Author: Ross Bembenek

Ross Bembenek is an Indiana-based sports writer for Hardwood Heroics. His primary focus is covering Big Ten and other Midwestern college basketball teams.

On what they hoped would be a night to remember, the No. 11 Michigan State Spartans (19-5, 10-4 Big Ten) will be hoping to forget Tuesday’s matchup with the Indiana Hoosiers (15-10, 6-8 Big Ten). After racing out to an early 20-8 lead midway through the first half, the Spartans limped their way through the rest of the game, ultimately falling 71-67 to an Indiana team that was desperate for a win following head coach Mike Woodson’s announcement that he will retire at the conclusion of the season. It was a tale of two (and a half) halves for the…

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After six losses in their last seven games and calls for head coach Mike Woodson to be fired from their home fans, the Indiana Hoosiers (14-9, 5-7 Big Ten) made it official on Friday afternoon. Athletic director Scott Dolson released a statement announcing Woodson’s intention to retire after the conclusion of the 2024/25 season. In the statement published on the team’s website, Dolson thanked Woodson for his four-year tenure with the Hoosiers.  “Coach Woodson is a class act… I want to thank him for coming back to Bloomington and accepting the challenge of rebuilding our program and re-connecting it with…

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As the 2024/25 season starts to wind down, many teams across the country are starting to look forward to the postseason. For the Indiana Hoosiers, however, things are pointing in a different direction. Sitting at 5-7 in Big Ten conference play and 14-9 overall, Indiana is on pace to miss the NCAA Tournament for the second consecutive season and the seventh time in nine years. Many of the Hoosier faithful in Bloomington and across the country have been looking for someone to blame for the team’s recent struggles, and many have settled on one culprit: head coach Mike Woodson. Indiana…

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Another day, another double-digit conference loss for Mike Woodson’s Indiana Hoosiers (14-9, 5-7 Big Ten). The Hoosiers traveled to Madison, Wisconsin Tuesday night for a matchup with the #21 Wisconsin Badgers (18-5, 8-4 Big Ten) after a late collapse against arch-rival Purdue on January 31. After a lifeless final five minutes against the Boilermakers, Indiana failed to reignite a spark against the Badgers, falling 76-64. The Hoosiers started off on a pitiful note, going 2/10 from the field alongside three turnovers in the game’s opening eight minutes, ultimately trailing 26-4 with 12:33 remaining in the first half. Indiana finished the…

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Indiana Hoosiers head coach Mike Woodson just stared out onto the court as Purdue forward Trey Kaufman-Renn sank a pair of free throws to extend the  #10 Boilermakers’ lead to five with two seconds remaining in Friday night’s contest. It was all he could do as time expired, the scoreboard showing the sold-out Mackey Arena crowd an 81-76 Purdue Boilermakers victory. Indiana was led by sophomore forward Mackenzie Mgbako, who tallied 25 points and 5 rebounds on 10/17 shooting from the field. The two-headed monster of Trey Kaufman-Renn and Braden Smith once again led the Boilers through the night. Kaufman-Renn…

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It might officially be time to panic for the North Carolina Tar Heels (13-9, 6-4 ACC). After holding a 10-point lead with three minutes to play in the first half of their Wednesday night clash with the Pittsburgh Panthers (14-6, 5-4 ACC), the six-time NCAA national champions may face an uphill climb toward a bid to this year’s NCAA Tournament. Despite winning the rebound battle 38-28 and posting a double-digit lead at one point in the game, North Carolina was thoroughly out-played by the Panthers Wednesday night. Led by a well-rounded performance from sophomore guard Jaland Lowe (18 points, 7…

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St. John’s Red Storm head coach Rick Pitino has been around the block a few times in college basketball. The 72-year-old coach has been coaching basketball in some capacity since he took an assistant coaching job with the University of Hawai’i in 1974. He’s one of the last of a generation of coaches that helped define the sport in the 1990s and 2000s.  As many of his counterparts hang up their suits and ride off into retirement, including the likes of Mike Krzyzewski, Roy Williams, and Jim Boeheim, Pitino coaches away. Now in his second season as head coach of…

