Indiana 73, Kentucky 72

[box score] [recap]

It looks like the rebuilding process in Bloomington is complete.

When Tom Crean arrived from Marquette to clean up the mess left by Kevin Sampson, he was given a long leash in terms of on-court results. His skills as a recruiter and as a tactician were secondary in importance to his ability to motivate players and his reputation for running a clean ship. Indiana was willing to put up with a lot of losing to get its hoops program back on track long-term.

During Crean's tenure at the school, the Hoosiers have done plenty of losing. In 2008-09, Crean's first, they went 6-21, following that up with 10-21 and 12-20 campaigns. Despite that lack of success in the win column, however, you could always count on Indiana to show up and play hard. In that regard, then, over the last three seasons, Indiana had plenty of "moral victories," if not traditional ones.