IU basketball scheduling reflects Mike Woodson's wider, aggressive philosophy: Don't hide.

During the introduction of IU coach Mike Woodson at Tuesday’s Big Ten basketball media days podium session in Minneapolis, Commissioner Kevin Warren noted the “panache” Woodson has brought to the conference.

It was a description as succinct as it was ideal for Indiana’s second-year coach, a briefer and more eloquent way of saying Woodson is not afraid to strut sometimes. He was not afraid to strut Tuesday.

Speaking to conference media during his second appearance at one of these events, Woodson once again repeated a version of the same line he used at his own in-house media day, and at Hoosier Hysteria last weekend, when he set his own expectations for his program at competing for both Big Ten and national titles.

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And he backed that up with further bold talk of handing his team the biggest challenges he can find, ahead of a season scheduled to include some of the heaviest-hitting nonconference games in recent memory.

“You can't run from it or be scared of competition. This is what college basketball is about,” Woodson said. “I came here, I signed up for this, so I'm looking to push these guys to the max and see what happens.”

Indiana’s path through November and December is well-known by now.

The Hoosiers will play at Xavier on the Friday before Thanksgiving, fulfilling their final obligation in the inaugural seven-year run of the Big Ten/Big East-cooperative Gavitt Games. Indiana hosts North Carolina at the end of the same month, renewing what has been a consistent matchup in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. A tricky trip to Rutgers in early December marks the start of a difficult Big Ten schedule, advancing the meeting with Arizona in Las Vegas and the trip to Lawrence to play Kansas.

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Woodson promised these kinds of schedules when he took his alma mater’s head job in 2021. He said as soon as he felt his team was ready to swing a heavy bat, he’d hand the Hoosiers one, and his scheduling ahead of one of the most-anticipated IU seasons in recent memory suggests he deems these Hoosiers fit.

This isn’t a one-off thing either. The Hoosiers already have a return visit from Kansas on the schedule for 2023. They’re expected to be back in Maui in four years. They’ll play two games in New York next year. And they could well find themselves in other marquee nonconference tournaments between now and 2026, with Woodson’s fondness for the setup at Paradise Island in The Bahamas established by the Hoosiers’ preseason trip there last year.

When he spoke at Huber’s Orchard and Winery in Borden in the spring, Woodson also embraced the suggestion he could put Louisville — now coached by Woodson’s good friend, Kenny Payne — back on the schedule at some point. And he’s never ducked the idea of restoring the Kentucky series, on ice in a regular-season capacity for 11 years now.

“The Kentucky game is something that I’ve got to go back to the table with (Wildcats coach John Calipari). … I’m not going to let it die,” Woodson said in May. “It might not be in Bloomington, Lexington, I don’t know. But however way we can get it done, I’ll take it.”

Discussions about restarting the prestigious intrastate rivalry have never fully died, though they’ve never really warmed up either, since the two teams’ last regular-season meeting in December 2011. Resumption of the series remains possible, though such a move isn’t currently imminent.

“Competition is great, man,” Woodson said Tuesday. “It's good for your program.”

Woodson’s scheduling philosophy also speaks to something deeper about his approach to his job.

The same coach who never shies away from saying his personal expectations for his program center on winning trophies and hanging banners walks that walk when it’s time to put his team on the floor. He expects high-level results, and he’s willing to push his team for high-level performance to achieve them.

As with anything other than what the scoreboard reads at the end of the game, none of this guarantees anything. Still, it does speak to a mindset fans have suggested — perhaps not entirely wrongly — was missing inside IU’s men’s basketball program in recent years.

At very least, they find Woodson’s bold talk refreshing.

It’s easy for a program alumnus, himself once the Big Ten player of the year and the heartbeat of a team that climbed as high as No. 1 in the country during his senior year, to talk about dreaming big dreams. And talking about them alone won’t see them reached.

But talking about them does clarify firmly what its coach expects of IU basketball. Any lingering doubt has by now been removed.

Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana Hoosiers basketball schedule shows Mike Woodson's confidence