BLOOMINGTON – Archie Miller is trying. The IU basketball coach says mean things, he says nice things. He digs deep into his bench before the second media timeout on Thursday night against No. 20 Iowa, giving eighth man Damezi Anderson the only 94 seconds he will play in this 77-72 loss to the Hawkeyes. And when one of his players, Justin Smith in this case, misses a shot and then takes his sweet time getting back on defense, Miller has his replacement — Evan Fitzner — at the scorer’s table before Smith has even crossed halfcourt.

The Assembly Hall crowd is trying. It sticks around for a good 39-plus minutes for a change, even if No. 20 Iowa is in control for all 40, and when Rob Phinisee is dribbling aimlessly on the perimeter against the Hawkeyes zone because none of his teammates is doing anything to help, the crowd of 17,222 is shouting as one: Moooooooove!

The players are trying. Well, except for that Justin Smith thing. Juwan Morgan plays the final seven minutes with four fouls and a sore shoulder, and he’s still blocking shots and crashing the offensive glass and dunking on Iowa’s big men. Romeo Langford is scoring 22 points on just nine shots in a game-high 38 minutes. Center De’Ron Davis is a revelation from the high post, handing out seven assists, including dump-down passes to three different teammates for dunks. Al Durham continues to score. Phinisee does a little bit of everything.

Insider:Good isn't good enough as IU's margin for error continues to shrink

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Trying, all of them.

Maybe IU just isn’t very good, you know?

Maybe the fault isn’t the Hoosiers. Maybe the fault is ours. Maybe, and this isn’t sarcasm or reverse psychology, but maybe we were just wrong to expect more from this team, media and fans alike, when we saw McDonald’s All American Romeo Langford joining a roster that included All-Big Ten candidate Juwan Morgan and assumed IU was back.

The Hoosiers aren’t back. They’re not terrible, mind you. Not saying that. They’re just not terribly good. Maybe that’s the perspective we need to have going forward, me writing about this team and you cheering for it.

This was their eighth loss in nine games, and if the one victory in that stretch was on the road against No. 6 Michigan State, well, what can I say? It’s a strange season around here, for one. For another, Michigan State has lost three in a row, the last two of the head-scratching variety: at home to an IU team that came in with seven consecutive losses, then three days later to an Illinois team that was 8-15 overall, and 3-8 in the Big Ten.

As for Miller, he’s at a loss. He liked his players’ attitude Thursday night. Said they played hard, were unselfish, came together.

“We did a lot of those things,” he said. “We just weren’t good enough to finish this one off.”

Not good enough.

Put that on a banner to commemorate a roster that, outside of Langford and Morgan, just isn’t very good. Late in this game, IU within three points twice in the final 20 seconds, and Miller has Evan Fitzner on the court. Fitzner, the St. Mary’s grad transfer, a one-dimensional 3-point shooter who has missed 13 of his last 14 attempts. Fitzner, averaging 1.2 points in 11.1 minutes in the Big Ten. Fitzner, whose first pass Thursday was nearly stolen, whose next touch was nearly a turnover when he dropped the ball, and who then picked it up … and threw it away. Why was he on the floor at such a crucial juncture?

Because IU isn’t very good.

Again, other than Langford and Morgan, Miller has no idea what he’s going to get from anybody on any given night. Last time out, against Michigan State, his top two reserves – De'Ron Davis and Devonte Green – combined for 23 points. Thursday against Iowa? They combined for seven, with Green going 1-for-5 from the floor with four turnovers and zero assists, though Archie was quick to add that, while Green “didn’t have what I would say is a solid game” he still “contributed.”

What we’re seeing now is kinder, gentler Archie. The fire-breathing dragon approach, calling his team soft and scared, didn’t work, so now he’s going the other way. What choice does he have? Einstein’s insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results — but let’s not talk about what happens when Devonte Green decides to go one-on-one against a zone defense.

Let’s talk about what will happen for IU the rest of the way. The Hoosiers (13-10, 4-8) have two wins against teams in the AP Top 10 — Marquette (No. 10) and at Michigan State (No. 9) — and nothing else that says they’re an NCAA tournament team. The good news: Six of their final eight games are at home, where they are 10-3. The bad news: Three of those six home games, and four of those eight overall, are against teams ranked in the Top 25: No. 15 Purdue (home), No. 20 Iowa (away), No. 19 Wisconsin (home) and No. 9 Michigan State (home), all in a 12-day stretch from Feb. 19-March 2

That’s also the good news. Beating Rutgers and Illinois, even beating Ohio State and Minnesota, won’t do much for the Hoosiers’ NCAA resume. They need quality wins, and those four games ranked opponents will give Indiana that chance.

But there I go again, treating this IU team as if it’s better than it probably is. Let’s throw out the best-and-worst outliers — the win against No. 6 Michigan State in East Lansing, the loss at home to the Big Ten’s 13th-place team, Nebraska — and look at the rest of the schedule and just acknowledge: Indiana is a mediocre team playing in a tough league. You are what your record says you are, right? Indiana’s record says it is 4-8 in the Big Ten. Maybe “mediocre” is being kind.

That could and someday should lead to a larger conversation about the direction of the program, especially with the team’s best two players a senior (Morgan) and a likely lottery pick in the 2019 NBA draft (Langford). How does that leave IU looking going forward? Well, it’s like I’ve been saying:

Not very good.

Find Star columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/gregg.doyel.