Indiana hasn’t lived up to Woodson’s own expectations on top of outward expectations.
Expectations.
That’s always it with Indiana men’s basketball. With all of the resources at its disposal, the program should at the very least be in position to even just make the NCAA Tournament every season.
When Mike Woodson was hired he set the bar high: championships. Big Ten and national.
It’s year four of Woodson’s tenure in Bloomington and the program feels about as far from contending for a national title as it did when he was hired. The Hoosiers were around the top of the league in 2022-23 but have struggled to return to that form, let alone get any sort of hardware.
This tenure has not been an outright disaster, as some would frame it. Indiana got back to the NCAA Tournament in year one under Woodson’s watch and earned that 4-seed in 2023 while showing that it can still be a destination for high-caliber talent.
But it just hasn’t been good enough. Woodson’s seat heated up some last year. Now it’s hot.
Here’s the January coaching carousel breakdown: pic.twitter.com/Y2s8yWAN1Q
— Trilly Donovan (@trillydonovan2) January 1, 2025
Mind you, this is not a call for Woodson’s immediate termination. He has the entirety of the Big Ten slate and whatever may come afterward to prove he can lead this program forward. He’s earned that opportunity.
But as of right now, with everything we’ve seen from this program and past seasons and the first months of this one, it just hasn’t been good enough.
Indiana’s record in conference play is subpar and the program has been prone to getting blown out on the court. It happened last year with a flawed roster and continued into this one. The difference being that last season’s roster had some pretty glaring flaws whereas this one has a massive boost in backcourt talent that was meant to fix those issues.
But these Hoosiers don’t look all that better. If this is a prove-it season, it’s a failure so far.
Constantly cycling through coaches is an exhausting state for any program to be in let alone one with the status and national spotlight of Indiana. It’s unhealthy, but so is complacency.
In the NIL era, Indiana is armed with the resources to not only succeed, but turn things around relatively quickly. Curt Cignetti proved that across the parking lot with similar resources but drastically different standing and expectations as a program.
Indiana probably can’t afford to waste more time should Woodson fail to turn this season around in the coming months.