Indiana St. - Preview / Review

[JwgreDeux 1,199]

Our Tigers bet back in action tomorrow morning in the Charleston Classic. The off court turmoil continues, with the suspension of two coaches, and little reason to expect our two starters back anytime soon. However, by watching other teams around the country some of these situations are getting good news. 

Our first opponent in Charleston is Indiana St, Larry Bird's alma mater. There is no vegas line at the moment, I would expect us to be a favorite (maybe in the -12 range), but make no mistake this ISU team is expected to be solid. They beat the crap out of Indiana University in Assembly Hall, winning by 20 points and it wasn't that close. They are a perimeter offense driven team, which will be tough for us to defend. They shot 65% from three in their first game, had 42 combined points from their starting guards, 24 from Scott. Scott is the lifeblood of this team. A preseason all conference selection, he holds all kinds of school and conference accolades. He will present quite a problem for our perimeter defenders, remember our exhibition game? They play 9 guys 10+ minutes (tough the bench didn't add much production), had 5 guys make a 3 pointer, and all five starters scored in double digits.  They aren't a very big team, with their starting guards being around 6 ft tall, and their posts in the 6'7''-6'8'' range. However, a couple of their post players are heavy, Murphy for example is 270 on the roster. 

 

We have the roster to win this game, the real question is how does this team handle all the distractions. Travel, early start, off court drama, new faces, etc...It would not surprise me at all to see a composed ISU team teach us an early lesson. That said, we have what we need to win this one. I would expect Mitchell to play a bit more for his defense, maybe play him and Harper together some due to the size of ISU's guards. Murray should be very comfortable playing against this style team, as he saw plenty of it as his last stop. The primary thing we need to do in this game is guard the perimeter. Pressure the ball and force them off the three point line and we should be in good shape. 

 

They rank 164 currently in the KenPom metric, while we currently sit at 48. Hopefully, the odd time and new venue will affect their shooting percentage, and allow us to capitalize on our advantage in points in the paint. From watching our first game, I like the mentality of Murray and hope he sparks this team, by setting an active and aggressive tone early. 

Expect to see us pull this one out and set up a match-up with tournament favorite, Temple. 

 

War Eagle!

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So I thought would try something different, and just update the preview with a review so to avoid multiple threads.  

This game went exactly like CBP would have drawn it up, except we didn't shoot very well from outside. I can't remember the last time we blew a team out while only shooting 30% from 3pt land. Brown led us in scoring with 15 points and didn't make a single 3. We played outstanding pressure defense on the perimeter, won the battle on the offensive and defensive glass, controlled the pace, had 9 guys score, 4 in double figures (and 2 with 9), more assists than turnovers, just an all around good effort. 

Brown stepped up and shut down their best player, limiting him to 3 points, all from the free throw line. When is the last time we shut down a teams best scorer to the point where they didn't make a single shot from the floor? ISU attempted to play us man to man pressure defense, and force us off the three point line, and simply didn't have the players to execute that plan. I said in the preview that we had the roster to win this game, and our tigers played like it. 

The down side was the fouls. Part of that was the refs calling close, part was our aggressive defense, but we have to adjust to the way a game is being called. McLemore got in foul trouble and cost himself some minutes. That left more time for Murray and Okeke, both who played well. I expected Murray to have a good game, and he did, with a double double of 14 and 12. Okeke showed some nice movement on pick and rolls, and also stepped out and knocked down some jumpers.  Dunbar showed his athleticism on some rim runs, Harper played very composed (especially early), and most the team let the game come to them and filled in their rolls nicely. The exception was Heron, who pressed a bit at times, but I personally don't mind it from him. He is our best player and he needs to assert himself at times. I thought he restrained himself when his offensive game wasn't clicking, but I like him wanting to be the guy, we need him to be. 

All around a nice team performance, something to build off of hopefully. War Eagle!

Edited November 17, 2017 by JwgreDeux
Updated with Review

[mustache eagle 1,921]

I assume we go to the glass a lot in this game, run the floor and play a guard heavy lineup.

this feels like the kind of game we’re spencer, okeke and particularly mclemore have above average offensive performances.

[Auhud08 596]

War Eagle- will try to listen in

[augolf1716 18,950]

Good job Deux much appreciated 

[gravejd 3,051]

Appreciate the write up. I was reading the other day and saw where they beat the crap out of Indiana. Had me worried at first but the writer i was reading was playing down the victory. Indiana is a bit in flux right now and Indiana State is only expected to be a middle of the road team in their division. Looks to me like Barry was a perfect game to get us ready for this one. If Indiana St beats us it will be because we played poor perimeter defense. Hoping for an AU win!

[JwgreDeux 1,199]

For those interested the line is out and has us as -7.5 in the game. 

 

49 minutes ago, gravejd said:

Appreciate the write up. I was reading the other day and saw where they beat the crap out of Indiana. Had me worried at first but the writer i was reading was playing down the victory. Indiana is a bit in flux right now and Indiana State is only expected to be a middle of the road team in their division. Looks to me like Barry was a perfect game to get us ready for this one. If Indiana St beats us it will be because we played poor perimeter defense. Hoping for an AU win!

Indiana is not going to have a powerhouse season by any means, but ISU went into their house on opening night and destroyed them. They were up 30 most of the second half. 

Given their guard tandem, I expect them to give us all kinds of trouble, unless our defense takes a big step forward. 

[tigerbrotha12 2,362]

We should be able to keep up offensively. Wouldn't it be something if amongst all these distractions, our guys went up to Charleston and won the thing? 

[steeleagle 2,945]

IF they have good guard play, we will need better defense around the perimeter from our guards and our switches. That has been a big problem in our D. 

[JwgreDeux 1,199]

CBP mentioned we would see our PGs out there together more today, with Harper at 1 and Mitchell at the 2. 

 

He Sounded pretty confident in matchup. 

 

Almost tip tip time War Eagle  

 

 

[AUGoo 2,124]

[AuburnNTexas 6,467]

Your preview fit exactly what happened in the game. Great job.