Progress report

There are few verities more eternal than the one that says if you live long enough, there's nothing you eventually won't see.

And so to Assembly Hall in Bloomington last night, where No. 1 Duke rolled Indiana as expected, winning by 10 points despite missing 14 of 17 from Arcville and needing a 17-4 endgame to put the Hoosiers away. None of that was particularly significant, however. What was significant is the way some Indiana basketball fans lapsed into Indiana Football Fan mode.

You know: Hey, look! We only lost to Duke by 10! And we were only down by four at halftime! Woo-hoo!

Of course, diminished expectations are not a new theme for IU hoops; they tend to follow diminished returns if the diminished returns stick around long enough. But it's still something of a shock to hear some people (not all, surely, but some) regard losing by 10 to Duke as progress.

Even if it's demonstrably true it was.

Fact is, that clearly was not the same Indiana team last night that got carpet-bombed by Indiana State on the same floor to open the season. This suggests the troops are getting used to doing things the Archie Miller Way. And that in turn suggests, as many of us have maintained all along, that the Archie Miller Way is going to work.

Not well enough yet to beat a No. 1 team, even when the No. 1 team doesn't play particularly well. But well enough that it can at least compete with that No. 1 team in a way it couldn't compete with an Indiana State not even a month ago.

Look. Indiana is not going to be competitive against top teams every night this winter, because that's just not the way it works in a new regime's first season. Its 3-point shooters are still going to misfire the way they did last night, when IU went 5-for-21 from the arc itself. Its defensive intensity is occasionally going to go wanting. But last night at least indicated there will be fewer nights like that as the season progresses.

So, yeah. The Hoosiers lost to No. 1 Duke by only 10 points. And it's still November. Woo-hoo, indeed.