BottomLine

Here we go again. This is another trip game for the Hoosiers. We should own Penn State every year but that is not the case. For some reason we always have trouble topping PSU and I can't see this year being any different than the past. IU has the better defense and that should make this a close one because we certainly don't have a dominate offense. Jackson-Davis always manages to get his points, though he could have 10 more a game if he could learn to shoot the ball instead of throwing the ball at the basket and hoping for the best. Franklin is starting to look like the real deal after three hot game in a row. As to the rest of the Hoosier offense, your guess is as good as mine. We need someone to start picking up the slack. The crystal ball is a bit cloudy here but we NEED this game and we are at home. I'll take the Hoosiers 71-67 in a dog fight. I have my fingers crossed that we will finally find someone that has the ability to finish at the end.

Post Christmas and I have way to much time on my hands. Let's call this highly unofficial but according to my count Woodson1980 has taken over the lead with 795. Tomallenfan and Feathery have 790. Str8Hoosiers is the only one with official numbers, but I think his numbers are all at his workplace so the holidays slow him up a bit. Now on to the Penn State game.

I really hate to pick against the Hoosiers but we have problems right now. We have lost two games (Florida State and Northwestern) because we don't have anyone that can finish at crunch time and our best scorer can't score if we don't throw him the ball. I'm wondering of Franklin is a streak shooter. We still can't hit free throws at an acceptable rate. I figure our defense will slow Illinois down but we won't stop them. I'm still waiting for our offense to show up. Hate to root against the Hoosiers. Illinois 80 - IU 68

They have us playing NWs game and tempo.

Over the year Northwestern has always been a tough game for IU, I don't know why that is. Maybe we are over confident. Maybe NW gets up for the game. Maybe it is the style of play. Whatever, we are always ripe for an upset by NW. Northwestern should not be considered a pushover. They have three wins over major power puffs, a one point loss to Pitt, and a 14 point win over Michigan State. Nw is shooting 43.5% from 3-point range. I'm concerned about IUs free throw shooting again. Our percentages over our last three games have been 52-43-50. Since we get fouled often that means that we are leaving a lot of points unclaimed. We also are starting games slow. Sooner of later that is going to catch up with us. To win IU needs to guard the line and hit our free throws. I know, that sounds like A BROKEN RECORD. I'll stick close to the official line for this one. IU 73 NW 65

Franklin

This is a dangerous game to predict. IU - Butler is one of those pride game where you can usually throw out past performance. I'm thinking back to a game where Butler knocked off undefeated and #1 IU. Still Butler has a giant hill to climb this year. Their best player, Thompson, is probably out. Butler will only have 8 players. Because they have been fighting Covid, they have only played 2 games. There will be no fans at the game to rally the troops. I think that Butler will hang around for awhile but IU will wear them down. Where are the Butler points going to come from? The chances are that Butler will be looking at foul trouble by half time. o/u is 133.5 and IU is favored by 7.5. My crystal ball says that we will cover the o/u and the spread. I make it IU 80 Butler 67. Go Hoosiers!

Sadly it feels like all the good guys are slipping away, one at a time. 74 is far too young to go. I'm 73. I feel like I have lost a member of the extended family. Wish we had met face to face to discuss the Hoosiers. RIP

Can't believe on a basketball crazy forum like this nobody has anything to say about the challenge. With three games to go the B10 leads 6-5 in a series where the ACC is getting exposed! The victory margins by the B10 have been +18, +18, +14, +16, *29, and +21. Only one game in the challenge has been decided by less than 10 points (Illinois came from 27 down to lose by 2). The last three games (Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Penn State) could all be B10 wins. The success can't hurt the SOS argument from this point forward. Love seeing what the rest of the conference looks like.

I usually wait until a bit closer to game time but I can't see the advantage here. We are playing a team that is still trying to make the switch to division 1 ball. IU will win this game. They will win it by as many as they want. I see plenty of opportunity to stuff the stat sheet and to give the bench some playing time. North Whoever has no real size and likes to shoot about 30 3-point attempts every game. Guard the line and hit the boards and the Hoosiers should be fine. Hoosiers 93 - Northern Whoever 58

Fla State probably thinks that we owe them one after last year. Glad no fans for this game. FSt is big, really big. Kinda reminds you of Texas. Gulp. That can't be good. Spent 18 years coaching on the sideline and in practice I loved to scrimmage the Bigs against the Smalls. The Bigs had to learn how to handle the ball and how to deal with speed. The Smalls had to learn how to play against size. More often then not the smalls came out on top. Thought about that for this game because the size difference is significant. Can we make FlaSt play small or will they force us to play big? To win this game our bigs need to stay on the floor and our guards will need to out quick and out shoot the guards from the other side. Those are two big ifs. Not feeling good about this one but I'm going to string along with the Hoosiers. We need to play our best game on offense (no repeat of Texas please) and fight on defense. And we need to make the last basket in the game. IU 73 FlaSt 71

My head is still spinning after watching the IU-Texas game. The comparative scores just don't make any sense. NC over Stanford by 4, Texas over Davidson by 2, Providence over Davidson by 1, IU over Providence by 21 and then losing to Texas by 22 in a game where IU was favored by 1.5. It just isn't very logical. So what happened and can it happen again? From my vantage point it looked like Texas just beat IU up. Texas was called for 29 fouls and probably could have been called for at least 10 more. Think about that 29 fouls is enough to almost four 6 players out of the game. Every time IU went to shoot the ball we were physically intimidated. Why only 11 baskets for the whole game? That is what happens when you are intimidated and expect to get hacked and throw the ball at the basket instead of shooting the ball positively. Can Stanford bring that kind of intimidation? I don't think so, On the other had IU is now in a pickle. We are paying the price for only having 11 scholarship players. Brunk and Durham are now gone and we are down to 9, and that includes 4 freshmen. I'm guessing that either lander or Galloway will get the start today. Common sense says that IU loses this game. Gut feeling is that we will snap back and play well. I'll take IU over Stanford 70-63. Go Hoosiers!

