Not Even Looking At the Glass

I don’t like to think of myself as an optimist or a pessimist, really. Heck this week, I’ve just been busy. I realize this is only the second day of the week, but that’s the way it’s been. In light of all that busyosity I haven’t had time to give a ton of thought to Indiana’s trip to MSG to face Pittsburgh tonight. The few ounces of thought I have given it say this: the Hoosiers lose tonight. The Big Ten Geeks think it will be close because Pitt hasn’t beaten anyone and needed double OT to beat Duquesne. I hope they’re right. Hell, I hope if they’re wrong, it’s because the Hoosiers pulled out the W. Unfortunately, the numbers for Pitt and IU say to me that the Panthers are good at defense in general. More specifically, they hang their hats on cleaning up the defensive glass and keeping their opponents off the free throw line. On offense, they get to the free throw line and make a lot of 2-pointers.

In contrast, IU is not especially good at offense. Their biggest strengths are on the offensive glass and getting to the free throw line. Those match up with Pitt’s defensive strengths. On D, the Hoosiers are pretty middle of the road in defending 2-pointers. From watching games, my feeling is that these Hoosiers have a very hard time defending the paint, and that is where the Panthers make their hay. It could be a tough night for these young, skinny Hoosiers.

But let’s stick with not looking at that glass. Let’s wait and see what happens when the game is played in our TV sets.

The Rebels Are Comin’

Or at least the Hoosiers are going to meet them in Puerto Rico. After two exhibitions and then two more warm-up games, the Hoosiers face a measuring stick game against Mississippi this evening. The folks at Inside the Hall did a nice job telling us some things about the Rebels here. It’s early in the season to put too much stock in the numbers, but so far Ole Miss has been pretty good on both offense and defense. Kenpom’s adjusted efficiencies indicate that IU’s offense has been stellar so far, while the defense has been nearly as bad as the O has been good. But, like I said earlier, it’s early to put too much stock in those numbers, given the small number of games each team has played.

However, one aspect of the game stands out to me in Mississippi’s raw numbers: turnovers. The Rebels have been exceedingly adept at both hanging onto the ball and causing turnovers for their opponents. Specifically, they have stolen the ball on 20% of their opponents’ possessions. That’s absurd! 1 out of every 5 possessions they have played D, the Rebels have liberated the ball from the other team. Now, their opponents have been none too good at holding onto the ball in general (actually, one of them – Alabama St. – hasn’t played another game, so we really don’t have much to draw on), but the interesting thing is that holding onto the ball is the one thing that the Hoosiers have done poorly on offense. OK, they’ve been pretty awful at making their free throws, too, but I’m talking about the Four Factors here. And the one bugaboo on their short offensive résumé this season is that they’ve turned the ball over way too much. That would seem to play right into the hands of Mississippi.

So after all that, it says here that the Hoosiers will have to hold onto the ball to compete with a more experienced and impressively talented Rebel squad. They’ll need to play much better D, too. That said, I’m looking forward to seeing them in the crucible of competition against a team that looks to be outfitted for a trip to the Big Dance in March.

Point Taken?

I don't know what we really know about the Hoosiers after their first two games, other than that they will undoubtedly be a constantly-evolving and likely-improving team over the course of the season. The one thing that's interesting to me after the first two games is the point guard play. Verdell Jones, III has been the starter for both games, and he seems to have flashes of brilliance, and a lot of potential upside (as Hubie Brown might say). He has been occasionally spelled by a short, scrappy walk-on from Carmel High School: Daniel Moore. What's interesting is how the team has played with them both on and off the floor. Here are team efficiency numbers with both of them on and off the floor in the Bemidji State game.

	Min	OEff on floor	OEff off floor	DEff on floor	DEff off floor
Jones	25:22	100.0	103.4	83.7	60.0
Moore	18:14	100.0	102.7	69.4	78.4

 

And here are the numbers for the IUPUI game

	Min	OEff on floor	OEff off floor	DEff on floor	DEff off floor
Jones	17:30	48.3	143.8	110.0	75.0
Moore	23:40	150.0	41.4	78.8	106.9

 

Again, it's probably too early to try to make any sweeping conclusions. However, in the first game, neither player's presence on the floor seemed to help the O, but the team did play better D while Moore was on the floor and worse when Jones was out there. The results were drastic against IUPUI, when Moore's presence coincided with greatly improved offensive and defensive efficiency, while Jones's PT coincided with poor team performance on both ends of the floor. We definitely can't attribute the team's play to the presence or absence of either player, but it is something I find interesting to look at. It will be even more interesting to see what happens as we move forward throughout the course of the season. Of course, the point may be moot, since I don't know the status Jones's ankle injury.

