Start the clock

If this is how it ends, it ends with a sigh. A profoundly weary one, apparently.

If this is how it ends, zero field goals in nine minutes is the appropriate bang of a whimper.

If this is how it ends, losing to a 15-10 team that played indifferently itself is the F. Scott Fitzgerald final line.

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the FOR GOD'S SAKE INDIANA MAKE A DAMN SHOT!

Yes, the Indiana Hoosiers lost again last night, lost to Rutgers for the third time this season, lost in a manner that suggested not just a basketball team but an entire coaching tenure had run out of steam. Archie Miller is done. It may not happen for another year, financial matters being what they are, but he is done. 

The more hopeful think IU fires him today, but the Blob is doubtful. An athletic department already strapped because of COVID-19 is going to have to think a bit before it decides to take another Joe Frazier hook to the bank account. And swallowing the remaining dollars on Miller's hefty contract would be a painful hook indeed.

So, Crimson Nation waits. And Miller waits.

In the meantime, we contemplate what could well be our last look at his time in Bloomington, and it was the last four years all crammed into one evening. The Hoosiers lost by 11 to a team that missed 36 of its 60 shots and 17 of 23 from the 3-point arc. They lost to a team that turned the ball over three more times than Indiana did. They lost spectacularly, head-grabbingly, fading down the stretch at a time of the season when no team should be fading down the stretch.

"We got fatigued," Miller said when it was done. "We got gassed."

Really, Coach? In March?

And yet, that's not the worst part.

The worst part is, he wasn't wrong.

After taking a 48-47 lead with nine minutes to play, see, the Hoosiers wilted like Valentine's roses on St. Paddy's Day. They scored just two points the rest of the way, both on free throws. They missed their last 13 shots from the field. A horrible shooting team all season, they plumbed new depths, missing 14 of 16 from the arc and shooting 40 percent overall.

They also were outrebounded 41-33. And rebounding is nothing but want-to.

If this is how it ends, that last may be the fitting epitaph. 

We were fatigued. We were gassed.

Start carving it today.

Even if today is not the day, or next week isn't, or 2021.