Come on, now. Admit it. Part of you saw this coming, right?
Thursday night, the bust-out W against those (bleeping) Purdues, Phinisee With The Phinisher joining Watford For The Win in the pantheon. And those banners at one end of the Hall suddenly looking not so much like artifacts from the days of the Crusades.
Sunday afternoon, and ...
Earth to your Indiana Hoosiers: Welcome back.
And what you take away from Michigan 80, Indiana 62 is the Big Ten is a mean old place that does not allow for either celebratory hangovers or giddy assumptions -- the assumption in this case being that the Hoosiers had revived the program and all would be well from here on out.
Well ... no. It doesn't work that way.
Michigan came in a struggling 8-7 basketball team, but a basketball team with a lot of kids who can play the game off its feet when they're right, and finally they were right Sunday. Hunter Dickinson scored 25 points and dominated the Hoosiers on the low blocks. Stickout freshman Caleb Houstan added 19, including five threes on seven attempts. The Wolverines jumped out to an early 17-7 lead and it never got much better for Indiana.
And Robert Phinisee?
Thursday's hero scored two points on 1-for-5 shooting in 18 minutes.
In that, he was the perfect reflection of the Hoosiers, who perhaps learned yet another lesson to file away for future reference: Heroics don't automatically transfer from one game to the next, and past performance does not guarantee future results, especially in a conference which grinds down everyone in the long January-to-March slog.
Which is to say, Mike Woodson has taught this team to compete, and even to win. Now comes the part about winning consistently and putting whatever happened last time behind you, whether it's a bust-out W or a bust of an L.
Sunday afternoon, Earth paid a visit.
Wednesday, Penn State does likewise.
The grind goes on. And the education.
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