Indiana’s Democratic Party will have a new leader in March after its chairman decided against seeking a second term.

Mike Schmuhl announced his decision to leave the state party’s highest post in March to Democrats’ state central committee on Saturday.

His decision not to seek re-election comes on the heels of an election that saw Democrats’ hopes dashed in each of the state’s top-ballot races. President-elect Donald Trump topped Kamala Harris by nearly 19 points, and serious challenges to GOP control of the governor and attorney general seats never materialized as Republicans Mike Braun and Todd Rokita cruised to similarly lopsided victories.

Those results led Black faith leaders in Indianapolis to call for Schmuhl’s resignation, citing a “lack of progress” under his leadership.

“I know how hard it can be to be a Democrat in Indiana, and over the past four years we have placed our party on a path to future success by protecting what we have and building new bases of support,” Schmuhl, 41, said Saturday.

“Our bench is bigger, and our party has more tools and more people involved in the political process to be successful,” he said.

He pointed to an increase in Democratic mayors in the state over the past year, along with an increase in donors supporting Democratic candidates. Democrats in a statement issued Saturday also touted gains made in local government races, including claiming city council majorities in Valparaiso and Muncie.

Still, Indiana’s Democrats face significant headwinds, including ongoing allegations of sexual harassment against high-ranking officials.

This year, IndyStar investigations uncovered allegations against state Sen. David Niezgodski, D-South Bend, Sen. Greg Taylor, D-Indianapolis, and Thomas Cook, Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett’s former chief of staff. Each has been accused by women of sexual harassment and unwanted romantic pursuit. Taylor and Cook have both apologized for past behavior. Niezgodski has referred to the allegation against him as a “private personnel matter.”

Party leaders adopted a new code of conduct earlier in December and formed an ethics committee that will investigate potential code of conduct violations against its members.

Schmuhl’s term ends on March 15, 2025, when a new chair is elected. He took the state party leadership post after managing current U.S. transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – One area in which Indiana’s football team will need help in 2025 will be at running back. On Friday, Curt Cignetti and his staff made the first step to address that.

UAB running back Lee Beebe has decided to transfer to Indiana. On3.com’s Pete Nakos was the first to report the move.

Beebe was the leading rusher for the Blazers in 2024 as he amassed 884 yards and averaged 5.3 yards per carry. He scored seven rushing touchdowns. He also had 30 catches for 219 yards and one receiving touchdown.

Beebe’s best game of his career came against Rice on Nov. 23 when he rushed for 161 yards. Beebe got stronger as the 2024 season went along. Three of his Beebe’s four best rushing efforts in 2024 came in November.

Pro Football Focus scored Beebe as the 108th-best running back in the country.

Beebe, who is listed at 5-foot-10 and 220 pounds, will have two years of eligibility remaining. Over his career at UAB, he has rushed for 1,276 yards, averaged 5.8 yards per carry and has 11 rushing touchdowns. He has accounted for 1,593 total yards in his career.

Beebe joins a 2025 Indiana backfield that only has one experienced player in it – Kaelon Black. Justice Ellison, Ty Son Lawton and Solomon Vanhorse are out of eligibility at the end of the season. Elijah Green has elected to transfer. Khobie Martin has only had 14 career carries and Kyler Kropp has not played at all.

True freshman running back Sean Cuono is part of the class of players signed on Dec. 4. It is likely that Indiana will continue to try to augment its backfield.

LINCOLN, Neb. — For the fourth time on the 2024 calendar, Nebraska blew out Indiana in a basketball game. The Cornhuskers rolled to an 85-68 victory at Pinnacle Bank Arena, and made the Hoosiers look bad in the process.

Again. And again.

The Hoosiers (8-3, 1-1 in the Big Ten) had no answer for Nebraska’s Brice Williams, who went off for 30 points, and they completely collapsed down the stretch. A one-point game with 7 minutes to go turned into a rout when the Huskers finished the game on a 17-1 run. It’s the fourth straight time Nebraska has beaten the Hoosiers, and all four have been by 15 points or more.

And this is Nebraska we’re talking about.

