What does Indiana do now?

A few quick thoughts on the end of the Mike Woodson era

If you’re looking for a eulogy of Mike Woodson’s brief college coaching career, well, here, we did that one already:

The Mike Woodson experiment might already be over

The timing of that piece tells part of the story: When your season, and your entire tenure, already feels worth foreclosing on in mid-January of your fourth season — even when your current team is still very much in theoretical contention for an NCAA Tournament spot! — that’s a pretty strong signal that it’s over.

Said over-ness was essentially confirmed this week, after Indiana’s no-show blowout at Wisconsin, when Pete Thamel and Jeff Borzello reported Woodson was “not expected to return to Indiana next season.”

Woodson, 66, is expected to coach the rest of the year, sources said, but he and the Hoosiers are in discussions about the coach's wishes to step away after this season. The details of the exit are being discussed.

We have lots of discrete thoughts about this — and about where Indiana, looking for a new basketball coach for the sixth time in 25 years, goes from here.

Let’s go through them one by one: