monday night. For the second year in a row, the Mastodons knocked off the Hoosiers.
The difference this time was Fort Wayne put a 92-72 beat down on Indiana at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall. It was the third home loss by the Hoosiers in eight games. IU opened the season with a 21-point home loss to Indiana State and then also fell to Duke 91-81, when the Blue Devils were ranked No. 1 in the nation.
So what’s with losing at home to in-state mid-majors?
“I don't think there's much to it,’’ Hartman said. “I mean, we just have to understand as a team when you have 'Indiana' across your chest, it doesn't matter where we're playing or who we're playing, they're coming to win. They want to win. When we don't show up, don't play like we practice, it can be one of those nights.’’
When Indiana first beat then-No. 18 Notre Dame on Saturday and turned around two days later to play Fort Wayne, Miller admitted you always worry how a team is going to handle success.
“You're always concerned,’’ Miller said Monday following the loss to Fort Wayne. “I think handling success is a lot harder than getting kicked in the face. Everybody knows when you get kicked in the face how you respond.’’
Miller said when he and his team watch the tape of the Fort Wayne game they’re going to find it wasn’t particularly team-oriented basketball.
“I did sense that we weren't playing in sync out there,’’ Miller said. “I think as we watch the film, we're going to see some of the decision making, some of the opportunities we had offensively were selfish.’’
Miller had a laundry list of things he thought Indiana didn’t do particularly well against the Mastodons.
“I thought we took bad shots at times,’’ Miller said. “We didn't deliver the ball when we could. We knew they would trap the post. We stopped throwing the ball inside. It just became a jump shooting team, a guy trying to break his guy down and score. That's in and out not how we've been playing.’’
Next up for IU is Ohio Valley Conference opponent Tennessee Tech (8-4), a team that had a three-game losing streak snapped with a win over Chattanooga on Saturday. The Golden Eagles have five players averaging 9.3 points or more. They are led by senior guard Alexsa Jugovic at 14.3 points per game, senior forward Curtis Phillips Jr. at 13.8 and senior guard Kajon Mack at 12.8.
Something interesting about Tennessee Tech is the Golden Eagles are sporting an RPI of No. 125. That’s significant because Fort Wayne’s RPI was 150 and Indiana is 133.