To Move Forward, Indiana Men's Basketball Must Stop Looking Back

For nearly 30 years, Indiana basketball has had an identity crisis. It’s time to break the cycle.

Since firing Bob Knight in September 2000, Indiana has had a veritable turnstile of head basketball coaches. Over the past 25 years, six men have ascended the ladder and taken their place at the head of Hoosier nation. All have fallen far short of their task to win the school’s sixth national championship.

Indiana’s recent head coaching tenures have been like an endless string of bad first dates. They start with hope, end in disappointment, and the middle involves a lot of talk about a traumatic breakup with an ex.

Mike Woodson is the latest in that unsuccessful line of head coaches. After four years marked by occasional success and shocking failures, his final season in charge has ended with a 19-13 record and another Selection Sunday filled with disappointment for the Hoosiers. The once-proud program has missed the NCAA tournament in seven of the last nine seasons.

If Indiana wants to find success, the program must stop looking back and instead turn its attention to the future. The school’s athletic department has to refuse the pull of what has been, and instead look to what could be.

Banners and Blunders

Indiana’s championship banners hang over Branch McCracken Court like the crumbling ruins of an ancient civilization, casting long shadows over the program they represent. A tie to a distant past long gone but not forgotten. They are a blessing that has become a curse, a reminder of what once was but is no more.

The thing those banners symbolize no longer exists. It has long been dead. A once mighty empire lost to history, Indiana basketball is nothing like it was at its height. While strong building blocks remain, the program is a pile of rubble, longing to be rebuilt. Unfortunately, Indiana has needed a master architect and continues hiring guys only capable of slapping a coat of paint over what already exists. The university finally has a chance to find the right guy, but if it wants to find success moving forward, it must let go of that now-distant past.

The Hoosiers haven’t won a national championship since 1987. In the intervening 38 years, things have changed dramatically. Attempting to recreate what worked then would be a fool’s errand.

For better or worse, Knight was a singular presence—a beating heart, pumping blue blood through Indiana’s basketball program. He was 31 when his first campaign in Bloomington tipped off, and he led the program to the Final Four in his second season. The brash, dogged coach guided the Hoosiers to an undefeated season and won a national title by the time he was 35. When the 1987 season wrapped up, he had two more to his name. He created a culture of excellence, wrapped in accountability and hard-nosed play that was also rife with verbal and physical abuse. Understandably, fans gaze back longingly at that era given the the program's success.

Since Knight’s acrimonious exit from the university, Indiana has tried to recapture his magic with several coaches. His assistant, Mike Davis, was up first. When Kelvin Sampson’s two-year run rife with NCAA violations ended, former Knight guard and assistant Dan Dakich took over briefly. Tom Crean, who grew up idolizing Hoosier great Kent Benson and attended Bob Knight coaching clinics, was next. After Crean was Archie Miller, whose brusque personality and dedication to hard-nosed defense and discipline echoed the tenets of Knight’s reign. Then Miller was replaced by Woodson, a former IU All-American and one of Knight’s favorite players.

What Indiana needs is a full reboot. Knight’s long shadow must be left where it belongs: in the past.

When Knight arrived in Bloomington, he had no ties to the university. He played at Ohio State, coached at Army, and was given the chance to build something from the ground up. It had been 21 years since basketball-mad Indiana had seen a national championship when he stepped on campus. It has now been 38 years since Knight won the school’s last. In the interim, the program has been trying to hold onto something that no longer exists, gripping the past so hard that success has slipped from its fingers.

Nostalgia is a powerful emotion, and there’s nothing wrong with embracing it—until it begins to hold you back.

A Future, Free From the Past

As Indiana athletic director Scott Dolson winds this coaching search to its inevitable conclusion, he shouldn’t try to appease older fans and former players, or hire someone who “understands Indiana.” He should solely be focused on landing the best coach available. Someone who can navigate the changing landscape of college basketball understands the modern game and can coach and recruit it. Dolson’s job isn’t to find the next Bob Knight. It’s to find someone who wins. And wins big.

There’s a fallacy among sports fans that coaches create culture. In reality, coaches set the tone, players execute their plans and winning creates culture. Indiana hasn’t done enough winning over the past 25 years to have a culture worth discussing.

Fans will forgive a lot when a program wins. It won’t matter who Dolson hires if the Hoosiers can once again take their place among the nation’s best. No matter who the coach is, he’ll win over the state by stacking victories.

Indiana has the resources to be a top college basketball program again. Its combination of fan support, facilities, commitment to winning, and a hefty NIL war chest remains among the best in the nation. The program is a sleeping giant awaiting its wake-up call.

Indiana must find a future free from the past. Hire someone who can wipe the slate clean and forge their own path. Those banners and that storied history will always remain, but it’s time for a new chapter in the book of Indiana basketball.

A Final Chance to Get It Right

After decades of false starts and disappointments, Indiana can’t hire the wrong coach again. Another miss and more years spent floundering will only increase the apathy of one of the most passionate fanbases in all of sports. The basketball-crazed state needs its flagship program to mirror that intensity. Watching Purdue become a model Big Ten program has only made things worse. While the Boilermakers have embraced the future, the Hoosiers have stood and stared at their trophy case like a guy who peaked in high school.

Indiana fans will never forget the past, nor should they. The highs of yesterday will always be an essential part of the program’s DNA. But history doesn’t win basketball games in the present.

Leave the past where it belongs. The future is there for the taking. Indiana finally has the chance to seize it.