Speaking of moving forward, I don't think it matters who the Hoosiers trot out against Notre Dame this evening. As John Gasaway points out, the Irish are comprised of a scoring machine of staggering efficiency in Luke Harangody, surrounded by a bunch of guys who do little other than shoot -- and make -- 3's when the defense focuses on the big man. I'm not really sure what IU's approach will be. You don't want to play zone and sag in on Harangody because the perimeter guys will light you up. On the other hand, you Harangody will destroy the smallish and youngish Hoosier frontcourt if they try to play him straight up. The Hoosiers lack of rebounding chops is so much gasoline on the fire. I fear that Tom Pritchard, Kyle Taber, and Tijan Jobe will be hard-pressed to stay on the floor for any appreciable length of time due to foul trouble. All in all, I don't expect IU to have a good chance against what is a superior team on paper (or in this blog, anyway). But, as Kenny Mayne says, they don't play games on paper; they play them in TV sets. So let's see what happens.

Searching for Identity

During the Big Ten conference schedule, the Hoosiers established pretty clearly the areas in which they excelled. A gander at the Big Ten tempo-free stats shows that the Hoosiers were second best in the conference in 2-point FG% (only Ohio State was better) first in free throw rate, first in free throw percentage, and first in defensive rebounding. So they hit their shots in side the arc, got to the line (where they were deadly efficient), and kept their opponents from getting offensive rebounds.

Recently, though, either those strengths deserted IU, or Indiana got away from them. In their loss to Minnesota in the Big Ten Tournament (HD Box here), Indiana still got to the free throw line a ton, but they didn't hit them with anywhere near their normal accuracy, hitting just 67.6% in that game when they connected at a 77.9% clip during the conference season. Especially different, though, were the two-point shooting and defensive rebounding. IU hit a paltry 41.7% of their 2's (and an atrocious 1 of 14 3's), and they allowed Minnesota to rebound an incredible 43% of their own misses. When you compare that to the conference season number of 28%, something was clearly amiss.

But there's no point in nattering on about such things. Everyone in the country probably knows that there's something amiss with the team. I will confess something, though. After all the missed free throws at the end of the game, when DJ finally hit the freebie to give IU the lead with just over a second left, I told the girl, "IU doesn't deserve to win this game. If Minnesota hits some ridiculous shot to win, I won't be surprised." Well, the only thing everyone in the country knows better than that something is amiss with the Hoosiers is that Blake Hoffarber hit an absurd left-handed almost hook/prayer to beat both the buzzer and the Hoosiers. The Girl was not the least bit pleased with me, claiming that I jinxed the team. If that's the case, please accept my apology.

But I say again that we should dwell on something else.  How about Indiana's NCAA game against Arkansas? First, a look at the kenpom scouting reports (IU Ark) makes me wish that I had full tempo-free conference stats for all conferences at my disposal, because both teams numbers are significantly worse for conference games only. The overall numbers predict a 73-69 IU win in 70 possessions, while the conference numbers predict a 70 - 69 IU win in 67 possessions. Either way, a close game is predicted by the numbers.  So let's look at some details.

When Arkansas Has the Ball

Arkansas' biggest strength on O seems to be their offensive rebounding, as the Razorbacks rank 21st in the country in O rebounding percentage. Couple that with their 48th best 2-point field goal percentage, and it seems that they are pretty strong inside. That's not really surprising, as the Razorbacks boast 5 players on their roster at or about 6'8". Four of those are 6'10" or better. That height has more of an impact on defense, according to Ken Pomeroy, but it plays out some on O, too. These Arkansas strengths lie in direct opposition to Indiana's defensive strengths. We mentioned above that IU was #1 in the Big Ten in defensive rebounding, and they are also 28th in the country on the overall season in that category. The Hoosiers are also 44th best in the country on the season in 2-point FG% defense. So it will be interesting to see how those elements play out.

