The Indiana Hoosiers are 8-0. The Wisconsin Badgers are 4-4. Yet, when these teams meet Saturday afternoon in the Kohl Center, no one should think those two records mean much of anything… and I dare say that Indiana fans would probably agree.
It doesn’t really matter that much that Indiana is 8-0. The Hoosiers have played a tissue-soft schedule with the exception of Florida State in the Big Ten-ACC Challenge. Yes, the Hoosiers deserve substantial credit for easily handling the Seminoles by 16 points, 80-64. That win will travel in winter and be valuable in March. However, the Hoosiers have largely spent the first month of their season fattening up on cupcakes.
North Alabama. Portland State. Troy. Western Illinois. IU has also beaten Louisiana Tech, which just won at Mississippi State, so that’s not quite a cupcake. South Dakota State has a good mid-major reputation. Princeton isn’t particularly good this season, but the Tigers have been a quality mid-major for much of the past quarter-century in college basketball. Nevertheless, the larger point is plain: Indiana generally hasn’t challenged itself. Not that much, at any rate. The Hoosiers have played eight home games, not even a single neutral-site game.
Indiana’s first true road game of the season is this Wisconsin game. Good luck, Hoosiers. Indiana fans know that both teams in this Saturday Big Ten opener — not just one — play under the burden of needing to prove they can play well in all environments. Wisconsin has struggled away from Madison this season, as we saw not just in the North Carolina State loss, but also in Brooklyn. Indiana hasn’t yet lost a game, but Indiana hasn’t yet played away from home, so the Hoosiers — even with their unblemished 8-0 mark — deserve to be doubted to a certain degree.
We have seen this movie before: Indiana, when fully motivated and amped up by an electric Assembly Hall crowd in Bloomington, can beat any team in America. We saw that under Tom Crean, and it can still sometimes be true under Archie Miller. Get the Hoosiers away from Assembly Hall, though, and they often become a shadow of their home-court selves. This sounds pretty familiar.
Wisconsin isn’t the only team with a home-road split personality. Guess which team has to prove it can win away from home on Saturday: It’s not the Badgers.