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Three days after his team “messed up” and blew a double-digit halftime lead against Ohio State, head coach Matt Painter and the #11 Purdue Boilermakers (16-5, 8-2 Big Ten) came to play angry Friday night against Dusty May and his #21 Michigan Wolverines (14-5, 6-2 Big Ten). Within the game’s opening minute, the Boilers had forced two Michigan turnovers and set the tone for what became a 91-64 rout of the Wolverines. On Purdue’s annual Hammer Down Cancer fundraiser night, the Boilermakers brought the hammer down on Michigan. Purdue led by as many as 30 points and forced the Wolverines…

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The North Carolina Tar Heels (12-8, 5-3 ACC) have had a rough (by North Carolina standards) start to the 2024/25 season. Currently sitting in a three-way tie for fourth place in the ACC, the Tar Heels have only gone 1-5 in games against teams ranked in the AP Top 25 this season and are currently considered to be on the bubble for an at-large bid to this year’s NCAA Tournament per ESPN’s Bracketology.  However, head coach Hubert Davis may have found a long-term solution to many of the Tar Heels’ problems on Thursday when five-star power forward recruit Caleb Wilson…

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The #16 Ole Miss Rebels (15-4, 4-2 SEC) were either tied with or ahead of the #13 Texas A&M Aggies (15-4, 4-2 SEC) for 39 minutes and 46 seconds of their Southeastern Conference game on Wednesday night. The other 14 seconds, however, proved to be the deciding factor in the matchup of ranked opponents. A&M’s Manny Obaseki sank a three-pointer with 00:14 showing on the game clock to give the Aggies a 63-62 lead and the Rebels failed to get a basket as time expired, gifting Texas A&M the victory on Ole Miss’s home floor. After taking a 60-52 lead…

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The Indiana Hoosiers (14-6, 5-4 Big Ten) once again found themselves on the wrong side of a second-half comeback Wednesday night, giving up 54 points after halftime against the Northwestern Wildcats (12-7, 3-5 Big Ten) en route to a 79-70 loss. After taking a 31-25 lead into halftime, the Hoosiers had an excruciating defensive collapse after the break. Northwestern, after being held to only 25 points on 30.8% shooting in the first half, lit up Indiana in the second half to the tune of 54 points on 62.5% shooting from the floor and 64.3% shooting from beyond the three-point arc.…

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Dan Hurley and the #19 UConn Huskies’ (14-5, 6-2 Big East) 2024/25 season hasn’t gone entirely to plan so far.. The two-time defending national champions sit one game behind Marquette and St. John’s in the Big East and have played through some uncomfortably close games over the last two weeks. One such game came on Tuesday night when the Huskies hosted the struggling Butler Bulldogs (8-11, 1-7 Big East). Holding a 39-31 lead at the halftime break, UConn allowed the Bulldogs to claw back into the game. Butler took a 68-66 lead with only two minutes remaining in the game…

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The #10 Marquette Golden Eagles (16-3, 7-1 Big East) turned in another dominant performance on Tuesday night, defeating the struggling Seton Hall Pirates (6-13, 1-7 Big East) 76-59. Coming off a heartbreaking home loss to Xavier in which their offense struggled to get anything going, Marquette bullied their hosts on both ends of the floor. The Golden Eagles scored 28 points in the paint and forced the Pirates into a whopping 24 turnovers on the night.  Senior Kam Jones led Marquette with 19 points on 7/11 shooting to go along with 4 assists. Sophomore Isaiah Coleman led Seton Hall, scoring…

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Head coach Matt Painter’s #11 Purdue Boilermakers (15-2, 7-2 Big Ten) faced an unfamiliar sight on Tuesday night: a loss on their home floor. Not just a loss, but a full-blown collapse against an Ohio State Buckeyes (11-8, 3-5 Big Ten) team that came to West Lafayette as losers of four of their last five games. Leading 41-28 at halftime, the Boilermakers appeared to be cruising to their eighth consecutive victory before an ice-cold second half sank the hopes of both the team and the 14,000 Boilermaker fans packed inside Mackey Arena. The 73-70 loss, sealed when Purdue’s 2023-24 All-Big…

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Early in the morning on January 25, 2021, college basketball’s weekly Top 25 poll from the Associated Press was released. At the bottom, in the final ranked spot, sat the Louisville Cardinals. Fresh off a 70-65 victory over the Duke Blue Devils, the Cardinals saw themselves return to the Top 25 after a one-week hiatus. Only two days later, after a 9:00 P.M. tip-off against ACC foe Clemson, the Cardinals fell 54-50. That loss would cause the Cardinals to fall out of the next edition of the AP Top 25, and the once-storied program began a long, dark descent into…

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