Howard Preview & Soccer

The Men's basketball team kicks off their season against Howard. What kind of test will they be? Well, most computers/analysts put Indiana's team as ranked somewhere around 200 (I think Sagarin had IU at about 190, while KenPom & ncaaRPI had us around 210). Howard lived around 330. As bad as last year's team was, Howard would've been a welcome foe. And you won't see Howard's recruiting class on any top 10 list. This should be a blowout, and if it's not, that'll be cause for alarm.

If I was in Bloomington today, nothing would keep from cheering on the Soccer team in the Big Ten Tourney and Bill Armstrong stadium. It's at 2pm ET, but the Hoosiers are very close to keeping their season alive. They went a long way last night by beating #5 seed Wisconsin 2-0, to improve their overall record to 10-8-1. They also earned a rematch to top-seeded Ohio State who beat them 1-0 in overtime in a very closely contested match a couple of weeks ago. If IU can take down OSU to earn a spot in the Championship game, the odds of getting a NCAA at-large invite will be greatly improved. Of course, win today and on Sunday, and they're automatically in. I, for one, don't want to see any other teams hoisting the championship trophy on Jerry Yeagley field. Go Hoosiers!

2nd exhibition game a win

Indiana crushed another in-state small college team, beating St. Joseph's 95-67. Although the final score wasn't markedly different than against Grace, IU pulled away early in this one and cruised. Maurice Creek had a monster game, and showed everyone why he was considered the most college-level-ready player of the recruits coming in. Hulls had a pretty poor game, at one point in the first half committing three straight turnovers. Watford and Rivers were steady again, as was Jones, although Jones had some serious turnover problems. As for the team stats, IU shot 5 of 10 from three, 32 of 46 from the stripe, and had 15 assists to 18 turnovers.

What can be gleaned from these games? Well, I did my own little number-crunching of the stats, and while the low level of competition can't give a reliable forecast, you can tell that the freshmen plus Rivers are pretty decent in comparison to the returning Hoosiers. In fact, the seven newcomers would've probably won more games than all of last season's roster. Verdell Jones and Tom Pritchard were two of the best IU players last year, and while they still look like they belong in the starting lineup, they're not better than newbies Rivers, Creek, and Watford.

Also, the bench- the Hoosiers will actually have one this year as Hulls & Derek Elston (boy, they could've used Elston last year) will make positive contributions off the bench. And Capobianco and Roth will fill in as depth, but I don't expect either of them to top 10 min./game. Muniru and Dumes are a bit of a mystery still. Dumes was the leading scorer last year and perhaps the best on-ball defender, but where will he fit in once he's healthy? And Muniru- well, he had a nice night against a team that wasn't very big or very good. But he can block shots and dunk- great upside. Jobe and Moore, barring incredible improvement or disastrous injuries, will probably see a lot more of bench this year.

In other Big Ten news, Ohio State kicked off the real season with a real game (altho it was just Alcorn State), and Evan Turner had a night for the ages with a triple-double, just stuffing the stat-sheet. Enjoy him in his last go-round here in the college game. Michigan State also beat Grand Valley State, exacting some revenge for a loss a couple of years ago, but they were still without Morgan, Roe, and Allen, and Summers got poked in the eye and only 19 minutes. Also, Kalin Lucas shot 6-for-18 from the floor, bringing his preseason total to 11-for-39. I've mentioned my reservations about Lucas' shooting percentage in the past, and shooting 28% against D-II competition isn't exactly alleviating my concerns.

Exhibitionism

The Big Ten teams are starting to kick off their exhibition schedule, blowing out various Junior College & NAIA schools.

Here's the numbers I'm interested in:

Purdue over "Cal U" on Tuesday: The Boilers hit 8 of 21 threes, 16 of 26 frees, and had 17 assists to 15 turnovers. The real California will be tougher.

Last night:
Minnesota really pasted Minn. Duluth, 114-47. The Gophers still only shot 5 of 15 on threes, 21 of 29 on frees, but had an eye-popping 32 assists against just 5 turnovers.

Northwestern took down "Robert Morris" of (Ill.). What's with all the playing Juco teams with D-I names? Anyway, NU shot 9-of-31 from three, 3-of-7 from free, and had a very good 24 assists against 7 turnovers. Notably, Shurna & Coble, who will be taking most of Craig Moore's threes, went 6-for-9 behind the arc.

Ohio State beat on Walsh, shooting a very nice 8-for-17 on threes, 4-of-6 from the stripe, and 16 assists vs. 11 turnovers.

Finally, the UW Badgers jumped on Bemidji State 90-54, but shot a miserable 5-of-20 from three, and 19-of-32 from free (59%), but had 19 assists vs. 13 turnovers. For reference, Indiana beat Benjy St. 72-54 last season.

