FORT WAYNE – And now, the Target Thing.

“I don’t know about the target thing,” Indiana coach Tom Crean says.

It’s a handful of minutes after Minnesota 77, Indiana 74, after Christian Watford drew sand from the miracle well this time, after Gophers fans in Minneapolis did not storm the floor, if only because the floor in question was 640 miles to the south.

“I think it’s different for all of them,” Crean goes on.

It’s a couple of days after the latest polls came out, and there at No. 7 were the Hoosiers, so high among the elite they needed to pack their own oxygen.

“We don’t have a lot of guys who have come from winning backgrounds,” Crean says.

And so, yes, here came the question, Thursday night, about the Target Thing. Because, yes, Indiana’s familiarity with winning like this – and thus with wearing a target between its shoulder blades – is limited to be sure.

It has no experience with a Minnesota coming into Assembly Hall looking to knock off the No. 7 team in the country. It has no experience with the Gophers coming into Assembly Hall looking to knock off, excuse me, Indiana.

With all due respect to Crean’s first three teams in Bloomington, that’s what this one is again. Before, they were a bunch of earnest young strivers attending a costume party. They were a pile of walk-ons and some-other-color-besides-blue chippers trying to restore the greatness while keeping one eye on the road and the other on the Greatness Instruction Manual.

Tough duty, all of that. And the only consolation, if you were one of the true believers, was that you knew eventually it was going to bear the kind of fruit that sort of duty frequently does.

Believers, meet “eventually.” The Target Thing comes with it.

Call it yet another class in the re-education of a basketball program, and call Thursday night – and what may or may not happen today in Columbus, Ohio, where the Hoosiers get Ohio State in the rematch – the most important lesson yet in that re-education.

The lesson: If Indiana is indeed back to being Indiana again, it can’t just roll the balls out there and expect to win, even in Assembly Hall and even against Minnesota.

Once you have an “A” game, you have to bring it every night. That’s what the Target Thing is all about.

Crean may not buy that, but he does know that elevated expectations sustain themselves on elevated performance. If you want to stay where you are, you do the same things that got you where you are, over and over and over again.

“When you start to win, as things change around you, your mindset can’t change,” he said Thursday. “They’ve got to learn, they’ve got to grow through that. This is new for them.

“As coaches, we’ve won before, we’ve been ranked. We’ve gone on the road and won. We’ve been to the Final Four, but they haven’t. When you’re going through that, the No. 1 thing is to stay committed to that improvement and keep that edge.”

They didn’t Thursday, until the end. But today?

“These are good guys,” Crean says. “They’ll respond.”

Being Indiana again demands it.