On the morning of Jan. 6, Indiana basketball was ranked 21st in the country, about to take on then-No. 2 Michigan. The Hoosiers were 12–2 with wins over Marquette, Louisville and Butler, their only blemishes being a one-point loss at Arkansas and an understandable blowout at the hands of Duke in Durham.
Things were looking up in Bloomington, just a season and a half after the school had fired longtime coach Tom Crean and hired Dayton’s Archie Miller. Indiana was a No. 5 seed in SI.com’s first Bracket Watch of the year and figured to sail into the NCAA tournament, even if there were setbacks along the way in a loaded Big Ten.