Indiana men’s basketball coach Mike Woodson is stepping down from his position at the end of the season, the school said Friday.
The Hoosiers are heading toward their second consecutive season without an NCAA tournament appearance, losing four straight games and six of their past seven.
ESPN reported Thursday that Woodson, 66, and the university were in discussions about his exit and that he was not expected to return to the Hoosiers next season.
“During a meeting with Coach Woodson on Wednesday, he informed me he wanted to step down as our program’s head coach at the end of the current season,” Indiana athletic director Scott Dolson said in a statement Friday. “He said it had been weighing on his mind for a while, and that it was an emotional and difficult decision. We have had subsequent thoughtful conversations about his decision and his desire to ensure that the program is in the best position it can be moving forward. At an appropriate time, Coach Woodson will articulate his feelings about his decision and his experiences these last four years.
“It’s clear to me from our discussions in the last several days that his No. 1 priority is for the attention to be off him, and instead focused on uniting Hoosier Nation in support of our student-athletes, coaches, and, most importantly, the program. We still have much to play for this season as we prepare for Saturday’s game against Michigan and the remainder of the 2024-25 season, and we want to encourage Hoosier fans to rally around the program and support it in the same positive way that Hoosier fans did during Mike’s All-America and Big Ten MVP playing career.”
While the financial terms of Woodson’s resignation are not clear, his contract called for him to be paid more than $8 million were he to be fired. His contract allows for the buyout to be paid in annual million dollar lump sums, which makes it more manageable for the school from a budgetary standpoint.
Indiana had one of the largest name, image and likeness budgets in the Big Ten and in the country this season, which is expected to be a significant selling point for the job.
Indiana is hosting No. 24 Michigan on Saturday. Wolverines coach Dusty May — a Hoosiers alum who was a student manager under Bob Knight — is expected to be among the targets to replace Woodson.
Following an offseason rebuild that included one of the better transfer portal classes in the country, headlined by Oumar Ballo (Arizona), Myles Rice (Washington State) and Kanaan Carlyle (Stanford), Indiana entered the season with considerable expectations. The Hoosiers were No. 17 in the preseason AP poll and behind only Purdue in the preseason Big Ten media poll.
The Hoosiers suffered back-to-back blowout losses to Louisville and Gonzaga in late November before seemingly righting the ship and winning nine of their next 10 games. But they’ve won just one game in the past month and dropped to 14-9 overall and 5-7 in the Big Ten.
In ESPN’s latest Bracketology, the Hoosiers are not even listed among the Next Four Out.
Following Indiana’s latest loss, a 76-64 defeat at Wisconsin in which the Hoosiers trailed 26-4 just minutes into the game, Woodson openly questioned his team’s toughness.
“We’re just not a tough team right now,” he said. “We’re not. Mentally we’re not tough.”
The Hoosiers had a similar collapse midway through Big Ten play last season, starting 10-3 before losing 10 of their next 14 games. They finished 19-14 overall, with the school announcing toward the end of the campaign that Woodson would return as the program’s head coach for the 2024-25 season.
Indiana reached the NCAA tournament in each of Woodson’s first two seasons, including a second-place Big Ten finish in 2023. It earned a 4-seed in the NCAA tournament before falling to eventual Final Four participant Miami in the second round.
The Hoosiers went 21-14 in 2021-22, sneaking into the First Four of the NCAA tournament and beating Wyoming before falling to Saint Mary’s.
“Coach Woodson is a class act,” Dolson said in the statement. “During the last four years, he has led the program during a transformational time in college athletics and helped us become a national leader in evolving areas including NIL and the Transfer Portal. No one loves IU Basketball more than he does. I want to thank him for coming back to Bloomington and accepting the challenge of rebuilding our program and re-connecting it with its past and its foundation. In pursuit of that goal, it was important to him that he bring back other legendary Hoosier players such as Calbert Cheaney, Randy Wittman, and Jordan Hulls, all of whom share his love and passion for this program. That’s a group of individuals that combined for 375 wins at IU, seven Big Ten championships, two Final Fours, and a national title.
“With this decision made, Coach Woodson and I share the desire to see Hoosier Nation unite beginning on Saturday afternoon in support of these players, coaches, and program.”
Woodson is a former Indiana star who played under Knight from 1976 to 1980 before being selected in the first round of the 1980 NBA draft by the New York Knicks. After an NBA career that included 11 years as a player and 25 years as a head coach and assistant coach, he was hired by his alma mater in 2021 to replace Archie Miller.
