Indiana

This Indiana Fever rebuild is a process. WNBA’s best showed it won’t happen overnight.

Published

2 years ago

May 16, 2024

This Indiana Fever rebuild is a process. WNBA’s best showed it won’t happen overnight.

INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana Fever are two games into the season, and they already know they have a lot to figure out.

In the first two games of one of the most anticipated seasons in history, the Fever lost by 21 on the road to the Connecticut Sun, then returned home to the wrong side of a 36-point drubbing, 102-66, against the New York Liberty on Thursday at a sold-out Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

“You don’t win a lot of games in this league when you only score 66 points, but also you don’t want a lot of games giving up 102,” said Indiana coach Christie Sides. “So we’ve got a lot to figure out.”

More: Fever are loaded with offensive talent. But they have to figure out how to use it.

To give the Fever some (if any) credit, they went up against two of the most experienced teams in the league. The Sun don’t have a rookie on their roster, and their core of DeWanna Bonner, Alyssa Thomas and Brionna Jones have been playing with each other for over four years.

In addition to Sabrina Ionescu, New York has Breanna Stewart, Courtney Vandersloot and Jonquel Jones — all of whom are seasoned veterans who joined the Liberty in 2023, appearing in the WNBA finals.

These players know what they’re doing. They have a connection that can only be forged with time — something the Fever don’t have any advantage in.

“Our communication just has to increase, especially when you’re playing teams that know each other like the back of their hand,” said Fever second-year center Aliyah Boston.

The Fever have two starters who are completely new to the team and system: Katie Lou Samuelson and Caitlin Clark. Samuelson, a five-year veteran, came to Indiana after a year off because of pregnancy. Clark is coming to the Fever as the No. 1 pick, fresh off a Final Four season with Iowa.

With the Fever, there’s just not the same chemistry other, more-veteran teams, will have. Still, some of it comes down to effort and communication.

“I think there’s quite a bit that we need to learn about each other and about ourselves,” Samuelson said following Thursday’s loss. “But if we can dig deep, and play as hard as we can, as tough as we can for 40 minutes, we can probably make up for some of that. But we have lapses where things just escalate, and you can see this kind of dip.

“So it really comes down to just playing with a lot more energy, playing harder, communicating louder, little things that we shouldn’t be saying in this press conference right now, but that’s really the stuff we need to take care of.”

It takes time to get a team working together as well as the Sun and the Liberty. But, Sides said, the Fever are also missing some things that have nothing to do with how long a team has been together.

“It’s a process, but there’s a level when it just gets too much, when people are just continuing to punch you,” Sides said. “We’ve got to figure out how to stop them and give it right back to them. And we’re just not matching that.

“We’ve just got to get an attitude a little bit when people score on us,” she added. “You just can’t let it be so easy to just let them do what they want to do on us. It all goes back to just having a little bit of fight, passion, toughness.”

The Fever’s schedule isn’t doing them any favors. They start the season with two games each against the Sun, who reached the playoff semifinals last season, and finals runner-up Liberty. Five of their first seven games are on the road, and they play all seven within a 12-day stretch.

It’s challenging, no doubt, but it’s also not an option. The Fever are going to have to work through this gauntlet of a schedule, both travel- and competition-wise.

“You just have to do what you have to do to recover, and take the time when you get it,” Boston said. “We don’t really have that many days of a break in between games, and so we just have to be ready and recover.”

The reality of the situation is the Fever are 0-2, and their 57-point deficit through two games are the most to begin the season in league history (per ESPN Stats). Drafting Clark will be a franchise-changing move for the Fever, but they weren’t going to come out and beat some of the best teams in the league out of the gate.

A’ja Wilson was the Las Vegas Aces’ second-straight No. 1 draft pick in 2018, following Kelsey Plum. That 2018 Aces team went 14-20 and missed the playoffs, getting the top pick for the third straight draft. Now, Las Vegas are the back-to-back champions and Wilson has won two MVP titles.

