Six days ago, the men's hoops team at Indiana University was 17-1 and ranked in the top ten nationally.  Now, after losing to UConn at home last week - the first home loss of the Kelvin Sampson era - and last night's drubbing at Wisconsin, the Hoosiers are now a team in turmoil.  They've been exposed as a relatively unathletic, mistake prone, and undisciplined ballclub that's relied on pure talent and a weak schedule to boost their national standing.

Their offense is almost motionless, so no one gets open inside 25 feet unless D.J. White (the heart and soul of this team, no doubt) works himself free.  A simple 2-3 zone causes them all sorts of fits, probably because they run the same gap offense against a 2-3 that we used to run on my JV team back in 1988.  Too often they simply sit back and wait for Eric Gordon to take over and create something on his own.  The supporting cast, which has had several players make key plays in some games but none consistently, simply isn't good enough to take over when Gordon is injured, as he was last night when he sported a fairly large wrap on his left wrist.  Defense: that's played merely by coincidence.

Had the pre-conference schedule been a bit tougher, perhaps these problems would have been hashed out.  But in fairness, Southern Illinois was supposed to be better than they are.  Georgia Tech was supposed to be better; Kentucky's having an off year but that's a regular game; Connecticut's not as good as...oops, never mind...

Maybe this is all karma taking over for the way coach Kelvin Sampson stole Gordon out from under Illinois' nose last year.  And relying on talent alone is probably good enough to finish no worse than fourth in the Big 11 10, get a 4-6 seed in the tournament, and be done by the end of week 1.  That's not exactly what the fans had in mind this year.

Regardless, two things can be taken away as positive developments from last night.  One, when the NCAA comes calling in five years to levy sanctions against the school for all the likely violations they committed in recruiting this class of players, there won't be a banner that they need to take down.  And two, at least our coach doesn't dress like this guy: