‘I’m upset with the way we’ve played, the way I have coached this team.’: Mike Woodson is very aware of the issues with Indiana basketball

It is February 24th, with just a few weeks left in the 2023-24 season, and Indiana basketball is 14-13 on the year and 6-10 in the Big Ten conference. The Hoosiers have been a team that has had major struggles since the start of the year and are a team that has just not seen any improvement despite the talent on this roster.

Indiana basketball head coach Mike Woodson has taken most of, if not all, of the blame for the Hoosiers’ constant struggles this season. Some of the Indiana basketball fanbase has even called for his job for his apparent lack of awareness of the current state of the program and the terrible product on the floor game-in and game-out.

They are 0-5 this season against the trio of Northwestern, Nebraska, and Penn State — a team that just swept them for the first time since the 2008-09 season. Not to take anything away from those three teams, but these are teams that historically, the Hoosiers don’t lose to. That is not even mentioning the five losses at home this year.

This is not Indiana basketball and Mike Woodson knows that.

“I’m upset with the way we’ve played, the way I’ve coached this team this whole season,” Mike Woodson said after the loss to Penn State Saturday afternoon. “We’ve lost more games at home the last two years, that’s just not good. I have always felt that I can take any team and go win with it. We have had our struggles this year but we gotta try and finish this season on a high note.”

Whether you believe it or not, I can promise you, Mike Woodson is very aware of the current state of the program. If what he said after the Penn State loss does not convince you, maybe look a few weeks back after the Purdue loss when he made the comment of how Indiana basketball needed to ‘add some pieces’ when it comes to the offseason.

He knows this roster just ain’t it, it’s not even close to being sustainable. While he is certainly the person to blame for this roster construction, the fact that he publicly has stated the issues should be a good sign.

“All coaches, when they coach, they think they can win,” Woodson continued. “I’ve struggled with this team this year. I won’t blame my players, I will always put it on Mike Woodson and that how it should be. I’m a big boy and we will try and continue to grow this thing and figure it out but we still got a lot of work on our hands.”

The only thing you can do at this point if you are Indiana basketball is just continue to work. It is a cop out answer for sure but really, what else is there to do at this point? This season is all but over and Mike Woodson is not going anywhere even though a portion of the fanbase does not want to hear that, but it is the reality.

With the success he had his first two seasons as head coach plus the fact that a down year was expected with the departures of Trayce Jackson-Davis, Jalen Hood-Schifino, and the experience of last season’s roster…..a chance for Mike Woodson to correct the mistakes he made this season is more than fair when it comes to attacking the transfer portal this offseason.

Asking of a coach to be fired for one bad season is not a way you build a program. It does take a certain amount of time to build a successful program, even in the transfer portal and NIL era.

“So you almost think to yourself, okay, well, if we’re going to really just kind of throw the season out, you almost want Woody to do it his way, right? You want Woody to take the reigns and just say, hey, I’m going to get these who I know are going to be here for the next year and I want to develop them and get this started right now,” former Indiana basketball forward Derek Elston said a few weeks ago. 

I have said it once, I’ll say it again, and I will keep saying it until the season is over….the month of April cannot come sooner for Mike Woodson and this Indiana basketball program.