‘Very emotional’: Inside Mike Woodson’s Assembly Hall farewell

Mike Woodson’s eyes teared up as he prepared to bid farewell.

He stood stoically — donning a black suit with a thick red tie — soaking in the applause one last time on the floor where he became an icon. The Indianapolis native and Broad Ripple High School product was where he always wanted to be.

After Indiana men’s basketball’s 66-60 win against Ohio State Saturday afternoon, Woodson was honored with a tribute video. One clip showed the late Bob Knight holding Woodson’s right arm as he made his long-awaited return to Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall on Feb. 8, 2021.

Another showed him smiling alongside athletic director Scott Dolson, proudly clutching onto a white No. 42 Indiana uniform after he was hired in 2021. After Saturday’s regular season finale, Woodson didn’t pay much attention to the video board commemorating his playing and coaching career.

He walked down a line of the Hoosiers’ Senior Day participants, embracing them and their families. Throughout the day, all Woodson could think about was his team’s matchup with Ohio State on March 2, 1980, the last game he ever played at Assembly Hall. He said it was “very emotional.”

Woodson scored 21 points en route to a 76-73 overtime victory that clinched the Big Ten regular season title. The stakes weren’t quite the same 45 years later on Saturday.

That didn’t matter.

“That’s the only thing that was going through my head throughout the day,” Woodson said postgame on Saturday. “I wanted it so much for these seniors to win because I knew how special that night was for me my senior year and walking off that floor as a Big Ten champion.”

3:40 p.m.: When he first arrived on the court shortly before tip-off, he fist-bumped Indiana’s assistants and managers. On the opposing bench, Ohio State head coach Jake Diebler and the Buckeyes’ staff sported black tracksuits.

Woodson and his assistants all wore suits.

The crowd’s energy was palpable during pregame player introductions. By the time public address announcer Jeremy Gray reached Woodson, the raucous cheers drowned out the announcement of the fourth-year head coach.

Indiana was sloppy to start the game, shooting 30 percent from the field and an abysmal 11.1 percent from 3-point range in the first half. The Hoosiers went into the break trailing 29-25, and Woodson — head down — trudged behind Luke Goode on the way to the locker room.

4:48 p.m.: Just before the start of the second half, Woodson emerged from the tunnel last. Fans crowded the entryway, holding out hands for high fives and phones to record video, but Woodson paid it no mind.

Trey Galloway sparked a considerable second-half turnaround, finishing the game with a team-high 16 points and shooting 3-of-7 from deep. With less than a minute and a half remaining, Galloway drained a near-30-foot step back triple to put Indiana up 61-56. The fans, along with the Hoosiers’ bench, exploded.

Woodson hardly showed any emotion. That was until roughly 20 seconds later, when Luke Goode was sent to the free-throw line for a pair of shots that effectively put the game out of reach. Woodson turned to the bench and pumped his fists, repeatedly shouting “Let’s go!”

When the final buzzer sounded, he shared long hugs with associate head coaches Kenya Hunter and Yasir Rosemond, as well as assistant coach Brian Walsh.

Despite the turbulence this season, Woodson’s players never wavered in their support of the 66-year-old coach. After trouncing Purdue 73-58 on Feb. 23, the team mobbed Woodson and rubbed his head following his postgame interview with CBS Sports. Saturday afternoon, in nearly the exact same spot, a similar scene unfolded.

6:33 p.m.: Woodson held his head low as he walked off the floor. He stopped briefly for a hug with Dolson and President Pamela Whitten before vanishing amid the Senior Day recognition.

Inside the Assembly Hall media room later that night, Leal made sure to give Woodson his flowers. Questions from reporters had ceased, but Leal had more to say.

“Quick shoutout to coach,” Leal said. “It was his last game here too before he steps down. We’re just really happy for him to be able to send him out on a win. He means the world to us. Shoutout coach Woodson.”

Woodson announced his choice to step down as Indiana’s coach on Feb. 7, a decision that felt imminent given the Hoosiers’ stretch of subpar performances. They were in the midst of a five-game losing streak then, with postseason possibilities seeming dimmer by the day.

A few weeks before, in a 25-point loss to Illinois on Jan. 14, Woodson and his players were booed off their home court. Fans called for his firing. There was a profound contempt for the product on the floor, and in turn, the man in charge of it all.

Woodson — who’d built a lasting legacy with the program as a player — may have seen it tarnished had the season continued to spiral so dramatically. The first game after reports surfaced of Woodson’s plan to step down, Indiana lost 70-67 to Michigan.

It proceeded to end the year winning five of its last seven games, including a road win over Michigan State and a drubbing of Purdue. The tone surrounding the Hoosiers started to shift after they defeated the Boilermakers.

There became a growing sense that there was a larger force at play behind Indiana’s newfound fight.

“We want to make it special for him,” Galloway said of Woodson on Feb. 23.

Saturday afternoon, once the tribute video in Woodson’s honor had ended, the black screen read “FAMILY.” In white font for nearly six seconds. It’s a fitting descriptor. During his introductory press conference via Zoom on March 29, 2021, Woodson stressed forging a gap between “old and new.”

He wanted to bring Indiana back to its glory days while ushering in a modern playstyle in a rapidly changing college basketball landscape. His plan to do that? Make the program feel like a family.

“At the end of the day, it’s about two people — or two things — and that’s the fans and our players,” Woodson said at the time. “Our players will be first and foremost. I spoke to the guys last night, and I think they understand who coach Woodson is early on because I’ve told them that this whole program is going to be about family.”

After 11 years playing in the NBA and 22 seasons coaching in it, Woodson returned to the place he was taught by Knight “how to be a man on and off the floor.” He arrived at an especially precarious time. Archie Miller was fired after four seasons in which he compiled a 33-44 Big Ten record and never made an NCAA tournament appearance.

Miller went winless against Purdue in seven tries.

In hiring Woodson, Dolson chose to stay within the Indiana family. Whatever would ensue in the following years, there was no doubting Woodson’s reverence for the program.

“We had our ups and downs over the years,” Woodson said. “I get that. But I’ve always been true to Indiana basketball.”

With Saturday’s win against Ohio State, Indiana is moving comfortably into the NCAA tournament picture. It will enter the Big Ten tournament in Indianapolis as the No. 9 seed and earn a first-round bye before rematching Oregon on Thursday.

Should the Hoosiers advance to the NCAA tournament, it will mark the third appearance in Woodson’s four seasons.

He’ll finish his tenure 4-4 against Purdue, defeating some of the Boilermakers’ most talented squads in recent memory. For as much as Woodson was maligned during his team’s struggles, it’s difficult to discredit the fight shown in Indiana’s recent turnaround.

It was only poetic for Woodson, who’d won his final game at Assembly Hall against Ohio State in emotional fashion as a player, to do the same as a coach.

Category: Media

Filed to: Mike Woodson