Minutes after Indiana defeated Northwestern to advance to the quarterfinals of the Big Ten tournament, Tom Crean was asked if he thought his team was now in the NCAA Tournament. “Well, I don’t know,” Crean said. “You know, I really don’t know. And no one knows. That’s the beauty of it all.”
It was an insight tinged with a bit of both insanity and brilliance. If you have watched Crean coach basketball for the last month, you do not believe he could possibly find any “beauty” in the uncertainty of his team’s current predicament. The cheeks have been too red; the forehead vein too prominent; and most importantly, the Indiana wins too infrequent. And yet, thinking as a college basketball fan, it made too much sense. The beauty is there. We are just two days from Selection Sunday, and in reality, so much has yet to be decided. It’s an uncertainty that catalyzes Championship Week drama every single year; in many ways, it defines the lead-in to the NCAA Tournament. And here was Crean, who in 2015 has been as negatively affected as anyone by the pre-Tournament unpredictability, telling us about the beauty of it all.
Tom Crean, Yogi Ferrell And The Hoosiers Will Take On Maryland Friday Night In A Game That Could Define Their Season (USATSI)
In the minds of many, Thursday’s victory over Northwestern put Indiana into the field of 68. That belief is founded partially in the strength of the Hoosiers’ profile, which undoubtedly improved by dispatching a Wildcats team that had entered the night winners of five of their last seven. But it’s also a result of bubble carnage elsewhere: Texas A&M, Illinois, Texas, Ole Miss, Miami, Old Dominion and Stanford all suffered crippling losses on Thursday. All in all, it was a day that could not have gone much better for the Hoosiers. That doesn’t mean that they are safely there yet, or that they couldn’t REALLY use a quarterfinal victory over Maryland tonight. But for a team that hadn’t won a game of any kind since February 22, Thursday was a good day.
Indiana held Northwestern to 0.97 points per possession; it was just the second time since January 10 that the Hoosiers managed to hold an opponent under a point per possession. For the sake of reference, Maryland is hardly a defensive juggernaut itself, and yet the Terps have prevented their last four opponents (including Wisconsin) from converting a point per possession. Getting stops has been a massive struggle all season for Indiana. Tom Crean wouldn’t go as far as to call yesterday’s win his team’s best defensive effort of the season, but there’s no doubt that any sign of life of the defensive end is a positive sign for the Hoosiers.
While the win was key for NCAA Tournament admission and the defensive energy encouraging for prospects once there, Indiana also reminded us why we are still talking about them: The Hoosiers get buckets. They hoisted 32 threes (making 11 of them) and turned the ball over just eight times en route to scoring 1.22 points a possession. James Blackmon made three or more shots from two-point range, three-point range and the free throw line, while Yogi Ferrell pitched in 17 points and five assists. By efficiency metrics, this is the 10th best offensive team in the country. By eye test metrics, the Hoosiers may be even better.
We don’t know if Indiana’s NCAA Tournament life is on the line Friday night. We don’t know if their coach is competing for his job. We also don’t know if not knowing really is “the beauty of it all.” There’s something to that notion, certainly. But who’s to say that a talented team finally putting it all together — and in the final hour — wouldn’t be just as beautiful? Probably not Tom Crean.