Today in overreacting

Your Indiana Hoosiers, America's shiny new Sneaky Final Four Team, got themselves ball-peened in Assembly Hall last night by 22 points, and suddenly everyone's forgotten what they said three days ago. It's as if it happened a century ago.

Three days ago, see, milkmen still delivered and doctors still made house calls and America was wholesome and good, except for the bootleggers and gangsters. And your Indiana Hoosiers were punting No. 5 Purdue into lunar orbit in Mackey Arena, the way the basketball gods intended.

Ah, but then came Tuesday evening, and Iowa 90, Indiana 68 ...

And suddenly the Hoosiers were no longer America's shiny new Sneaky Final Four Team.

Suddenly they were soft. And they had no senior leadership. And Mike Woodson, poor man, couldn't keep his team on task for two games in a row. 

In other words, all the things NO ONE was saying after the Hoosiers strapped Purdue to a rail and ran it up the Monon line (A "Hoosiers" reference for the unschooled.)

Know what the Blob thinks?

The Blob thinks some of you need to pour yourself a cup of hot tea and calm the bleep down.

Yes, the Hoosiers were terrible last night. They were everything they weren't Saturday evening in West Lafayette: Listless, unfocused, uninterested, even. With a share of the Big Ten title still in play, they didn't, well, play.

Iowa outrebounded the Hoosiers 39-27. They shot 55.6 percent and an absurd 56.5 percent from the three-point arc (13 of 23) against token Indiana defense. And for Indiana?

Well, Jalen Hood-Schifino did not go for 35 again. He went for eight, on 4-of-12 shooting. Trey Galloway, so instrumental in the Purdue win, scored seven points. Miller Kopp, also instrumental, vanished into the ether, taking just five shots and making two, with zero threes.

Only senior Trayce Jackson-Davis balled out, putting up a 26-13 double-double with five assists, four steals and a block.

Yet suddenly he was back to being soft again, just like his team. And apparently not a senior leader, either, although 26 points, 13 boards, five assists, four steals and a block sure looks like leadership by example from this precinct.

Listen. You know what last night was?

Last night was a hangover. They happen sometimes in college.

You beat your ancient rival twice for the first time in 10 years -- and not just beat them, but BEAT THEM -- you're going to get a trifle giddy. Especially when the rival is ranked No. 5 in the country and spent several weeks at No. 1. And especially when you've won 10 of your last 13 games and, for the next three days, all these people around the country are using "Final Four" and "Indiana" in the same breath.

(And, OK, so not everyone was doing that. Some people who did not completely lose their minds said we needed to pump the brakes. Which means there was still a little perspective in the room.)

In any event, I think all that talk tends to cloud the mind to the task at hand. Even when it's the doorstep of March and the task at hand is, you know, kind of important. And even when you're facing an Iowa team that was battling for the same piece of ground in the Big Ten standings.

The Blob is generally lousy at surmising, but here's a bit of it: I don't think last night looks remotely the same had it been a Thursday game instead of Tuesday. I think with an additional 48 hours, Indiana's focus would have been better, its sense of urgency better, its intensity better (or at least present).

I also think when Michigan comes into the Hall for Senior Day on Sunday, the Wolverines are going to see a very different Indiana team. I think they're going to see an Indiana team that looks a lot more like the team Purdue saw in the second half in Mackey.

After which the Sneaky Final Four Team talk will resume. Overreacting being what it is.