Senior-day win offers glimpse into future for Indiana, one that *might* work after all.

BLOOMINGTON – This is how it works.

This basketball. These seniors. This togetherness. This defiance. This is what makes this future work for IU basketball.

Or, at very least, this is how it starts.

Indiana won Sunday, 65-64, on senior day, for no real reason other than that the Hoosiers believed firmly they were done with losing for the time being.

“This is a different team going down the stretch. The old team of a couple games ago would’ve quit,” sixth-year point guard Xavier Johnson said. “Now, we take punches well. We want to win.”

And then afterward, coach — he wants you to circle that word in red — Mike Woodson and his most veteran returning players in no uncertain terms spelled out where they stand regarding what’s on the horizon for the Hoosiers.

The basketball first.

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Woodson suggested postgame his team is “playing as good as any team in the country right now,” and while one of his predecessors, now in the Houston hot seat, might disagree, Woodson’s bullishness on his own team is understandable.

After groping around for anything resembling an anchor across January and February, IU (18-13, 10-10) arrives at the business end of March on a four-game win streak, joint-longest of the season. The Hoosiers have added two Quad 1 wins and two road victories just in the past 12 days. They erased a 16-point deficit at Maryland, never looked particularly troubled at Minnesota and rode yet another bit of injury misfortune on their way to Sunday’s win.

A 20-5 run to start the game crashed against the cliffs when Trey Galloway, one of two seniors honored on senior day who hadn’t yet announced whether he’d be doing all this again in 12 months, left after apparently aggravating an existing injury.

Galloway has become pivotal for Indiana across these past four months. He’s gone from 3-and-D role player to the Hoosiers’ best creative fulcrum, their toughest perimeter defender and an assist maker at a level that — if we are talking about single-game and single-season performances — you have to consult the likes of Quinn Buckner, Michael Lewis, Jamal Meeks and, yes, Isiah Thomas to match.

“It’s tough losing a key player,” Woodson said. “That’s a part of sports, but we hung in there.”

IU looked lost without Galloway. Woodson leaned hard into his seniors, effectively shortening his bench to six men by crunch time in the second half.

Johnson battled at both ends. One to find his rhythm in a ball-screen offense that used to bend toward his skills but had been remade in Johnson’s own injury absence this winter. And the other to be the kind of nuisance that could shut down Tyson Walker, Michigan State’s only serious scoring threat as the game reached its adolescence.

Walker finished with 30 points, including 20 in the second half, but only four of those 30 came in the last 9:48 of the game, a segment of clock time that defined the regular season’s only meeting between Hoosiers and Spartans (18-13, 10-10).

That stretch started with Michigan State’s lead reaching a high-water mark of seven points, 55-48. Tom Izzo’s team would score just nine more points the rest of the afternoon. Johnson and Leal took Walker away. Kel’el Ware (28 points, 12 rebounds) turned in another dominant performance, possibly the last in this building during his brief but noteworthy IU career. It was his sixth free-throw attempt — after missing the first five — that provided the winning margin.

“Don’t think,” Ware said, when asked what he thought approaching the game-winning free throw 0-of-5 from the stripe. “Shoot.”

Down one, Walker’s last effort rolled off the rim. Johnson sprinted away from a mad scramble with the ball and into the crowd as the clock ran out. Indiana secured a fourth-straight win and a top-half Big Ten finish.

And then the fireworks started.

Woodson got the microphone first, as is custom for IU’s senior-day ceremonies. He thanked managers, assistants, support staff, his administration and then … “true fans.”

Which fans? He reiterated, without being asked: “True fans.”

If the implication — after a week of rampant and lightly informed speculation about Woodson’s future coaching his alma mater — wasn’t immediately clear, Indiana’s coach made sure to put any lingering doubts to rest.

“Thank you fans,” he said, “for being true. And I’m the coach here. Understand that.”

It was more than Woodson has been willing to say to the media. Twice in as many postgame news conferences he’s flatly suggested he’s not required, nor should he be asked, to discuss his job security. With the thousands of fans remaining inside Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall on Sunday night, he was happy to make his position clear.

And that still wasn’t the most interesting bit.

No, that came when Anthony Leal, a lifelong Bloomingtonian, South graduate and the last IndyStar Mr. Basketball to commit to IU, got on the microphone.

Both Leal’s and Galloway’s senior speeches were hotly anticipated as they began. Each has a COVID year remaining if he wants it. No one knew beforehand whether they planned to use them.

Leal wasted no time.

“I don’t really have to give this speech until next year,” he said.

Then he leaned into it. He did the usual round of thank-yous, concluding (more or less) with IU fans. After dishing out the usual pleasantries and praise, he threw in some tough love on his way off stage.

“There’s no other coach in the country,” Leal said, “I would trust, with anything in my life, than coach Woodson. And there’s no other university I’d want to represent.

“We’re going to run it back. But you guys gotta chill.”

A few minutes later, Galloway said his thank-yous and confirmed his intention to return for a fifth season, his announcement interrupted by applause so loud he couldn’t be heard even through the public-address system.

But the die was cast with Leal’s speech. For the last week, for the next week, for next season.

Here, to punctuate an emotional week for a program that, Lord knows, has seen some emotional weeks, was a senior speaking his mind in ways few college athletes do anymore. In ways he should be praised for.

Do athletes hear blind, largely anonymous abuse and speculation? Please refer to the above. Do Mike Woodson’s players, after a frustrating but, let’s be very fair, far more disappointing than disastrous season, still stand behind him? Please refer to the above. Does Indiana have captain-level leadership in its locker room prepared to do the hard work to help Woodson pull IU back to the relevance it has never really captured this winter? One last time, please refer to the above.

Listen, a lot undeniably went wrong this season. Even more will need to go right for the Hoosiers to pull together a team capable of atoning for this season’s sins a year from now. Indiana will need toughness, brains, hard work and more than a little luck.

But this is a starting point. Bringing back Galloway, who has genuine All-Big Ten potential in his fifth year, is a starting point. Senior captains with steady feet and firm hands, they are starting points. A little noise in the Big Ten tournament, to validate (using Woodson’s word) these past four wins would go a long way.

IU has a lot to do to make sure next season does not reflect all the same failings that have likely doomed this — Big Ten tournament title aside — to be the first year in Woodson’s three back in Bloomington his team does not reach the NCAA tournament.

No one standing on the floor for senior day was thinking about that Sunday. Just about everyone remaining in the stands probably was. They got a window into the path forward that might yet make this work.

Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IU basketball: Win streak, players' return a boost for Mike Woodson