If history is any indication, Clark and the Fever are going to be fine. They’re going to be good, or even great. But building chemistry doesn’t happen overnight, and success isn’t instant.

Follow IndyStar Fever Insider Chloe Peterson on X at @chloepterson67.

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Indiana

Watch Indiana basketball’s Lamar Wilkerson give his mom a Cadillac

Published

2 hours ago

March 5, 2026

Press Room

Watch Indiana basketball’s Lamar Wilkerson give his mom a Cadillac

Indiana basketball sharpshooter Lamar Wilkerson is known for his generosity.

Upon joining the Hoosiers, he gave a tidy sum of his NIL earnings to his previous program, Sam Houston State.

“I was blessed to be able go from that, from not having a lot, to being here, having a lot more than I even knew what to do with,” Wilkerson said at the time. “I just thought, I can give them this.”

He upped the ante on IU’s Senior Night, giving his mother a Cadillac after the Hoosiers throttled Minnesota.

You could imagine her reaction.

Want more Hoosiers coverage? Sign up for IndyStar’s Hoosiers newsletter. Listen to Mind Your Banners, our IU Athletics-centric podcast, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch the latest on IndyStar TV: Hoosiers.

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Indiana

Indiana basketball vs. Minnesota score, updates tonight: Start time, where to watch

Published

14 hours ago

March 4, 2026

Press Room

Indiana basketball vs. Minnesota score, updates tonight: Start time, where to watch

The Indiana Hoosiers have lost four straight games and are scrambling to earn an NCAA Tournament berth.
The Minnesota Golden Gophers are trying to reach .500 for the season. They beat IU in a Big Ten opener in December.

Indiana (17-12, 8-10 Big Ten) has no room for air as it hosts Minnesota (14-15, 7-11). The Hoosiers have lost four in a row, leaving them on the NCAA Tournament bubble, while the Golden Gophers have won three of their last four. Minnesota beat IU in a conference opener.

We will have score updates and highlights, so remember to refresh.

What time does Indiana basketball play Minnesota tonight, March 4? Start time for Minnesota basketball vs Indiana on Wednesday, March 4, 2026

The Indiana-Minnesota game is at 6:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday, March 4, 2026, at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall in Bloomington, Indiana.

Where to watch Indiana vs. Minnesota tonight, March 4? What channel is the Minnesota-Indiana on college basketball game today?

Watch college basketball with a free Fubo trial

Indiana vs. Minnesota predictions tonight, March 4

Zach Osterman, IndyStar: Indiana 75-69
“Indiana is on the ropes. Minnesota has nothing to lose. Gophers already beat IU once this year. So picking Minnesota here is going to be trendy. Too trendy. The Ohio State game is tougher to forecast, but the Hoosiers win here.”
Michael Niziolek, Herald-Times: Indiana 78-70
“Can Minnesota spoil IU’s Senior Night? The Gophers upended Indiana in Darian DeVries’ Big Ten debut earlier this season and have been a tough out in conference play. They are just 7-11, but six of those losses are by single digits and two of those came in overtime. The Hoosiers need to do a better job of locking down the perimeter while getting a more balanced scoring effort. Indiana should be able to pull this one out and keep its NCAA Tournament chances alive for another night.”

Where to listen to Indiana vs. Minnesota tonight, March 4, 2026

How much are Indiana vs. Minnesota tickets tonight, March 4, 2026?

IU basketball tickets on StubHub

Basketball rankings college: Indiana vs. Minnesota

As of March 2

(all times ET; with date, day of week, location and opponent, time, TV)

0, Jasai Miles
1, Reed Bailey
2, Jason Drake
3, Lamar Wilkerson
4, Sam Alexis
5, Conor Enright
6, Tayton Conerway
7, Nick Dorn
10, Josh Harris
11, Trent Sisley
12, Tucker DeVries
13, Aleksa Ristic
15, Andrej Acimovic

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Indiana

Trump can’t carry Mike Braun, Indiana Republicans anymore | Opinion

Published

1 day ago

March 4, 2026

Press Room

Trump can’t carry Mike Braun, Indiana Republicans anymore | Opinion

On Iran, as on everything else, Gov. Mike Braun is letting Trump think for him.