Indiana was a wreck defensively, allowing 85 points or more for the third time this season, all losses. Nebraska shot 61.2 percent from the field, and were just 8-for-14 from three-point range. Considering they made 40 threes in the three wins last season, that was a modest number of makes and not much of a storyline, outside of the two late threes by Williams and Juwan Gary that iced the game.

But they still scored 85 points, scoring 36 points in the paint and making 17 free throws.

“It didn’t just start late. We had no defensive presence to start the game either,” Indiana coach Mike Woodson said. “We have to get that fixed, because especially on the road you have to establish your defense. I know defense wins, especially when you’re not making shots, and we weren’t very good defensively.”

The three-pointer storyline was really more on the Indiana side. The Hoosiers camde into the game only attempting 17 threes per outing, which ranks 344th nationally out of 355 teams. On Friday, they took 35 attempts — but only made eight. They were just 3-for-20 from deep in the second half.

It was the first time in the Mike Woodson era — covering 115 games — that the Hoosiers had taken 35 three-point attempts. The previous high under Woodson was 27 in a double-overtime 112-110 loss at Syracuse on Nov. 30, 2021. The last time Indiana topped that was Jan. 19, 2016 when a Tom Crean-coach Hoosier team took 36 shots in a 103-69 win over Illinois. They made 19 that night.

Imagine that.

“I thought we had good looks (from three-point range) tonight, we just didn’t make them,” Woodson said in the understatement of the night. “I don’t care if you take 30, 40, 50 threes, when you take them, you’ve got to make them. They took the inside play away, and I thought we did a good job of sacrificing the ball. We make some of those and it’s a different game.”

The entire cast was culpable. Luke Goode made three deep balls, but missed seven others. Trey Galloway was 3-for-9. Kaanan Carlyle was 0-for-5, Bryson Tucker 1-for-5 and Myles Rice 1-for-4.

The Hoosiers dug themselves a big hole early, falling behind 13-3, but they scrapped their way back into it fairly quickly when a Luke Goode three gave them a 23-19 lead with 11:09 to go in the first half. The teams traded blows most of the rest of the half, but a late 11-2 Nebraska run gave them a 44-41 advantage at the break.

Nebraska got up nine early in the second half, but then the Hoosiers answered again. Myles Rice had the last of his four steals, and scored on a runout to tie the game at 62-62. Goode made another three at the 6:51 mark to pull Indiana within one (68-67).

It was their last field goal of the game.

During that final 6:51, Indiana went 0-for-12 from the field and had four turnovers. The errors were a bit of a surprise bcause they only had five for the game before that mark. The cold streak was not a surprise. They went scoreless the final four minutes of the first half, too.

“We kind of took a couple out of rythm and we didn’t defend well down the stretch, and that’s a recipe for disaster when you put those both together,” Rice said. “We got to be better down the stretch and play better as a team. ”

Indiana had no answer for Williams, a 6-foot-7 senior from Huntersville, N.C. who been a Hoosier kille during this losing streak. He had 30 points on 10-of-15 shooting, and also made 8-of-11 free throws. His straight-line drives to the basket were an issue all night. He also had six rebounds and five assists.

”He got downhill, got to the free throw line and he made a couple of tough shots,” Woodson said of Williams. “Once he got going, it was tough to slow him down. A lot of it was in isolation off the bounce, and we’ve got to get better with that, guarding guys off the dribble.”

Rice had 20 points to lead the Hoosiers. The steals led to some easy baskets, but he was also in attack mode all night.

“I just saw in transition that they were running with their backs to the rim and it was a chance for us to get easy shots at the rim. I though the flow of the game was right there for me, and it kind of led to us coming back a little but, but we’ve just got to be better down the stretch.”

The December portion of the Big Ten schedule is now complete, and 12 of the 18 teams split their games. Only Michigan, Michigan State and UCLA won both. Conference play will. resume for the Hoosiers on Jan. 2 with a home game against Rutgers. They have two nonconference games left, on Dec. 21 against Chattanooga, and Dec. 29 against Winthrop.