What I'm watching in Indiana vs. Wisconsin: It isn’t a must-win, but it would be a big one

BLOOMINGTON – After a rough week on the road, IU returns to friendlier surroundings in need of a turnaround Tuesday night.

The Hoosiers host Wisconsin looking to end a three-game losing streak, erase some of the sour taste of their collapse in Madison in December and restore positive momentum to their postseason push. A win would achieve all three. A loss would further muddy waters Indiana has struggled to navigate cleanly in recent years.

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Here’s what I’ll be watching for:

Getting TJD (and this offense) going again

It’s been a quiet three weeks for Trayce Jackson-Davis, his struggles reflecting the Hoosiers’ wider issues scoring the basketball.

One of the Big Ten’s leading offensive threats for most of the season, Jackson-Davis now hasn’t scored more than 17 points in a game in any of his past seven, a feat he managed 10 times in the previous 17. Only one of his nine double-doubles this season has come in that same stretch. For comparison’s sake, Jackson-Davis is averaging 12.7 points and 6.6 rebounds across those seven games, both well below his season-wide numbers (17.5 ppg, 8.3 rpg).

IU has followed with him. On an adjusted basis, only once in their past six games have the Hoosiers averaged better than 1 point per possession, per Ken Pomeroy. Both 2- and 3-point percentages are down. Indiana isn’t getting to the free-throw line enough. Its season-wide offensive efficiency rating has fallen outside Pomeroy’s top 100. The only substantial positive is turnover numbers have stayed down.

The Hoosiers’ current three-game losing streak has prompted a snake-bitten fan base to wonder if, once again, an existential February crisis is going to derail what once looked like an open road to the NCAA tournament. But there’s nothing existential about IU’s current predicament — the Hoosiers can’t score enough to win. That has to get fixed, and it starts with the All-American down low.

Covering Johnny Davis

It was feast, then famine, for IU in that effort in Madison in December.

Just as the Hoosiers did well against Davis in the first half of their visit to Wisconsin, they thrived overall, building a 22-point first-half lead. The Kohl Center was silent for nearly the entire first half (and part of the second) as Indiana shredded Wisconsin’s defense and looked, finally, like ending its long losing streak in the Wisconsin capital.

When that effort evaporated and the game turned into a nightmare, Davis took centerstage. He scored the majority of his 23 points after halftime, sinking big shots late to push the Badgers over the top and extend IU’s misery at Wisconsin.

A Big Ten player-of-the-year candidate, Davis enters play Tuesday averaging 20.3 points and 8.2 rebounds per game. He remains among the conference’s most-dangerous scorers, and he’s averaging almost three more points per game away from home than overall this season.

On the other hand, Indiana gets to throw a look at Davis it couldn’t when these two teams met before the new year. Trey Galloway, injured for that Wisconsin trip in December, has emerged as this team’s best wing defender. This will be his first shot at Davis, and it will be an important one.

IU needs to arrest its three-game losing streak before it reaches the NCAA tournament bubble, and Wisconsin would be another quality win in the bank as well. Victory starts with stopping (or at least slowing) Johnny Davis, something the Hoosiers appear better equipped to do now than two months ago.

About the bubble

IU isn’t on it, at least not yet.

Are the Hoosiers trending in that direction? Yes. Will they get there if they can’t fix some of these issues? Certainly.

In its most-recent update, compiled before Indiana’s loss Saturday at Michigan State, the website Bracket Matrix slotted the Hoosiers in as its second No. 9 seed. They appeared in all 114 brackets included in the website’s most recent aggregation.

There are a few things we need to be able to hold as true about IU’s NCAA tournament status as of today:

>> The Hoosiers remain imperfect, in some ways deeply, and in some ways that will not change substantively between now and the end of the season.

>> If they do not stop their current slide, they will miss the tournament for the sixth-straight year.

>> At the moment, losing streak being what it is, they are still in the field pretty comfortably, and probably only about three more wins from locking themselves in, thanks to some quality home victories and the strength of the league.

>> Most teams that make the NCAA tournament are flawed. Most at-large teams won’t compete for a berth in the Final Four. Most ultimately make up the numbers in a 68-team field, fall out somewhere before the semifinal and get to put another March Madness appearance on a banner somewhere.

>> After five seasons spent outside looking in, in year one under a new head coach, an NCAA tournament appearance by virtually any method or manner would be a success for the Hoosiers in 2022.

Indiana is undeniably the first of these. It is unquestionably in danger of the second. But it is also very much the third and fourth, and thus it’s important not to lose sight of the fifth.

Tuesday’s game isn’t a must-win but it would be a big one, for all the attendant reasons. These are the stakes in the final weeks of the season.

Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IU basketball vs. Wisconsin preview: Hoosiers drifting toward NCAA bubble