INDIANAPOLIS —
Every time Indiana State’s men’s basketball wins a game, you think to yourself, OK, now is when these Sycamores live up to their potential.
That vibe began to permeate again last Tuesday after an undermanned ISU team gutted out an overtime victory over Illinois State.
But the Sycamores keep teasing everyone. The kind of gutty effort ISU had against Illinois State has been the exception this season, not the rule.
Potential? That’s for the preseason. Twenty-eight games are in the books. At some point, you are what you are. What is ISU? A team whose heart, effort and concentration are fleeting.
It was proven again on Saturday against Butler. The listless Sycamores went down 75-54 at Hinkle Fieldhouse in a game that really wasn’t as close as the score indicated.
There’s no shame in a loss to Butler. The Bulldogs are a good team.
But it’s the manner in which ISU loses that’s been disheartening all season long. Heart, effort and concentration are attributes all teams — good or bad — should have each and every game. It should be automatic. But for the Sycamores, it’s been a maddening season-long quest to possess that basic trait.
“We knew how tough they are, we knew how well-coached they’d be. We knew how hard those guys would compete. You tell [the ISU players] and tell them. Maybe they just don’t understand,” ISU coach Greg Lansing said.
Bad as it was, in the rogue’s gallery of ugly ISU losses this season, the defeat against Butler doesn’t rate with the likes of poorly-played nightmares at Drake, Southern Illinois and Bradley.
But that’s kind of the point. A team picked third in the Missouri Valley Conference with NCAA Tournament expectations shouldn’t get to a point where a discussion of its bad losses is part of its vernacular. Instead, it defines ISU’s season.
“It’s frustrating this late in the season to be so inconsistent. This is a rivalry game and we didn’t come out and play,” said Odum, who was scoreless one game after he had notched a career-high 34 points.
It’s abundantly clear that on a game-to-game basis, you never know what Sycamores you’re going to get. It’s had a chilling effect on the entire season.
Put yourself in Lansing’s shoes. How can you truly prepare for any opponent when you don’t know what level of effort or concentration you’re going to get up-and-down the roster on a game-to-game basis?
How can the players have faith in one another when the inconsistency of effort and performance are so varied? Aside from Odum, who has played hurt and whose bad games have been the exception more than the norm, whom do you trust on this team … night in, night out?
Crickets are chirping …
How did this happen? None of the Sycamores seem to know. The on-again, off-again nature of this team has created this limbo-like state where the team keeps waiting for itself to snap out of its inconsistency instead of fighting to make it happen.
There seems to be a lack of understanding that there’s no free lunch in college basketball. If the effort isn’t there, you’re going to get exposed. It’s happened to ISU time and again throughout the season and it happened again on Saturday. At some point, you’d think the Sycamores would learn the lesson, but they seem to have an endless well of performances that suggest they haven’t.
This ISU team is at its best when it has a chip on its shoulder. It had it last year when it felt the league overlooked them. It had it at Vanderbilt. It had it twice against Evansville. It had it in close losses to Wichita State. Those were games that ISU went into with utmost respect for their opponents, knowing full-well they’d get blasted if they didn’t play as if they were the underdog.
But ISU gets into trouble the minute it starts to believe it has turned a corner. ISU expected to win at Drake, Southern Illinois and Bradley. I thought it had momentum today coming off the Illinois State victory. Overconfidence is often their own undoing.
“It’s been an Achilles heel. We rise to the occasion sometimes, but when we’re bad, we’re been pretty bad. We let poor play on the offensive end really get us lackadaisical on the defensive end. We can’t beat anybody like that,” Lansing said.
What’s equally maddening is that the players often see their own lack of effort reflected in the better effort put forth by their foes. R.J. Mahurin, who scored a career-high 22 points on Saturday, could see it in Butler on Saturday.
“They’re a great team. I mean, they went after every rebound. You knew when a shot was up, you were getting pounded. It was that kind of thing,” said ISU forward R.J. Mahurin, who scored a career-high 22 points.
OK, so if Butler can bring that kind of effort into the game, why can’t the Sycamores?
“I think we need to do a better job of that,” Mahurin admitted. “I know it’s in there.”
ISU fans think it’s in there too. But will ISU ever prove it for more than a game at a time? Time is short. ISU has two games and the MVC Tournament to salvage something of the potential that was placed on it going into the season.
One would hope that ISU puts forth the heart, effort and concentration to get the job done. But the Sycamores have teased everyone before. Against 28 games of evidence to the contrary, they need to show, once-and-for-all, that they won’t tease everyone again.
