What to Watch for - Keys vs IPFW

Indiana (6-3) will host IPFW (7-3) for the first time in program history on Wednesday night. This is the first of two games before the Hoosiers face Notre Dame in the Crossroads Classic and if they are going to have a noteworthy season, Indiana needs serious momentum heading into their last chance at a quality win during their out of conference schedule.

As for IPFW, the Mastodons feature a three-guard set and have a relatively weak frontcourt. That bodes well for an Indiana victory. IPFW, like Indiana, struggles to defend with the 224^th best defensive efficiency field goal percentage. It doesn’t look likely that they will be able to take advantage of IU on the inside either, as they are ranked 308^th and 139^th nationally in offensive and defensive rebounding, respectively. Junior Mo Evans leads his team in scoring with 15.4 points per game and could cause some trouble, but the talent matchup is overwhelmingly in IU’s favor.

What is important in this game is less about what the Hoosiers do against the Mastodons and more about if they bring the effort and intensity that has been lacking so far this season. The keys to this game are:

1) Playing another solid game defensively

Nobody thinks the Hoosier’s woes on this side of the ball have been solved just because of their good showing against a mid-major program in Morehead State. While that commitment to defense was refreshing, for fans to truly believe this team has turned a corner, the first step is consistency. Another 100+ points on offense would be great, but I wager more fans would be excited about a game where they hold their opponent to under 65 points or so. On paper, IU matches up well here. Bringing that to the court, however, is another story- one that hasn’t been realized much this year.

2) Turnovers, Turnovers, Turnovers

Sloppy is probably a nice way of describing Indiana’s ball-handling efforts this season. However, that aspect of the game has been cleaned up a bit in the past few games. I mentioned earlier that consistency is key in resolving chronic problems. If they end up falling into their old ways of 20+ turnover performances, the Hoosiers won’t be contending for the Big 10 and the only tournament they’ll be thinking of come March may be the NIT.

Ultimately you can expect the offense to show up when it comes to this Indiana team. The real questions at this juncture are smart play and hustle. Nobody is going to be convinced that these problems have been corrected by beating IPFW, but if they look bad against IPFW, panic may hit the fan base.