So, how did Indiana's Wednesday win over Grace stack up? The Hoosiers shot 4 of 13 on threes, 22 of 29 on free-throws, and had 21 assists to 17 turnovers. What's notable here is that Indiana has posted the best free-throw percentage so far of any Big Ten, after ranking last (I think- not 100% on this) last season. Not crowing about it, mind you, but it'd be nice to take ourselves out of close games by bricking free-throws this time around. It's also nice to have more assists than turnovers (which Illinois did not), but I think Indiana is still going to challenge for the conference lead in this category- there's just too many low-turnover coaches in the league now. The lack of three-point prowess doesn't worry me yet- most teams, excepting OSU and Purdue, had a pretty rocky start here.

Bah!

A beautiful, insightful post on tonight's game eaten by blogger.

Basically, IU pulls away from Grace in exhibition, I'm not worried that it didn't happen until second half, most of our freshmen look talented.

Box score breakdowns will come later.

Comment to Crimson Quarry.

CQ has a nice run-down of the returning guards here, and I'm too impatient to wait for my SBNation ID and permissions to come through.


"Great work! I'm sure that it won't be the happiest year to be Hoosier basketball fan, but it'll be a long sight better than last year.

I did want to mention a couple of things about Roth, 1) he almost *never* shot inside the arc, unless his foot was on the three-point line. Mostly he ran off picks and backdoor slips to the hoop hoping to draw some contact and hit some free-throws (which he did well). However, the one time that I saw when he actually received the backdoor pass, he almost didn't know what to do with it- he bricked the lay-up badly. 2) Roth did a great job of not turning the ball over. Besides Jones, he was the only IU player with more assists than turnovers in Big Ten play. 3) Roth never gave up on a play. There was a long stretch of the season, after the Iowa game I think, where he was IU's leading shot-blocker just because he got back on transition defense.

I don't see him starting this year, he's just not big enough, but I think he'll be a very useful player to bring off the bench for offense, or even just to calm things down."

Countdown to the beginning...

of the future of Indiana Basketball. The exhibition game is against Grace on Wednesday night, and I believe my DVR will be taping it early in the morning on Thursday, and some point after that, I'll be watching to see what the new Hoosiers look like. Speaking of exhibition games, I generally watch the box scores of other Big Ten teams for three-point and free-throw shooting, and the assist-turnover ratio. Generally, the exhibition foes are so much smaller that it's hard to get a read on the accuracy of our league foes' FG% and rebounding acumen. Not that shooting is much easier to predict, but good shooting always stands out. Purdue plays tomorrow night, but two exhibition games have actually already occurred.

MSU trounced Northwood, with 18 assists to 11 TOs, going 18 for 30 on frees and 4 for 18 on threes.

Illinois beat down Southern Missouri, 16 assists/19 TOs, and went 26 for 37 on frees and 3 for 15 on threes.

So, no good shooting to really standout here, although Alex Legion hit a couple of threes for Illinois, and frosh Paul & Richardson showed some scoring abilities. For MSU, Morgan and Chris Allen (not Chris Hill, as the MSU website listed complete with a link to Hill's senior profile) were out and Roe only played 7 minutes. Of the newcomers, Derrick Nix showed a nice ability to score in the low post and Summers scored from all over. But Kalin Lucas did go 5 of 21 from the field. That's gotta be a little worrisome for the green gang.

Good bit on the improvement of returning players at Big Ten Geeks. I think an improvement from Tom Pritchard specifically, would go a very long way in helping the Hoosiers.

Changes, and Poll reax

The the ESPN/USA Today basketball poll is out. I am shocked, shocked! that I don't see the Hoosiers anywhere. I was actually surprised at how close I was some of the rankings- for example, I thought I would be the only one listing Butler as a top ten. Guess I'm not a unique snowflake after all. I am a little mystified at Texas & UNC as #3 and #4. Um, the Big Ten does pretty well-

#2 Michigan State
#7 Purdue
#15 Michigan
#17 Ohio State
#18 Minnesota
#27 Illinois

From here, I think Illinois and OSU are a bit over-rated, and Northwestern is a bit underrated.

I made some changes on the links section of the blog. It was getting kind of ridiculous for me to have to click through two sites to check out the latest from Crimson Quarry or The Only Colors. And some blogs had passed on, and needed to be replaced with more current commentary. Speaking of other bloggers, Inside the Hall is asking for some help. Even though they don't link to me (and I haven't asked), I suggest that if you like reading sportsblogs and have a couple of bucks to give back, they're a good venue as they pay for access to resources so they can share the knowledge and keep us fans up-to-date on the latest scuttlebutt. Also, they have a nice Q&A with the Godfather of tempo-free stats.