Gov. Mike Braun might end up being the last person in MAGAland to realize it, but he and his copartisans are adrift. Braun will be a one-term governor unless he can think for himself and start serving Indiana without regard for what’s best for President Donald Trump.

Braun doesn’t get it yet. His robotic support for Trump’s war with Iran — “decisive leadership on the world stage,” he told reporters March 2 — shows his brain is cryogenically frozen in 2018 even as the world turns toward an unsettling future with a worsening economy and artificial intelligence-guided military operations.

You can almost sympathize with Braun’s unwillingness to put down the MAGA playbook. Braun is among countless political figures who’ve risen to power over the past decade by genuflecting to Trump and embracing his shamelessness.

Amoral populism launched careers, but it won’t sustain weak leaders through tumultuous times.

Iran is dividing MAGA

Voters are looking for substance — and, in Indiana, they’re seeing vacuous men who’ve let go of principles so they can cling to Trump like a talisman for their political careers. That goes for Braun, chief among them, but also for a host of other Republicans, including Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith, Sen. Jim Banks, Attorney General Todd Rokita and Secretary of State Diego Morales, whose temporary claims to power will be forgotten by the next generation.

This MAGA cast of characters achieved success by outsourcing their thinking to a political nerve center. For years, they’ve only had to agree with whatever Trump happened to say today, even if it contradicted what Trump said the day before. Trump’s popularity among conservative voters rewarded groupthink and punished independence.

But Trump’s Iran war adds a critical layer to Americans’ anxieties — including overaggressive immigration enforcement, affordability and a softening job market — which are scrambling U.S. politics and severing the connection between Trump’s stream of consciousness and voter approval.

Some of the savviest MAGA influencers are hedging their bets. Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson and other voices whose personal wealth depends on harnessing the hearts and minds of the right are breaking with Trump on Iran — or, perhaps, using Iran as an opportune moment to create distance from a president whose popularity is falling.

MAGA is a declining brand

It’s too soon to say with certainty what’s signal and what’s noise. But we have increasing evidence that the American public (though not necessarily Republican primary voters) are breaking with Trump-aligned Republicans.

Democrats have been out-performing Kamala Harris’ 2024 results by double digits and they have a 7-point lead over Republicans in congressional midterm polling. Most Americans disapprove of Trump’s military strikes on Iran, per Politico.

The winds of change are blowing in Indiana. Republicans who carried water for Trump’s early redistricting push suffered an embarrassing loss in December. Braun, the Indiana face of early redistricting, has a 25% approval rating, according to a Public Policy Polling survey.

Braun’s path out of office runs in multiple directions: He could simply decline to run again, as he did in the Senate; a primary challenger could exploit his 43% approval rating among Republicans; or a Democrat could capitalize on the kind of hometown unpopularity that produces a 16% approval rating in Jasper.

Morales faces the same reckoning. His reelection bid for secretary of state is in deep trouble.

Some Indiana Republicans are more adaptable than others. Banks, for example, is an adept shape-shifter who could likely adopt a sober, statesmanlike persona if he perceived an evolving market demand.

Braun’s internal software does not seem to update so easily. He has time to change, having served just over one year as governor. The next three years will test Braun’s capacity to be something more than he’s been since winning election to the U.S. Senate in 2018.

Braun and his fellow Indiana Republican travelers have sailed as far as Trump’s tailwinds can take them. We’re about to see how they perform when they have to find their own ways.

Contact James Briggs at 317-444-4732 or james.briggs@indystar.com. Follow him on X at @JamesEBriggs.

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