On March 28, 2013, the Indiana Hoosiers took the court at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., for their Sweet Sixteen matchup against Syracuse. Indiana had begun the NCAA Tournament as a No. 1 seed for the first time since 1993 and the Hoosier faithful had visions of Final Fours dancing in their heads. Alas, like so many teams in March, Indiana could not solve Jim Boeheim’s bedeviling 2-3 matchup zone defense. Syracuse prevailed, 61-50, and went on to reach the Final Four.

That was the Hoosiers’ second straight trip to the Sweet Sixteen. Before that, they had been there just once in 18 years. That represented significant progress, yet IU fans pilloried Tom Crean, the Hoosiers’ fifth-year coach, for the disappointing exit. Crean took the Hoosiers back to the Sweet Sixteen in 2016, where as a No. 5 seed they lost to No. 3 North Carolina, but the following season the program took a precipitous dip. The Hoosiers went from being ranked No. 3 in the AP Poll in November to tenth place in the Big Ten with a 7-11 record (18-16 overall). Their season ended with a loss to Georgia Tech in the first round of the NIT.

At most programs, three Sweet Sixteens in five years would buy a coach a lot of equity. At Indiana, it was considered an underachievement. When things went sour for Crean, that loss to Syracuse four years before was held up as Exhibit A that he could only take the Hoosiers so far. Never mind that he had rejuvenated a program that had completely bottomed out following Kelvin Sampson’s dismissal. This was Indiana, by God, and Hoosier fans had the right to expect more. The school sent Crean packing.

That history is worth recalling as we assess the diminished state of this once-proud program. On Tuesday night, the Hoosiers lost at home to Illinois, 94-69. It was the most points a visiting team has ever scored in Assembly Hall. Three days before, they had lost 85-60 at unranked Iowa. The Hoosiers rebounded with a gritty 77-76 overtime win at Ohio State on Friday night, which improved their Big Ten record to 5-3 (14-5 overall). The Hoosiers are now ranked No. 62 in the NET and have a 2-5 record in Quad 1 games.

The win over the Buckeyes gave Indiana coach Mike Woodson a brief reprieve, but the sounds of the IU fans chanting “Fire Woodson” during the pummeling by Illinois will echo for a while. It was shocking to see the fans turn against one of their own, but apparently they had seen one too many blowouts. All five of Indiana’s losses this season have come by 15 or more points. According to Alex Bozich of Inside the Hall, Woodson’s teams have lost by 15 or more points 23 times and by 20 or more 11 times.

As bad as that is, Woodson’s record is still an improvement upon his predecessor, Archie Miller, who was fired after missing out on the NCAA Tournament for four straight years. Woodson was tapped to be Miller’s successor four years ago based on two criteria: The 46 years he spent playing and coaching in the NBA, including eight years as head coach of the Hawks and Knicks, and his four years playing for Bob Knight at Indiana from 1976-80.

Though there is a widespread assumption in the sport that this will be Woodson’s final season in Bloomington, it’s worth nothing that his team still has nine Quad 1 games remaining, not including the Big Ten Tournament. If the Hoosiers can get into the NCAA Tournament and maybe even win a game or two, that could be enough to buy Woodson another year. The win over Ohio State was a reminder of this team’s potential, although the team’s leading scorer, 6-foot-9 junior forward Malik Reneau, has been sidelined by a knee injury since January 2. It’s unclear when he will return.

Indiana’s problems, however, go well beyond the head coach. The real issue is not Woodson but the mindset that led to his hiring in the first place. There’s a fine line between honoring the past and being stuck in it, and Indiana crossed it long ago. Now this program is in dire need of a reset. As one prominent Name, Image and Likeness agent put it in a text message when I asked if he thought Indiana was still a top 10 job nationally, “Kids getting recruited now, in high school and the portal, haven’t seen an elite IU team in their lifetime. Every guy since Knight has been run out of town. Can’t call that a top 10 program.”

There’s a fine line between honoring the past and being stuck in it, and Indiana crossed it long ago. Now this program is in dire need of a reset.

As many people warned at the time of Woodson’s hiring, his lack of experience as a college coach has turned out to be a major impediment. There aren’t many programs in America with more NIL money than Indiana at the moment, yet instead of building a cohesive roster that could succeed in the pace-and-space era, Woodson created a team that is woefully out of date. The Hoosiers attempt 32.3 percent of their shots from three-point range, which ranks No. 330 nationally per KenPom. Their 31.4 three-point percentage ranks 274th. That style may have worked when Woodson played, but in today’s game it’s an anachronism.

When I texted others around the sport asking whether Indiana is a top 10 job, many cited the unrealistic expectations of the fans as a major negative. A prominent agent called the fans “delusional” while another agent added, “The fan base’s expectations can be extreme and unrealistic and I think that scares some coaches. It’s not the prominent tier one job some think.” It’s also apparent that Indiana’s institutional advantages eroded long ago. “I would think Indiana (is) very competitive with NIL, but so are MANY others,” a power conference coach texted me. “There are lots of very good jobs now. It’s more about the NIL and NBA history than tradition. It has been a good while since Indiana has been consistently good.”

It’s hard to tell what burns Indiana fans more – the uneven performances of their own team or the success that their rivals are having with first-year coaches. Louisville, for example, hasn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 2019 and won a total of 12 games the last two seasons. The school hired Charleston coach Pat Kelsey last spring, gave him a ton of NIL money to bring in transfers and now Kelsey has the Cardinals at 6-1 in the ACC (13-5 overall) and No. 28 in the NET. One of their wins came by 28 points over Indiana at the Battle 4 Atlantis.

Mark Pope didn’t have to rebuild Kentucky from the same depths, but he did have to replenish the entire roster after he took over for John Calipari. Pope played for Kentucky’s 1996 NCAA championship team, but having ties to the school was a bonus, not a requirement. After all, Kentucky first tried to poach Scott Drew from Baylor before he turned the job down. The difference between Pope and Woodson is that Pope had extensive experience as a college coach. He used his considerable NIL money to build a roster that fits together and plays a modern, entertaining style. The Wildcats are 14-3 and ranked No. 10 in the NET.

Worst of all for Indiana fans is the way that Dusty May, an IU grad and former student manager under Knight, has succeeded at Michigan. May took over a Michigan program that went 3-17 in the Big Ten last season under Juwan Howard (who, like Woodson, was hired because of his pedigree with the program rather than his qualifications for the job). In rapid fashion, May has rebuilt Michigan’s roster through the portal with far fewer resources than Indiana had and has led the Wolverines to a 5-1 start in the league (13-4 overall) with a No. 15 NET ranking. May was considered to be a leading candidate if Indiana made a move on Woodson last spring. There’s some thought that May didn’t want a fishbowl job (he turned down Louisville) and would not have wanted to be subjected to the fans’ expectations at his alma mater, but it’s a moot point because the conversation never happened.

Can Indiana execute the reset it needs if Woodson remains as coach? Perhaps, but it would require a full commitment from Woodson himself to operate differently, put in longer hours and concede that the things he tried are not working. If Indiana ends up searching for a new coach as many expect, it must to do so with a fresh, realistic and forward-looking perspective. This program was once a blueblood and has the potential to be that again, but at the moment it’s just another program with high hopes, disappointing results and no clear path forward. Whether Woodson stays or goes, Indiana needs to find a way at long last to break from its past. Only then can this program that means so much to so many get back to the future.