The Arkansas offense turns the ball over quite a bit, shoots poorly beyond the arc, and doesn't get to the free throw line much, but the Hoosiers D rarely forces turnovers, doesn't defend 3's terribly well (but not terribly poorly, either). The Hoosiers are pretty good at keeping opponents off the free throw line, though, and they are excellent at defending the free throws they do give up.  ;-)

When Indiana Has the Ball

Interestingly, given their height, is that the Razorbacks are not especially adept at defending 2-point field goals. That seems even odder when you note that they are 13th best in the country at blocking shots. Furthermore, Arkansas is pretty middle of the road at keeping opponents off the free throw line. What the Arkansas defense excels at with all of that height, aside from blocking shots, is defending 3-pointers. All of those factors seem to play into the hands of the Indiana team we saw play throughout most of the Big Ten season, as 2-point shooting and free throws are the best pieces of Indiana's O.

However, the only other tall, shot-blocking defense the Hoosiers have played was UConn, and that didn't go their way. Still, UConn was good at stopping 2's but not 3's, and Indiana doesn't shoot a whole lot of 3's.

Really, the way the teams' strengths and weaknesses align, it seems like the Hoosiers should have the advantage.  But that's only if the team we saw play for most of the season shows up. If the team that has been frequently ineffective since the beginning of the Dakich era shows up, Indiana won't have to worry about how they match up with North Carolina.

In Search of Some D

The Golden Gophers come calling at the Assembly Hall (IN version) tonight, and the Hoosiers could use a good performance.  Of course, they could also use a win, but they really need to figure out how to play D under Dakich. After the Michigan St. game, I pointed out that the Hoosiers had posted 2 of their worst 3 defensive performances for the season since Dakich took the helm, and that's something that needs to be corrected for any team that wants to play well in any tournament.

Since this is the second game IU is playing against Minnesota, I'd like to able to look back on the HD box score from the first go-round to get some idea of what might be key in tonight's game. Unfortunately, we don't have an HD box score for that game because Minnesota didn't release the substitution info for it. I made a go at generating that data myself from the game tape, but it didn't quite work out. However, the keys to that game were defense, turnovers (sort of), and free throws.

In the first meeting, the Hoosiers turned it over on 35% of their possessions, by far their worst performance of the season in that regard. The reason that was only sort of a key is that the Hoosiers managed to win 65-60 in spite of those turnovers, which is kind of amazing to me. Still, Indiana played excellent defense against the Gophers, holding them to 0.885 points per possession, their second best defensive effort in conference play (the game at Michigan was their best, at 0.883 PPP). Jordan Crawford was huge in that game, too, posting 16 points while hitting 4 of 6 3's. Even huger for the Hoosiers was Spencer Tollackson of Minnesota, who failed to hit even one free throw in 7 attempts. That vaunted Indiana free throw defense came through for them again (although the rest of the Gophers went 11 for 14 from the line).

Still, if a team with a potent offense like Indiana's can keep its opponents under 1 point per possession, you have to like its chances. And therein lies the rub: can the Hoosiers play any D in the post-Sampson era? Big A over at Inside the Hall suggested that there might be some issues with certain players not being fully on board with Dakich, and I could see that.  In fact, I wondered about it in this space after the Northwestern game. I can't say that I've seen much of that myself, but I haven't done a good job of watching for it, either. Let's hope the East Lansing beat-down served as a wake up call for the whole team.

With their pressing D, the Gophers are second only to Purdue at forcing turnovers in conference games. So expect more pressure tonight. The Hoosiers need to do a better job at keeping their hands on the ball and throwing it to players wearing the same color jerseys tonight. On the plus side for Indiana, Minnesota ranks eighth in the conference in defending two-pointers and defensive free throw rate, as well as tenth in defensive rebounding. Those are areas that IU might be able to exploit, given that the Hoosiers rank second in two point FG%, second in offensive free throw rate, and third in offensive rebounding percentage.

Conversely, Minnesota's offense is very good on the offensive glass and in getting to the free throw line, ranking second and fourth, respectively, in the conference in those categories. But that plays into the hands of the Hoosiers D, which is the best in the conference at defensive rebounding and fourth at keeping opponents off the line.

The numbers appear to favor the Hoosiers. They should also have emotion on their side, too, given that it's Senior Night in Bloomington. Hopefully, the attendant emotion can translate into elevated play for IU. The real questions are whether IU can hold onto the ball and whether the Hoosier D can rebound enough for the Hoosiers to pull out a win.

