Miller('s) time?

These are the dark days in Riverdale, for Archie and the gang. Riverdale High just lost another big game. Jughead has fallen in with a bad crowd. And Archie ...

Well. Did we mention Riverdale High just lost another big game?

In our incarnation, of course, "Archie" is Archie Miller, and Riverdale High is Indiana University, which, way back in the Before Time, was better at basketball than football. Now the Hoosiers don't just have a football team but a FOOTBALL TEAM, and the basketball team is a beige collection of knockabouts clinging to a "tradition" that seems as distant as the Battle of Hastings these days. 

Those five NCAA championship banners hanging in Assembly Hall, for instance?

Ancient as the Bayeaux Tapestry. And about as relevant.

This is because the Hoosiers are now 12-11 and 7-9 in the Big Ten, and in the space of four days have blown big leads to two other beige outfits. First they jetted out to a 19-6 lead at home against a gaggle of Michigan State imposters, only to blow the lead and the game. Then, last night, they led Rutgers 23-8 before lying down on the tracks and letting the Scarlet Knights thunder over them, outscoring them 27-8 the rest of the half and running the lead to as much as 20 points in the second half.

The final score was 74-63. And in one stretch, Rutgers, a 13-9 outfit that had lost five of its previous eight games, outscored Indiana 62-27.

All of which, of course, means the howling for poor Archie's head has reached 747-amping-up-for-takeoff decibels.

That he's not been what he seemed to be when he was at Dayton is obvious now, after all. That he's never even been what Tom Crean was until the lost-in-the-past yokels ran him out is even more obvious, and perhaps more significant.

Crean's teams, after all, won Big Ten titles and reached Sweet Sixteens and even landed a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament one year. And Miller?

Hasn't come close to that, in four seasons. On his watch, Indiana has regressed to a middle-of-the-pack Big Ten program, down there with the Minnesotas and Penn States and (until this season) Illinoises. In Miller's three previous seasons, they've finished tied for sixth, tied for ninth and tied for 10th in the conference. 

This season?

Right now they're ninth, with Michigan and roadies at Michigan State and Purdue still to come.

Speaking of the latter, Archie Miller has never beaten Purdue. And the Hoosiers have yet to reach the NCAA Tournament on his watch -- although they might well have last year had the Bastard Plague not wiped out the Madness.

And so now talk of hot seats and buyouts, and the dawning realization that not only are Miller's Hoosiers wildly inconsistent and schematically easy to defend, the talent level is mostly a mirage, too. Outside of Trayce Jackson-Davis and perhaps an emerging Armann Franklin, the Hoosiers simply aren't that good. They may be getting their share of Indiana Mr. Basketballs, but you didn't see a lot of Dukes and Kentuckys trying to elbow Indiana out of the way for most of them. 

So is this Archie's last stand, then?

Maybe.

Only maybe, because, this being corporate college athletics, economics come into play here. Show Miller the road now, and the buyout is a chunk. And that is likely going to provoke a long hard think for the powers-that-be, given the bite the Plague has taken out of the athletic budget.

Miller's Hoosiers could make that an even tougher call if they'd happen to jump up and  beat Michigan in a few days -- or, even better, take down the Purdues in Mackey next week. That could actually happen, because this Indiana team has at least had a weird propensity for springing the occasional Iowa City Miracle on everyone. But right now?

Right now it doesn't look likely. Right now this is a team that has too much give-up in it -- or so it would appear.

And that buyout, consequently?

Looks less and less scary every day.