A key to IU's success thus far this season...

[Hoosier Manic]

...is having 3 high level guards who can all handle the ball, and shoot the three (YF,JBj, RJ), and a super athletic wing playing at a high level who can drive and rebound (TW), and a grunt doing the dirty work (CH). And having a couple of bench players who know their roles (NZ, MH).

Of course that may all seem obvious, but these things were lacking last year. Still think our lack of size will cost us some games, and we still have moments of sloppiness (especially SR) and defensive lapses, but the team is getting better, and appear to be playing with great chemistry at the moment.

Still only halfway into the season, need to keep it up, and close out the rest of the season strong.

 

[MichiganHoosier]

The guard play is much better, but this one-dimensional offense concerns me. When the 3s aren't falling, what do we have? Dribble/drive? Our defense isn't good enough to compensate on nights when the 3s aren't falling. I hope I'm wrong, but I have a hunch that Bo Ryan at Wisconsin will exploit those weaknesses.

When we play like we did against Maryland, it's a fun game to watch. But I don't see Crean's style and his disdain for post players/scoring ever getting us deep in the tournament. But then, I didn't expect this team to only have one B10 loss at this point, either.

 

[davidrdunn]

Yeah, like the OSU game when we were 4-18 behind the arc,

or the Nebraska game when we were 7-24, no way we were going to win those games shooting that poorly......wait, we did win those two games.Our defense must have gotten lucky those nights.

 

[bettinvet]

The big advantage is the opposing team know we can shoot lights out at any moment and it forces them to guard the perimeter hard even when we are not dropping shots. That leaves the middle open for driving and dishing regardless of whether we are hitting or not. It also forces other teams to go small when that is not their strength which is advantage IU. If you were coaching against IU and saw them miss their first ten threes would you back off and let them shoot?