Analysis: Wisconsin shows why you shouldn't get too far ahead of yourself with Indiana's schedule

I was on an in-state radio show on Tuesday morning and the host had this to say about Indiana’s month of January in the Big Ten.

He said, including Tuesday night’s home game against Wisconsin, that Indiana would likely be favored in its next seven games through the Jan. 30 home game with Minnesota.

He said Indiana has a great chance to make a big early splash in Big Ten play. He even said the Hoosiers could start off 9-0 in conference. Now this was prior to us learning later in the day that James Blackmon Jr. is out indefinitely after knee surgery on Tuesday afternoon. And yet it was also with the belief that Blackmon was going to still be out for an extended period of time even if he didn’t have the surgery.

But my point to the radio guy was this: This is Indiana. And things rarely go the way you expect them to go. The most dangerous thing an Indiana basketball fan can do is to start looking ahead at the schedule and saying, ‘They’ll win that game easily and I think they’ll win this one but it will be a little tougher’ and on and on.

The reality is that they’re all tough and unless everything is clicking you’re going to be lucky to get out of some games with a victory.

Tuesday’s night 59-58 victory over Wisconsin is the perfect example. This one was supposed to be easy, right? This was a Wisconsin team that lost at home to Western Illinois. It also lost by a point to Milwaukee and by two points to Marquette. Last week it lost by six points at home to Purdue.

Now, somehow people seem to have forgotten that this team beat Syracuse by seven on the road when the Orange were ranked No. 14 and Temple by 16 at home. Temple knocked off a pretty good Georgetown team Tuesday night.

But this isn’t even so much about the opponent as it is about the things that Indiana needs to do to be successful.

For Indiana to be able to put away any opponents, big or small, it has to do some fundamental things. It has to take care of the basketball and not make so many careless mistakes. IU turned it over 19 times against Wisconsin and those miscues led to 24 Badger points. Yogi Ferrell and Robert Johnson each turned it over five times. That’s just not acceptable but it continues to happen over and over again.

Indiana also needs to do a good job on the offensive glass. For the season, the Hoosiers had averaged 12.5 offensive rebounds per game. In the first two Big Ten games that average had been 11.5.

Tuesday night against Wisconsin, Indiana had four offensive rebounds and one was a team rebound. Troy Williams had two and O.G. Anunoby had one. Because of that Indiana had zero second chance points. The previous season low had been six points and IU had been in double figures in second chance points in 11 of 15 games. That’s a long way from zero.

And Indiana needs to shoot well from beyond the 3-point line, especially when IU gets wide open looks like Nick Zeisloft got time after time against the Badgers. And you especially expect the Hoosiers to be good from distance at home. But that wasn’t the case Tuesday night either. IU was 7-of-17 from 3-point range. That sounds okay but let’s take a closer look. If you take away Anunoby and Max Bielfeldt, who were a combined 4 for 4, the Hoosiers were 3 of 13 from beyond the arc. Those shots all came from Johnson, Ferrell and Zeisloft, guys that you expect to be able to knock down open shots especially at home.

Now, once again, the only thing that really matters about Tuesday’s game with Wisconsin is that the Hoosiers found a way to win. IU has won eight in a row overall and is 13-3 on the season. Indiana is a perfect 9-0 at Assembly Hall heading into Sunday’s game with Ohio State.

But I will definitely caution against people who want to start looking down the schedule and crossing off games that Indiana will surely win. Yes, four of the next six are at home but the two road games – Minnesota and Wisconsin – have been places that have been very difficult for Indiana to win.

For example, the last time Indiana won in Madison was 18 years ago in the 1998 campaign. Since then the Hoosiers have lost 13 in a row in the Kohl Center. Minnesota has been a little friendlier but not much. Since 1997, IU is 3-12 in The Barn. In the last six trips to Minneapolis, the Hoosiers are 1-5.

Will Indiana be favored in those games? Maybe. But the point is with this Indiana basketball team in particular it is better to take games one at a time and hope the Hoosiers can find a way to continue to separate themselves from the pack in the Big Ten.

Otherwise those dreams of 9-0 could quickly turn to 6-3 … or worse.