Indiana’s men’s basketball program reached into its storied past to try to revive a program that recently has failed to meet expectations, hiring former star player Mike Woodson as its head coach.
Mike Woodson may be a name unfamiliar to today’s players, but it is one that resonates with long-time fans of Indiana basketball.
And as the new head coach of the Hoosiers, Woodson is eager to remind the players of today what it means to play at Indiana.
“It’s going to be my job to bridge the gap between the young people who don’t know who coach Woodson is and the old timers who do know who I am,” Woodson said.
Woodson was introduced as the program’s 30th head coach Monday. He succeeds Archie Miller, who was
fired March 15 after four seasons of Indiana failing to earn an NCAA Tournament berth.
Woodson played at IU under coach Bob Knight and now is the program’s fifth leading scorer with over
2,000 points. He was Big Ten most valuable player his senior year even though he only played six games
because of a back injury.
Woodson has spent the past two-plus decades as a coach in the N-B-A, including head coaching positions with the Atlanta Hawks and the New York Knicks. He was an assistant with the Knicks before taking the IU job.
Woodson said he is not concerned by his lack of college coaching experience.
“Basketball, to me, is basketball. I’ve never coached in college, but I like to think that I’ve coached at the
highest level and I’ve coached some of the greatest players that have ever graced the basketball world,” Woodson said.
His first order of business will be meeting individually with the current players, including a half-dozen who have entered into the transfer portal, to gauge where they feel they fit into the program.
