TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — Illinois State basketball coach Tim Jankovich usually spends a couple minutes in the locker room after a game before proceeding to his duties with the media.

Not Wednesday night.

After Indiana State handed the Redbirds a 72-65 defeat, Jankovich and his team remained behind closed doors for almost 20 minutes.

“There were too many (messages). You want to hear the whole thing? I don’t know if I could summarize it in a couple sentences,” said Jankovich, smiling. “It was more to maybe reviewing our season and what works for us and what doesn’t, when we’re in a certain mind frame how good we can be and when we’re anything short of that how average we can play.”

The Redbirds fell to 15-8 overall and 6-6 in the Missouri Valley Conference, including 1-5 on the road. ISU has not put together consecutive victories since Jan. 3 and 6.

Coming off a 66-47 victory over archrival Bradley four days earlier, the Redbirds looked sharp early in taking a 15-10 lead. But Indiana State starting to beat ISU to loose balls, and that eventually resulted in a 31-25 rebounding advantage. This was after the Redbirds pounded Bradley on the boards, 50-28.

“It was basically staying together on the floor defensively and offensively,” said ISU senior forward Dinma Odiakosa about Jankovich’s postgame speech. “We just didn’t quite look together tonight. It’s just disappointing for us.”

Odiakosa certainly couldn’t be blamed. He scored 21 points and grabbed nine rebounds. No other Redbird had more than nine points or five rebounds.

The Redbirds know the season is getting short. There are only six more Valley games left and a bunch of teams stuck in the middle of the league standings. Having a game in the Valley Tournament’s play-in round the first week of March in St. Louis is a definite possibility if the Redbirds don’t finish strong.

Junior guard Alex Rubin is confident ISU can turn things around and soon.

“If people think we’re giving up or anything it’s so far from the truth. It really is,” said Rubin. “We have the utmost competitive nature in our locker room. To think that we’re 6-6 and losing to Indiana State is going to get us to hang up our shoes for the season they’re so wrong.”

ISU pondered the loss on the bus ride back to campus before Rubin said they’ll head to practice Thursday and begin preparations for Saturday’s 7:05 p.m. game against Drake at Redbird Arena.

“We’ll come out Saturday night and play as hard as we can,” Rubin promised.

Odiakosa knows ISU can’t wait too much longer.

“We have to put everything we have into every game because time is running out for us,” he said.