Todd’s Take: Indiana Paid The Ultimate Price For A Season Full Of Shortcomings

They say it’s the hope that kills you. Typically, that’s true.

When Indiana lost to Oregon in the first round of the NCAA Tournament Thursday, everyone who was paying attention knew the score. Indiana had placed itself directly on the NCAA Tournament bubble.

On Sunday, Indiana’s bubble popped. The Hoosiers were left out of the field. Indiana wasn’t even the last team left out. The Hoosiers were behind West Virginia on the also-ran list.

North Carolina was the last team that made the field. San Diego State, Texas and Xavier will also play in First Four games in Dayton – the path many thought was in the cards for the Hoosiers.

Anyone can, and many will, parse the resume of the bubble teams. Would I have chosen Indiana over a North Carolina team that was 1-12 in Quad 1 games? I would have. I also would have had Indiana over Xavier, a team that was 1-9 in Quad 1 games.

How the NCAA Tournament selected the field gave primacy to its NET rankings, which emphasize predictive metrics over results-based metrics. I think that’s backward as can be – metrics should be seeding, results-based numbers should determine the field – but that’s the way this particular NCAA Tournament committee went.

Honestly, though, how mad can any Indiana fan be? Indiana fell short more often than it rose to the challenge during the 2024-25 season.

We know the drumbeat of opponents that either defeated Indiana handily or by a key winning possession or two. Louisville and Gonzaga set a depressing tone at Battle 4 Atlantis.

Tournament team Illinois decked the Hoosiers by 25 at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall. Wisconsin hammered Indiana in a February game in Madison. Fellow tournament teams Maryland, Michigan and UCLA had narrow escapes in their Bloomington visits.

Most damaging of all were Indiana’s losses to non-NCAA Tournament teams. A 25-point loss at Iowa looks really bad in hindsight. So does a 17-point loss at non-Big Ten Tournament Nebraska. A fall-from-ahead nine-point defeat at Northwestern didn’t help, either.

It was an empty season. Not making the NCAA Tournament doesn’t feel good, but it doesn’t feel like a great injustice, either. The Hoosiers were hanging on hope after they didn’t take care of business when they needed to in the regular season.

What was the best-case scenario entering the day? Qualification for the First Four was the most realistic option.

Qualifying for the NCAA Tournament via the First Four feels like getting a C on a test. You did the work that gets a passing grade, but you did the barest minimum to do it well.

I’m not convinced making the NCAA Tournament would have been a celebratory moment. It would have been more of a relief. Like having a repair done in your house. Before you know the extent of the repair, you’re begging that it’s not the worst-case scenario maximum amount. When you find out it’s not the worst-case scenario, you’re relieved, but you still owe a good chunk of change to fix what is broken anyway.

Unfortunately, Indiana did get the worst-case scenario on Sunday. But there are times when you sense that might be your fate, too.

Indiana was picked second in the preseason Big Ten poll, and while preseason polls should always be taken with a grain of salt, fairly or unfairly, they set the early narrative.

Indiana never came close to matching those expectations. Perhaps they were unfair in hindsight, but failing to finish second in the Big Ten isn’t what cost the Hoosiers. Six Big Ten teams that didn’t finish second or better in the league are making their NCAA Tournament plans as we speak.

Indiana fell so far short of expectation that getting a passing grade on a test seemed like a victory. Deep down, we all knew it was nothing to crow about.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m sad for Indiana’s players, and yes, Woodson too.

The picture was much bleaker in mid-February, but the Hoosiers added a couple of much-needed quality wins over Michigan State and Purdue and did what they needed to do against Ohio State in the regular-season finale to get over the line.

Fans were starting to get excited again – even if the progress was modest. One reason I wasn’t very bullish on the Hoosiers entering the Big Ten Tournament is that I thought Indiana was still struggling in moments it shouldn’t. Wins did come against Penn State and Ohio State late in the season, but they came with difficulty and before supportive home crowds.

Wins often mask shortcomings Indiana still hasn’t solved.

And now they won’t get that chance to change their narrative. It’s a downer, but this isn’t really an instance where the hope killed you.

The fact that you had to hope for the NCAA Tournament in the first place was the killer reality we lived with all season. A reality that came down hard on the Hoosiers on Selection Sunday.