Vanishing act

As Chief Dan George famously said in "Little Big Man": Sometimes the magic works. Sometimes it doesn't.

Which is to say, you know the magic beans or alchemy or witches' brew Archie Miller conjured to turn Indiana into the team everyone thought it could be these last two weeks?

Yeah, well ...

Turns out they had an expiration date.

That expiration date was early yesterday afternoon, when an Indiana team that had won four straight and resembled in no way the team that had previously lost 12 of 13 reverted to its previous incarnation. It lost its Big Ten tournament opener to Ohio State, 79-75, a game virtually everyone figured the Hoosiers would win given the way they'd been playing.

Alas, no. OSU led by seven at the half and by 20 with seven minutes to play, before Devonte Green's out-of-body experience -- he came off the bench to hit eight 3s  and score 26 points, and where did that come from? -- led a furious comeback that fell just short.

Otherwise, it was back to Bad Indiana. Justin Smith turned back into Justin Smith, going scoreless on 0-for-5 shooting. Romeo Langford missed eight of his 12 shots, turned it over twice and finished with nine points. And Robert Phinisee, whose re-energized play was a significant part of the Hoosiers' resurgence, went 1-for-6 and had more turnovers (3) than points (2).

It was the signature stat line on an afternoon when Indiana kicked it away 17 times -- four more turnovers than they'd had in their previous two games together.

And so now the season is done except for a possible NIT bid, and in a way it was the perfect closing act. This entire season, after all, has been one long pulling of the rug out from under the Indiana faithful, and Thursday was the final yank. Hey, look, Hoosier Nation, we're 12-2 ... no, wait, now we're losing eight in a row and 12 of 13 ... no, wait, wait, now we've  WON four in a row ... no, wait, wait, wait ...

Buckeyes 79, Hoosiers 75. Fooled ya again, din't we?

Yes, they did. The final ledger is 17-15, and no Dance except (possibly) the Dance of the Also-Rans. This was surely not what anyone expected going in, all this nausea-inducing roller-coastering. And hard telling how it will impact Langford's draft status come June, although the gurus continue to insist he's a solid lottery pick.

The Blob doesn't see it, frankly. But then the Blob isn't a Guru, and doesn't have a Guru's apparent powers of discernment in these matters.

In the meantime, it's back to the drawing board for Miller and his staff. This season is finally, mercifully done, mostly. It's time to start building a better roller coaster.

Ideally, one that's not a roller coaster.