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.