Oh, the continuing mystery

 I don't know what that was Your Indiana Hoosiers trotted out in the second half at Maryland yesterday (A basketball team? Damn, that looks like a basketball team). But I do know it's putting crazy thoughts in my head.

Insane thoughts. Ridiculous thoughts. The kind of thoughts born of prisoner-of-the-moment overreaction, which is inevitably followed by finger-pointing, laughter and "What a maroon!" ridicule.

The main crazy thought the Hoosiers put in my head goes something like this: If they play like that, they could be this year's Penn State in the Big Ten tournament next week.

Remember that? Penn State comes into the 2023 Big Ten show straight from Nowheresville, and then begins beating teams who've slapped them around all winter. Got all the way to the championship game, the Nittany Lions did, before losing to Big Ten champ Purdue.

I'm not saying that's going to be Your Hoosiers this week. I'm not even saying yesterday's 83-78 win was actually real, even though Maryland is terrible and so perhaps it was real. But if you're Indiana's first-round opponent and you were watching them in the second half yesterday, you maybe were thinking "Crap, NOW they decide to play? There goes that walkover."

About that second half: Indiana was down 16 early, and then started doing some distinctly un-Indiana things, like hitting not just the broad side of the barn but every side of the barn. The Hoosiers shot 74 percent (19 of 26) in the second half. Made 12 consecutive shots at one point. Went 10-of-10 from the stripe even though they came into the game as one of the worst free-throw shooting teams in the nation (65 percent).

Shoot. They even splashed seven of 16 attempts from behind the arc, where not even the broad side of the barn has been a reasonable goal most of the season. Mackenzie Mgbako, who scored 18 of his 24 points in the second half, had four of the seven treys.

All of it added up to this: From the time the Hoosiers fell behind 51-35 with just under 18 minutes to play, they outscored Maryland 48-27. 

"The hell was THAT?" people watching said.

And those were just the IU fans.

Everyone else, well ... it occurs now that Indiana has now won two games in a row for the first time since December, and that maybe Mike Woodson continually whining about not having Xavier Johnson at the point most of the season was not just whining. Maybe this really is a different basketball team with him in the lineup.

He has, after all, been on the floor for those two straight Ws,a nd Sunday he scored 13 points and dished half-a-dozen assists. He also hit 5-of-7 from the floor, setting the tone for everyone else. The six dimes and 5-of-7 shooting were season bests for him.

So what does all this mean for the Big Ten tournament this week?

Beats me. Maybe my crazy thought won't be so crazy. Maybe it will look totally batshite if the Hoosiers follow Sunday with another flameout. Raising expectations only to dash them has been their leit motif this season, after all.

What I do know is this: Pinocchio looked like a real boy yesterday. It remains to be seen if that was just magic, or touchable reality.