IU vs. Ohio State in Big Ten tournament, 12:30 p.m. Thursday, BTN

BLOOMINGTON – They are surging now, reminding us why this IU basketball season once seemed so promising. They are surging because they are a changed team, a closer team, a group that actually seems to like each other again after six hideous weeks where they lost to anybody and just about everybody. Now they are beating anybody and everybody, stacking this 89-73 rout of Rutgers on Sunday onto a winning streak that has reached four games and includes as victims No. 19 Wisconsin and No. 6 Michigan State.

From the depths of 12 losses in 13 games, the Hoosiers are bubbling back to the surface in time for the Big Ten tournament and perhaps – no, this really could happen – an at-large spot in the 2019 NCAA tournament.

IU coach Archie Miller wasn’t having it Sunday – “We’re going to have to win,” he said of the conference tournament, “not (just) one game, two games” – but the bubble is soft, as we’re hearing, and all of a sudden IU basketball is playing hard. That’s one reason for this surge, one reason it continued Sunday in a game that saved IU from the shame and hassle of having to play on the first day of the Big Ten tourney. Wednesday is reserved for the have-nots in a 14-team league that trots out its bottom four seeds, and only its bottom four seeds, and IU and Rutgers were playing for a first-round bye to Thursday.

The Hoosiers won that bye, and they won it in the first 10 minutes, destroying Rutgers with an early run that was reminiscent of what opponents once had done to the Hoosiers. A team known earlier this season for its slow starts is showing up ready to play because now, finally, the Hoosiers are buying whatever Miller is selling. The change happened after the season’s nadir Feb. 16, an 84-63 loss at Minnesota, a result Miller called “a deal breaker … we’ve got to get some guys’ attention.”

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Whatever he did behind closed doors, whatever he said, it worked. The results weren’t immediate – IU lost twice more, to Purdue and Iowa, but took the No. 15 Boilermakers to the final buzzer and pushed the No. 21 Hawkeyes into overtime at Iowa City – but the payoff is now. It sounds like a stream of consciousness Archie Miller unleashed toward the end of his news conference Sunday, a stream I’ll share with you in a moment.

But first, the payoff for IU looks like this:

Like Rutgers bringing the Big Ten’s biggest team into Assembly Hall – average height: 6-7 – and getting run off the glass in the first half. At one point the Hoosiers had a 12-3 edge on the boards, continuing a trend that had seen IU outrebound four of its previous five opponents, including Big Ten bullies Michigan State (first in the league in rebounding margin) and Purdue (third).

It looked like an IU offensive attack, which for so long had been so dependent on Juwan Morgan and Romeo Langford, finding other options. In the past three games it had been Justin Smith, averaging 17 ppg in that stretch, and Robert Phinisee, averaging 11.3 ppg in the previous four.

On Sunday, with Smith and Phinisee scoring a combined 10 points, it was Devonte Green scoring 16 points on just eight shots, harnessing that incredible talent of his – and he does have all kinds of game – while corralling the negative plays. In this four-game winning streak he has had 11 assists and just four turnovers, his best ballhandling stretch of the season.

It also looked like Juwan Morgan and Romeo Langford getting theirs on Sunday. Let’s not be ridiculous: For the Hoosiers to be at their best, they need Morgan and Langford to play like their best players, and they did that Sunday. Morgan had a dream-like start on senior day, making his first 10 shots before settling for 25 points on 11-for-13 shooting. Langford scored 20 points, fueled by an 8-for-10 day at the line.

And most of all it looked like this:

Like sophomore guard Al Durham attacking the rim and getting drilled to the floor by 7-0 275-pound Rutgers center Shaquille Doorson, and Durham’s teammates racing each other to help him up. Here came Green from 30 feet away, trying to get to Durham, but he had no chance. Langford, Race Thompson and De’Ron Davis were closer to Durham and were on him in an instant, scooping him up and practically carrying him to the foul line for his free throws.

A seconds later, Langford's at the foul line and IU is making a substitution. Here comes Smith onto the floor, trotting past Romeo to take his position on the low block. Wait, what’s this? Langford is holding out a hand. And Smith is tapping it as he runs past.

If the Hoosiers liked each other earlier this season, they weren’t acting like it. Very little camaraderie on the court. Very little effort. How hard are you willing to work for your teammates? Came the answer from the Hoosiers, during that stretch of 12 losses in 13 games:

Not very!

It was that nonchalance, that indifference, that so galled IU fans. But that has gone missing these past few weeks, throttled out of the Hoosiers by whatever Miller said or did in the wake of Minnesota. Where once Miller was saying “you need everybody moving in the right direction, rowing in the right direction, working as hard as they possibly can,” now he’s saying something that mirrors what we’re seeing from IU on the floor: He’s saying the complete opposite.

“We’ve gotten good at practice again,” he said Sunday. “(We) have a good vibe about us right now that they want to be in the gym, and that's really important in March. We have a group of guys that want to be around each other.”

Gotten good at practice? Guys want to be around each other?

That’s the difference in the Hoosiers now?

It’s elementary stuff, too easy, but find another explanation for this misshapen season. Try to explain why else an IU team that could beat Marquette and Louisville and sweep Big Ten co-champion Michigan State – the Spartans went 0-2 against IU, 16-2 against everyone else in the league – managed to lose 12 times in 13 games before winning these last four.

It’s fragile, whatever is happening at IU, less tangible than increased depth with the returns Phinisee, Davis and Thompson. And Miller was conceding as much Sunday, thinking aloud, listing the questions in his own head.

“Can we get better?” he started. “Can we be the same team we've been the last three weeks? Is anyone going to take their focus off? Are we going to lose somebody to, you know, to (being) lackadaisical? Do we get distracted?”

Miller is finished asking questions – he was interviewing himself, almost – and now he has a thought. A comforting thought: He’s coaching an IU team that finally has some answers.

“You know,” he said, continuing his stream of consciousness, “there's a huge thing about teams when they are in a good rhythm. Distractions, talking about other things … we haven't been able to talk about anything but survival for a long time, and that's sort of why we're here: Because we've kind of said there really isn't anything other than just do it. You have to do it the right way, and we have a good attitude right now. So take that to Chicago, and we'll feel good about it.”

Stranger things have happened. For example: this whole IU season.

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