BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Wait, what happened?

What happened to the horrible Hoosiers? The program in disrepair? The coach who had lost control? The fan base that was forming into a lynch mob?

Where did that Indiana go?

Maybe, despite an autumn of knee-jerk outrage, that Indiana never existed.

View photos Tom Crean yells to his players during Indiana's win over Maryland on Thursday. (USAT) More

The Indiana team that scorched the Assembly Hall nets Thursday night and torched No. 13 Maryland 89-70 – that didn't much resemble the disaster that was allegedly unfolding in early November. The team that dropped a dazzling 15 3-pointers on the Terrapins – that couldn't be the same group some gave up on before it had played a single game this season. The guys who dropped the most points on Maryland in its last 48 games – those couldn't be the problem children who reportedly lacked leadership and cohesion after a string of off-court problems. The coach who has devised a shockingly effective small-ball lineup in the absence of injured frontcourt players Hanner Mosquera-Perea and Devin Davis – that couldn't be the guy some IU backers wanted tossed out with the Halloween pumpkins in early November. The fans who were pining away for Brad Stevens or anybody not named Tom Crean – those weren't the howling Hoosiers fans who helped make Maryland melt down amid an atmosphere Terrapins coach Mark Turgeon called "the best we've played in all year."

Now that we've plowed through the preseason panic and actually played 19 games, this is Indiana: 15-4 and ranked in the AP Top 25.

Now that we've completed one-third of the Big Ten season, this is Indiana: 5-1 and tied for first.

Now that we're 36 days from March, this is your front-runner for Big Ten Coach of the Year: Tom Crean.

"We're improving," Crean said. "They've been improving all year. They've gotten closer. They've really worked hard to control what they can control."

What the Hoosiers couldn't control was the legion of doom that mobilized after a Halloween night accident in which Emmitt Holt hit Davis with his car, resulting in a major head injury to Davis. (Holt was not found to be at fault in the accident.) That was the last in a series of missteps by IU players dating back through the summer and last spring. When combined with the generally bleak outlook for the season (the Hoosiers were picked to finish 10th in a Big Ten Network poll of media members) and the bleak result of last season (17-15 and no postseason, not even the NIT), the negative vibes were palpable.

But the Hoosiers blocked them out.

"We just stayed together through everything," said Troy Williams, who turned in his fourth-straight stellar performance with 16 points and seven rebounds. "We just know that at the end of the day it's still us [who are] the only ones in the gym … it's still us that's still together as a team. So we didn't let none of the outside get to us. We just stayed together and you see the results are coming out well for us."

Still, even the most optimistic player had to have doubts when starting big man Mosquera-Perea went down with a knee injury a couple of weeks ago. This was a small team with threadbare interior depth to begin with, and losing the 6-foot-9 junior looked like a potential disaster.

View photos Yogi Ferrell (L) was 80 percent from the field on Thursday and finished with 24 points. (Getty) More

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