Indiana Basketball: Three most important players for Hoosiers’ success in tournament
By Adam Childs
The Indiana basketball team is gearing up for the Big Ten and hopefully NCAA tournament. Who are the three guys that are key to the Hoosiers success come tournament time?
The Indiana Hoosiers have had a very up and down season on the hardwood this year. They have picked up a bunch of ranked wins and no bad losses, but have looked very uninspired at times. The offense will go through long stretches of not scoring. The defense will look great one game and lost another.
Head coach Archie Miller has received a lot of criticism about this team and their lack of consistent play, but he still has them on the verge of their first NCAA tournament in three years. Indiana is still on the bubble but they look to be in good shape for a berth after their home win against Minnesota on Wednesday night.
Indiana looks like they will have a tough draw in the Big Ten tournament, but then again any draw is going to be rough this year with the way the conference has played.
It will be tough for the Hoosiers to win the conference tournament, but they have proven they can play with anyone in the conference, beating Michigan State, Penn State, Ohio State, Iowa, and nearly upsetting Maryland. All of those teams currently sit in the top half of the conference and are likely all favorites to win the tournament.
The question will remain if the Hoosiers can put together enough quality games in a row to have a shot at making a run or winning the whole thing. They have struggled to play well in consecutive games and they will have to win four games in four days in order to win the Big Ten tournament.
Hopefully, a bid into the NCAA tournament will be next and while the Hoosiers will likely be an underdog in any matchup they draw, all you need is an invite and a chance and crazy thing can happen.
But in order for anything great to happen in the tournaments for the Hoosiers, they need certain players to be at the top of their game. So who are the most important players for Indiana? We take a look at the three players needing to play their best if the Hoosiers expect to make any noise in March.