The Indiana basketball team hosted Nebraska basketball on Wednesday night, and it was a roller coaster of a game. The Cornhuskers went up by 20 on the Hoosiers to end the first half, but Indiana came back to get the lead down to three in the second half. Nebraska pulled away again, though, and went on to win the game 85-70.

Indiana basketball was favored in the game, but they ended up losing by double digits at home instead. Hoosiers head coach Mike Woodson talked after the game, and he thought that the 51-point first half from Nebraska basketball plagued his team.

“When you give a 51 points in the Big Ten in a half, you're not gonna beat anybody,” Mike Woodson said after the game, according to a video posted by The Daily Hoosier. “And yeah we played great in the second half to get back in it and to cut it to three but we had no defensive effort. I thought in the first half we weren't up to touch. They made some tough threes but you can't have two halves like that, you got to have have one like you did in the second half in the first half and then see what happens. So I gotta keep working with them and see if I can give them a plan with two halves.”

Wednesday night wasn't the first time that we have seen this Indiana team struggle. They are playing shorthanded, and it has been an all around tough year for the Hoosiers.

“We're young,” Woodson continued. “We're missing our senior point guard. We're trying to play a freshman at point guard. It's tough. You know, and Gallo [Trey Galloway] struggled tonight and trying to play the point with his six turnovers. It's a lot that comes in play with that. We played well enough this year in spurts but not well enough to complete ball games and that's what makes it frustrating.”

When a team struggles like this, it's easy for them to get down on themselves. That is the case right now for Indiana basketball, and it's Woodson's job to fix it.

“Well, they're down a little bit and you expect to be down and the only way you come out of a rut, you come out of a situation, you got to work your way through it. And you know, nobody's gonna feel sorry for Indiana basketball. They're not and you know, my locker room is down, and as a coach, I gotta keep pumping them up and see if I can get them to overcome what has them down and get us back into winning ways.”

At the end of the day, the team has to be able to compete. Mike Woodson thinks that Indiana does at some points, but it doesn't happen on a consistent basis.

“Practices has been pretty good,” Woodson said. “But again, when you get smacked in the face, like we did the first half, you're not gonna beat anyone. I mean, we didn't compete. I thought the second half we competed, you know, and cut it to three and and then we stopped competing. You know, we missed free throws. We didn't shoot the three ball. We were 4/21 three point line. We missed 10 free throws. You cut the lead to three in a close game. Those are plays you got to compete. And I thought we didn't and they did.”

Indiana basketball is currently 14-12 overall on the season and they are 6-9 in Big Ten Conference play. They are in 11th place in the conference with just five games to go in the regular season.