E was good and worked up tonight, so technically, this is the minute after. You get the point.

After UConn essentially dismantled IU last Saturday, there were two overriding points of view. The first was to assume that IU played poorly, met an athletic team that neutralized its strengths, and suffered a weird blip on the schedule that ended up in a loss. If anything, the loss was a positive; surely the Hoosiers would bounce back even more focused, right?

The second point of view was the sinking feeling of despair that maybe, just maybe, the Hoosiers weren’t nearly as good as most of us have given them credit for. That maybe the schedule is that bad; that maybe IU couldn’t stand up when the competition fought back; that maybe the Hoosiers aren’t destined to play late into March like most of us dreamed they would since Eric Gordon put his pen to paper.

Last night, we found out which of these approaches is more accurate. And it definitely isn’t the first.

– First, the injury. For all of the Belichickian skulduggery by IU’s media relations department — and the curious way EJ’s father dodged telling Erin Andrews exactly what the injury was — it’s pretty obvious that the left wrist is in bad shape. A typical bump or bruise doesn’t require a bandage. To think that the bandage will be on for “a few weeks”, but that there’s no swelling or a break or anything wrong, nope, nothing to see here, move along … well, that’s just silly.

And it deeply affects the Hoosiers. All year this team has struggled to play a cohesive offensive scheme. Instead, it’s relied on D.J.’s efficiency in the post, Gordon’s creativity from the perimeter, and fill-in-the-blanks stuff from a constant rotation of bit players (some more effective than others). With Gordon’s left wrist clearly limiting some of the things he can do — like, say, move to his left — IU loses a vital piece in the one-on-one scheme it’s been thriving in against lesser opponents.

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