Look, I' m not here to tell you Kel'el Ware deciding to show up last night means Mike Woodson will get another season in Bloomington. That would be silly, and not just because I believe Woody bought himself some grace by making Da Tournament the last two seasons.
Three seasons, with one of them crummy, isn't enough for another pink slip. Not when you've pink-slipped four other coaches since Bob Knight forced the school to fire him. Reputations precede you, and Indiana's fast getting one as a school with zero patience and an exceedingly itchy trigger finger.
But enough about that. What I'm here to tell you is how exceedingly weird last night was.
It wasn't just that the Hoosiers jumped up and beat a top-half-of-the-Big-Ten team in Wisconsin, 74-70. It was everything that went with the W.
Like blowing a 15-point lead, then holding Wisky scoreless across the last 2:56, during which the Badgers went 0-of-6 from the field
Like the sporadically motivated Ware pulling a 27-point, 11-rebound, five-block night out of the ether or some anatomical feature that shall go unnamed.
Like the notoriously Clank City Hoosiers shooting a ridiculous 61.7 percent (29 of 47) -- including a completely absurd 42.9 percent (8 of 14) from the 3-point arc, where they usually can't hit water if they fell off that door Kate Winslet hogged in "Titanic."
It wasn't just an aware Ware, in other words. Malik Reneau added 14 points and eight boards for Indiana before picking up a fifth foul so dumb not just Woodson but his assistants were hollering at him as he came to the bench. Mackenzie Mgbako chipped in with 14 more points. And Trey Galloway dished a dozen assists.
This on a night when, to top it all off, play was suspended and Assembly Hall briefly evacuated because someone pulled a fire alarm. Which, you know, isn't weird at all.
"Hey, that's just Indiana," you're saying now.
To which I can only add: The state or the basketball team?
No comments:
Post a Comment