Then and Now

Then

The Hoosiers got a win on the road at Northwestern Saturday night. I haven't written much about it, because I'm not completely sure what to say. I suppose a quick look at the numbers is in order, if for no other reason than to say that, even more than the second Wisconsin game, the two teams' defenses just didn't bother about this game. A look at kenpom's Indiana game stats numbers (sorted by defensive efficiency) shows that it was the worst defensive game Indiana has played all year. However, it was also Northwestern's second worst. On offense, nearly all of Indiana players were stellar. Bassett was excellent, while taking on a go-to guy share of possessions (26%). Jordan Crawford was sublime. Seriously, look at his +/-. I'll wait. DJ White was his normal self despite playing with the flu. Eric Gordon was his normal self, and Kyle Taber had another do no evil game on that end. I'm not going to talk about who played poorly on offense, and I'm not going to talk about anyone's bad +/- numbers, because I don't care. Given the situation with Coach cum Verizon Guy Sampson, I told the Girl that the Hoosiers were likely to go up there and lose. That they managed to pull out a victory, regardless of anything else, was excellent for the team. And for that, Indiana fans should be happy.

Random side note, I was confused a couple of times in the second half about whether IU was running a man or a zone. I even started to holler about why we were going back to the man when it wasn't working (not that the zone really was). Turns out that Dakich had decided to junk it up by running a triangle-and-two. I didn't recognize it at all, and I need to go back to look at it. Dakich claims that defense was key to getting back in the game when IU was down 7 or 9 in the second half.

Now

Tonight the Hoosiers host a dangerous, if struggling, Ohio State team. I did a preview based on whole season stats before the game in Columbus, and I think we can still apply most of that. Last time around, the Hoosiers pulled out a victory by forcing Ohio State to keep the ball outside the arc with an active 2-3 zone, leading the Buckeyes to jack up 27 3's, hitting only 7 of them. More than half of the Buckeye field goal attempts came from beyond the arc, and it just didn't work for them. It's unsurprising that it didn't work, too, since we pointed out in our preview that Ohio State is best at hitting 2's and worst at not so good at hitting 3's. FWIW, Indiana's excellent free throw defense came through for them again, as OSU hit only half of their eight freebies.

On the other end, Indiana managed to get 4 more shots than the buckeyes by turning it over on only 125 of thier possessions. That, and they overcame a stout Buckeye D in hitting more than half of their 2-pointers. Also, they hit every one of the few free throws the Buckeyes gave up.

But that was last time, and I'm supposed to be talking about now. Nevertheless, I think Indiana's defensive game plan last time was sound, given that Ohio State is first in the conference in 2-point FG% and next to last in 3-point FG% (only Michigan is worse). If Indiana can force contested 3's with an active zone again, they could win. However, I have this odd feeling that the program's turmoil almost has to cause a "friction loss" at some point, and it will be interesting to see if the Hoosiers can focus and take care of business at home tonight. On offense, Indiana might as well stick with its strengths and try to make 2's, because OSU has the best defense in the conference, and they are #1 in both 2-point and 3-point FG% D. That may not happen, though, because OSU's opponents attempt 42% of their shots from outside the arc in conference games, more than against any other team. 'T'will be interesting, without question.

Finally, my player to watch tonight is Jamarcus Ellis. It looked to me like he was not completely with the team emotionally or mentally in Evanston on Saturday. Sure, he picked up a silly technical, but it was more that he seemed disinterested in listening to Dakich in huddles and on the sidelines. Much of that is understandable given the situation, but Indiana needs his defense, rebounding, and distribution to be good.

Preview: Connecticut vs. Indiana

Tempo
While we don't like for a team's tempo to cloud our view of the team's numbers, it's good to be aware of how fast teams like to play. When they play at vastly different paces, it can make one team or the other play differently than it likes. However, in this case, both teams play at a similar, and reasonably fast, pace, with UConn averaging an adjusted 71.9 possessions per 40 minutes and Indiana clicking along at an adjusted 70.5.

