First Look at: Indiana
Indiana might be the toughest 6-24 (1-17) team ever. That said, it’s not hard to see why they lost so many games.
First, they’re an exceedingly young team. Five of their top six scorers are freshmen. Kelvin Sampson really killed the team in two years, but Tom Crean has brought in some very talented players. It’s going to be fun to watch players like Verdell Jones, Tom Pritchard, and Nick Williams grow into studs. Hell, looking at the recruiting class Crean plans to bring in next year, Indiana is going to be really scary in a couple years. But right now, they’re incredibly inexperienced. Outside of lone senior Kyle Taber (who only averages 4 points a game at that) and junior Devan Dumes, who may or may not play tomorrow afternoon, basically everyone who gets any playing time whatsoever doesn’t just have limited experience: they have no experience.
Like Penn State in the years before this one, Indiana has had trouble learning how to win. I know, that’s a term oft used by broadcasters and pundits, but it really is true. A good team finds ways to pull out the close ones: teams like Indiana have found ways to lose them. One need look no further than their game against Penn State two Saturdays ago. They led by 4 points with under 5 minutes to play, but let Penn State close on an 8-1 run to somehow pull out a win. Then you have games in which they’ve just hung around: a 5 point loss to Michigan State, a 4 point loss to Minnesota, and an overtime loss to Michigan.
Indiana is a team that is exceedingly well coached. I talked about how Crean has done a fantastic job on the recruiting trail, but whether it’s the players he has brought in or his coaching style, Crean has gotten the most out of his players. For a 1-17 team, they’ve been blown out surprisingly few times, and even then it hasn’t been a matter of will. For every possession, Indiana gives it their all, they crash the boards, they play tough physical defense. But then you see that they foul more than any other team in the Big Ten, and are the only school in the conference with a negative assist-to-turnover ratio, and you understand it’s just about their lack of skill.
Statistically, Indiana is just awful. They’re last in the Big Ten in points, assists, turnovers, assists-to-turnover ratio, fouls, free throw percentage, and second to last in basically everything else.
Now, why should Penn State be afraid of a young, 1-17 team, that may be without their top scorer? Because Indiana has gotten better as the season has gone on. They’ve grown together as a team, and their players individually have really progressed. Here’s a small anecdote, that I hope you won’t mind from this blog. In the first PSU-IU matchup, in Assembly Hall, I hadn’t realized just how bad Indiana really was. It was a shock to see them just be so awful, missing open shots (they shot 37% for the game, just 20% from three) turning the ball over with stunning regularity (14) and hacking on defense (Penn State shot 22 free throws). But by the time they played their second game, in the Bryce Jordan Center, Indiana had come a long way. Gone was the sloppy play of the first matchup: Indiana shot 46% from the field, made their threes, cut down on turnovers, and did a better job of closing out defensively. It looked like two different teams.
They’re the kind of group that could shock any team looking past them, and that has got to be the focus for Penn State: not underestimating their opponent. We saw how the Nittany Lions struggled against Iowa, and though that might have been more of a symptom of tired legs and exhausted minds, it was the first real game that Penn State lost that they can safely say they should have won. They can’t afford to let that happen again.
If Penn State loses this one, they’re in the NIT. That’s not even a question. Some say they’ll need to beat Purdue to get an invitation, but I can only hope Talor, Jamelle, Stanley, and crew aren’t worrying about the Boilermakers. Indiana is a dangerous team, not because they can win a game running away, but because they won’t let you do just that. They’re only playing for pride, but in front of what promises to be a home crowd. That can bring a team to do some crazy things.
This space has been hesitant to make predictions in the past, but I’ll do that now:
Penn State 66, Indiana 57
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- Previewing Indiana with Hoosier Examiner Brandon Moore
- The Glass is Half Empty
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