Todd Golden is sports editor of the Tribune-Star. He can be reached at (812) 231-4272 or todd.golden@tribstar.com. Please follow him on Twitter @TribStarTodd.
College
FROM THE PRESS BOX: Effort, heart, concentration are fleeting for ISU
- College
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DeNato proves IU can pitch too
Joey DeNato dispelled the notion that College World Series newcomer Indiana is all about offense.
The junior left-hander threw a four-hitter and the Hoosiers looked mighty comfortable at TD Ameritrade Park while beating Louisville 2-0 on Saturday night. -
Etherington, Moore happy to be with ISU basketball
Not even two weeks into their college experience, Indiana State freshmen men’s basketball players Alex Etherington and Demetrius Moore stood sentinel as 115 kids ran around them collecting basketballs and getting autographs at the Greg Lansing Basketball Camp on Thursday.
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ISU's Johnson invited to World University Games
Indiana State senior Felisha Johnson will be traveling the world this summer after being named to represent the United States in the women’s shot put at the World University Games in Kazan, Russia.
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FROM THE PRESS BOX: Close, but no cigar, theme for ISU sports in 2012-13
When I covered my first event of Indiana State’s 2012-13 season — ISU’s opening football game at Indiana — I was the first one in the press box at IU’s Memorial Stadium. I’m never the first one in the press box.
Maybe the prospect of ISU’s season had me so pumped that I decided to get it started close to three hours early? (Or more truthfully, maybe I was over-vigilent about predicted traffic horrors on the Indiana 46 bypass that never came to pass.) -
Q&A: ISU football coach Mike Sanford ready for fall
It’s hard to believe, but Mike Sanford has already been Indiana State’s football coach for six months.
Time flies, but Sanford’s task of preparing for his first season in charge of the Sycamores comes with few breaks. -
Rex streak ends at 7
The Terre Haute Rex table setters — Kyle Kempf and Tyler Wampler — had three of the team’s eight hits Friday at Bob Warn Field, but the Rex offense found itself in a big early deficit for the first time this season.
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Manaea’s selection puts ISU in spotlight
Once the stress and hang-wringing over where Indiana State pitcher Sean Manaea might get drafted was over, the angst subsided and was replaced with a happier emotion. Pride.
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ISU’s Hope places 13th in NCAA pole vault
Indiana State senior Nicole Hope concluded her final competition of the 2013 outdoor season on Friday as she tied for 13th in the women’s pole vault at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships.
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Metro roundup: Former Sycamores take talents to CFL
Former Indiana State players Johnny Towalid and Justin Hilton were signed by teams in the Canadian Football League this week.
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Exit Minnesota, enter Oregon State on 2016 football schedule
When the Big Ten Conference implemented a nine-game football schedule starting in 2016 and discouraged members from playing Football Championship Subdivision teams, there was one game on Indiana State’s future schedule that was likely on borrowed time.
ISU’s scheduled game at Minnesota in 2016. -
METRO ROUNDUP: Swift reaches finals of NCAA Championships in 110-meter hurdles
Indiana State junior Greggmar Swift will be among the top eight in the NCAA in the 110-meter hurdles after qualifying for Saturday’s finals on Thursday.
Swift ran a time of 13.51 seconds to take third in his heat. He’ll run in either lane 1 or lane 8 on Saturday.
“I got out pretty good and then I hurdled three or four when I got bumped and it threw me off my rhythm,” said Swift, a native of Barbados. “I tried to get back my rhythm … but I held on for the third place.” -
ISU's Manaea selected 34th overall by Royals
Indiana State pitcher Sean Manaea selected 34th overall by the Kansas City Royals.
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Sycamores ready for more NCAA track success
Five of the six Indiana State athletes in Eugene, Ore., already have had some memorable track and field careers for the Sycamores.
But they’ll go ahead and try to add to their list of accomplishments in the NCAA outdoor championships this weekend.
Dustin Betz has been a scorer and key piece of eight Missouri Valley Conference championship teams between track and cross country. He’ll compete today in the 3,000-meter steeplechase as the Sycamores’ second best in the event behind Jordan Fife. -
Mike Lucas joins ISU football staff
What traits do head football coaches seek out when they hire position coaches?
Indiana State football coach Mike Sanford provided insight into that question as he hired former Southeast Louisiana head coach Mike Lucas to his staff Tuesday. Lucas will be the Sycamores’ defensive line coach.