When the Huskies have the ball
UConn doesn't shoot the ball particularly well overall, posting an above average but middling 51.1 effective field goal percentage (ranked number 131 in the country). The pieces behind that shooting are hitting 51.5% of their two-point shots (good for 86th in the country) but only 34.1% of their 3's (210th nationally). That below-average 3-point shooting is probably why a full 328 teams take more three pointers than does UConn, as only 25% of the shots that UConn launches are trifectas. Still, the Huskies offense is the 19th most efficient offense in the country, scoring 115.8 points per 100 possessions. Given mediocre shooting, what drives that efficiency? I'm glad you asked, because, while the Huskies eFG% isn't particularly impressive, the other 3 of the Four Factors are pretty daggone good. They only turn the ball over on 19.4% of their posssessions (57th in the country), and they grab almost 39% of their own missed shots, good for 25th in the country. But the real engine to the O seems to be free throws. While UConn makes 70.4% of their freebies, which is about average but again not stellar, they shoot more free throws than anyone else in the country. As Ken Pomeroy pointed out in his article yesterday, a team that shoots 70% from the stripe will average a gaudy 140 points per 100 posssessions where they earn two free throws. If you tend to get a lot of those types of possessions, you're going to score some points.

Now let's take a look at how all that fits in with IU's defense. Indiana's opponents only post a 44.9 eFG%, which makes the Hoosiers 30th best in the country at defending the basket. The Hoosiers are right around the middle of the pack in forcing turnovers on 21.6% of opponents' possessions, and they're somewhat above average when it comes to fouling, allowing an 89th-ranked free throw rate of 31.7. What the Hoosiers do especially well is keep the opposing team off of the offensive glass, allowing their opponents to grab only 27.6% of their missed shots.

So it looks like there will be a real battle on the boards on Connecticut's end. It also looks like Connecticut might make their customary bazillion trips to the free throw line. However, in the Hoosiers favor there is that their opponents shoot only 61.5% from the strip for some reason. I don't know if that means that IU has faced poor-shooting teams, that Assembly Hall (where IU has played 12 of their 18 game this year) is a tough place to shoot FT's, or that the Hoosiers are smart about whom they send to the line. Possibly all three things are in play.

When the Hoosiers have the ball
Unlike UConn, IU is quite good at putting the ball in the basket, posting an 18th best in the country 55.3 eFG%. The Hoosiers do just fine from bonus-land, hitting 37.5% of their 3's (85th nationally), but they excel at hitting their 2's, netting 54.8% of them, and only 15 teams in the land can boast a better number there. IU is pretty middle of the road in handling the ball, turning it over on 21.1 % of their possessions (136th in the country). Like UConn, the Hoosiers are pretty good on the offensive glass, grabbing a 47th best 37.3% of their own misses. Also like the Huskies, IU gets to the line a lot, posting a 6th-ranked free throw rate of 33.7. Most of that is driven by DJ White, who gets to the line regularly, as effective big men are wont to do, and by Eric Gordon, who gets to the line even more often, which is highly unusual for a shooting guard. Indiana also shoots quite well as a team once they get to the FT line, converting nearly 75% of the free ones.

Defensively, the Huskies are pretty good team with a 51st-ranked adjusted effiency of 92.4. They only force turnovers on 18.2% of opponents possessions, which is a lowly 324th in the country. They also allow their opponents to rebound 33.5% of their misses, making UConn the 191st ranked defensive rebounding team. So how is their defense any good? It's all about eFG% and fouls, as UConn is ranked 14th in the nation in both categories. The Huskies opponents only have a FT rate of 25.0, and their eFG% is only 43.7. Interestingly, UConn is either not effective at or not interested in stopping 3-pointers, as they allow their opponents to hit 37.1% of their 3's (253rd in the nation). That might be because they are intensely focused on stopping the two-point shots, limiting their opponents to 37.8% of those. In this land of ours, only Nebraska defends two-pointers better than UConn. The reason it's so hard to hit 2's against UConn: they block a full 20.2% of those shots, and only Mississippi St. can claim to block shots more frequently. It is apparently exceedingly hard to shoot over or around the likes of 7'3" center Hasheem Thabeet, Stanley Robinson, and Jeff Adrien, who are all accomplished shot blockers, unless one takes those shots from way out at the 3-point line.

Putting those numbers head to head makes me think that the Hoosiers are in for a long day offensively unless they can manage to turn those shot blockers into foulers, or take more than their customary 32.3% (ranked 212th in the country) of their shots from beyond the arc. Also, I think this is going to be a slow-moving game for the fans, given how often both of these teams tend to get to the free throw line. However, Jim Calhoun has suspended his top two off-guards for unspecified reasons, and they didn't even make the trip to Indiana, which might free up the Hoosier back court to do some of that damage. Eric Gordon and Armon Bassett could have a huge day if they can manage to dial it in from long distance. We may even seen Lance Stemler chuck it from deep more than once or twice this game.