Time to Warm Up The Hot Seat

Once again, after a blistering start to the season, the Indiana Hoosiers are doing what they always do: losing in the Big Ten. Kelvin Sampson showed up last year with his big recruiting pickup and the promise of turning things around and hanging more championship banners in Assembly Hall. for the first half of last season, the Hoosiers lost several close games to very good teams on the road, won some other good games, and competed in the Big Ten. However, IU was never really an ultra-strong team, and they lost in ugly fashion to Illinois in the Big Ten Tournament and to UCLA in the NCAA Tournament.

This season, however, things looked to turn around. A talented recruiting class, led by Eric Gordon, was added to some fine veterans, including DJ White. The Hoosiers were expected to compete with Michigan State for the Big Ten title and they were expected to easily exceed 20 wins. The thing that is really annoying is that this actually looks to be the way the season is going to turn out. Unfortunately, the Hoosiers, like they've done in so many years past, seem to be mailing it in during the most important part of the season.

Don't get me wrong, the Hoosiers are 6-1 in the conference and 17-3 overall, which is much better than they have been doing in the past 10 years or so. However, if you've actually watched the games, you are seeing something troubling. The Hoosiers have been disgustingly weak on defense this year, despite playing for a coach who prides himself on his defensive game. After beating Minnesota on the road, easily their best victory this season, the Hoosiers have fallen to pieces on offense as well. They still score a fine number of points, but they've looked shaky while doing it.

The game before the trip to Minnesota, a home tilt against Illinois, the Hoosiers struggled a bit, finally winning by four points. People, myself included, seemed to chalk that down to the emotions of the Illini, who were facing their favorite former recruit. Then IU struggled for a half against Penn State, looking none too good while giving up the lead several times to the Nittany Lions. Later on, the Hoosiers played Iowa and put up another weak first half showing. After that, everything fell apart. IU put up something slightly above zero effort and allowed Connecticut to walk all over them in Indiana's first home loss in two years. Then the Hoosiers went on the road to Wisconsin and found a way to put up an even worse effort in a nasty loss to the Badgers.

The bottom line is that, despite what Kelvin Sampson may have dome so far for this program, this program is not performing to its potential. In pro basketball, it's easy to blame such things on the players, but the only people responsible in college are the coaches. A team with two Naismith Award candidates and some of the best players you may not have heard of should not be playing with the lack of coherence and passion that this team is showing. IU's record should be 19-1 or 20-0 at this point, given what they have taking the floor each game. Kelvin Sampson, if he cannot get this team playing at the level that it should be playing, will be squarely upon the hot seat with Indiana fans.