“You have to look at your staff and see what you need. I felt like in this particular case, I wanted an experienced defensive line coach. I feel like we have a mixture of experience and youth and I want to keep that going,” Sanford said. -
TODD GOLDEN: MVC Tourney can be ISU success story if work is done
Prior to last week’s Missouri Valley Conference baseball tournament at Illinois State’s Duffy Bass Field, fear and loathing prevailed in some corners of the conference.
It seemed that Missouri State, Creighton, and most notably, Wichita State, had a monopoly on the season-ending tournament since the Coolidge Administration. (It had actually been since 1998.) How could the tournament make it without playing in one of the three aforementioned universities’ big venues? - COLLEGE REPORT: Wabash College All-American relay team has TH flavor
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Six Sycamores heading to NCAA Track and Field championships
Three Indiana State seniors and a freshman punched their tickets Friday to the NCAA outdoor track and field championships in two weeks at Eugene, Ore. Two more got the job done Saturday on the campus of UNC Greensoboro in the East Preliminary.
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Sycamores bow out of MVC Tournament
Indiana State’s baseball was out of pitching, and after a loss to Wichita State on Thursday, the Sycamores were out of second-chances too at the Missouri Valley Conference baseball tournament. What the Sycamores weren’t out of was heart, guts and clutch performances from some unlikely sources. But in the end, Friday’s elimination game rematch against the Shockers was a sampling of ISU’s season overall — the Sycamores were out of luck.
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Metro Sports: Chalk up No. 5 for Liz Evans
Senior Liz Evans capped the top career in Rose-Hulman athletics history with her fifth national championship and eighth All-American award at Wisconsin-La Crosse on Friday.
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Four Indiana State athletes advance to NCAA outdoor track and field championships
Three Indiana State seniors and a freshman have punched their tickets to the NCAA outdoor track and field championships in two weeks at Eugene, Ore., with their Friday efforts in the 2013 NCAA East Preliminary at Aggie Stadium on the campus of North Carolina A&T.
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Wichita State shuts out ISU to force elimination-game rematch
Indiana State starting pitcher Greg Kuhlman did his best.
Actually, he did far better than he ever has previously in an ISU uniform, but while Kuhlman’s gutty pitching effort spoke volumes, ISU’s bats remained ominously silent. -
Indiana State baseball now one win from MVC Championship
Indiana State’s Wednesday morning wish list probably read something like this: a dominant complete game effort from starting pitcher Devin Moore, near-immaculate defense to support him, and a steady diet of clutch situational hitting from lineup spots one to nine.
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Terre Haute's Mascari running 10,000 meters for chance to get to Hayward Field
Indiana State freshman and Terre Haute North graduate John Mascari is among the enormous group of Sycamores competing this weekend at the NCAA East Preliminary. The top 48 NCAA track and field competitors in each event on this half of the United States are narrowed down to 12 who will compete at the NCAA meet at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore.
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Manaea's shoulder causing him latest pain
Indiana State pitcher Sean Manaea has battled through so many aches and pains during the 2013 season that it can be hard to discern the serious pain from the pain he pitches through.
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ISU's Negele answers call in big way in wake of Manaea injury
When Indiana State starting pitcher Sean Manaea slumped on the mound in obvious pain after he took his warm-up pitches, red flags raised for ISU’s Missouri Valley Conference tournament hopes.
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ISU baseball hoping Manaea can get its MVC Tournament moving in right direction
Indiana State’s baseball team has been waiting all season for its stars to align.
But this is the 2013 Sycamores, after all, and after a season in which seemingly little has gone right, it appears its stars will remain crossed at the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament. -
ISU track sending record 22 to postseason
On the heels of their thrilling double victory at the 2013 Missouri Valley Conference Outdoor Track & Field Championships both the Indiana State men and women moved up in the national rankings which were released Tuesday by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA).
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ISU's athletic treasure trove
Think of every championship that Indiana State has won in each of its sports, past and present. Think of every tournament — postseason or regular season — which the Sycamores have claimed as their own.
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Ort sets ISU RBI record in 16-7 win
Robby Ort celebrated his Indiana State baseball Senior Day on Saturday by becoming the Sycamores’ all-time leader in RBIs as ISU ended its regular season with a 16-7 win over Bradley at Bob Warn Field.
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Bradley ends 16-game MVC losing streak against ISU
Momentum was the only thing riding on Indiana State’s baseball game against Bradley on Friday. With a five-game winning streak going, ISU wanted to keep the good vibes going into next week’s Missouri Valley Conference Tournament.
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