No big deal. We drop the two lowest scores.

One more point and I woulda, coulda, shoulda nailed the IU score. Hit those FTs boys! On to Texas. Texas almost stumbled against Davidson despite being a 10 point favorite. IU was favored by 1 or 2 over Providence and won easily by 21. It must be early in the season or something. How does that translate to Texas-IU today? Right now IUs weakness is depth on the front line. We have Jackson-Davis, Thompson, Hunter, and Geronimo. Hunter can't stop fouling and Geronimo looks nervous and green as grass at present. Childress is in the wings. We need 10-15 minutes from Brunk to settle down the situation but he is on IR. We got by Providence because of a super effort from Thompson, while Jackson-Davis played soft. That front line has me worried today. The Texas guards like to slash to the basket, creating opportunities for our big men to foul. Texas also does a good job of feeding the post, again putting pressure on out thin front line. If we get in foul trouble under the basket, things could go south very quickly. Out guards MUST stop the penetration of the Texas guards. So much for my biggest fear. OTOH Davidson was outmanned by Texas and still fought down to the wire, while only giving up 78 points. The Texas defense gave up 76. I think our offense can do just fine today but the game will be decided by our ability to play defense. Are we better than Davidson defensively? Yes. Are we better than Davidson offensively? Yes. Can we expect a 21 point IU blowout? No, but I think we will win. I'll take the Hoosiers over the Longhorns 80-73

Man this is a toughie for early in the season. IU and Providence are closely matched and the game is basically a tossup. The over/under on the game is between 139 and 140.5, depending on the sources. IU is favored by either 1.5 or 2.5, again depending on the source. That means that the implied for the game should be about 71-69 in favor of the Hoosiers. Providence is picked to finish 3rd in the Big East and IU is picked to finish 8th in the Big 10. But the Big 10 is probably the better conference again this year. Both teams had blowout wins in their season debut. Providence lost a lot of scorers from last year. My gut says the the over/under is a bit low and that IU can cover, if we can hit our free throws. That is a big if. Give me the Hoosiers 80-73

Agree after one game. Might look different after the next one.

I figure that last night's game was basically meaningless and the question is being asked far too soon. The freshmen are going to play like freshmen for awhile, so we can't guess how good they are going to be until they have more games under our belt. Remember last year it looked like Franklin was going to be a stud after about five games but he faded as the games got tougher. Smith would have manhandled Tennessee Tech for about 30 last night. But we all know what would happened farther down The road. At this point all I can say is that the players we lost all had major negatives and I can't feel too bad about their leaving. On the other had this is the first IU team that I have seen in quite some time where I honestly "like" every player. That will probably change as the season progresses but I hope not. It will be nice to root for old IU without yelling at the TV constantly because I'm irritated by who is on the floor and what they are doing.

First game of the year and your guess is as good as mine. Worried a bit that we have too many bodies and that is never a good thing if you want to be great. If everybody is good enough than nobody stands out, and if you want to win it all you need studs. That said I make this one 93-63 IU over the other guys

Brunk starts. Take it to the bank. Does Brunk finish? Not with the game on the line. Archie will go with more versatile players to finish. Start of not start he will play the same amount of minutes.

They have 3 starters left and two football players on the bench. If we don't win this one we don't deserve to go to the dance. Nuff said! IU 82 Part of a team from Nebraska 60

Not busting my brain here. Just looking forward to watching the game. 68-66 Hoosiers

Uncle! Hoosiers 72-66

I fell on my head with my pick in the Purdue game. Know what? If I had it to do over I'd still pick the Hoosiers. We go jobbed on the road. Two 9 minute dry stretches and we still only lost by 8. I have a feeling about this game. Illinois has a 19-9 72.5-64.7 line. We are 18-10 71.5-67.0. They are 12-3 at home and we are 2-7 in away games. I hate to pick obnoxious teams like Purdue and Illinois (and I live in Illinois). Didn't send my kids there though (Iowa and IU). Are we truly a bottom feeder in the Big 10? All of Illinois wins have been agains the bottom half of the conference. Against the top half they are terrible. Illinois comes into this game following a 4 game losing streak, followed by wins over Penn State, Northwestern and Nebraska. So in there last 7 games only the Penn State win is anything special. In other words Illinois is beatable, even at home, if we play well. Isn't that the big question? Looking for a bounce back game by the good guys. If we want to go to the big dance we need to prove it by playing well against teams that are going to the tourney. IU 70 Illini 69

It isn't fun picking against the Hoosiers, especially when they are playing Purdue. This game should be a slam dunk for the Boilermakers. They handled the Hoosiers with ease in Bloomington on Bob Knight Day when the game really meant something. You would think the game at West Lafayette would be even tougher. Is there a glimmer of hope? You betcha. Against common opponents IU is 14-13 and Purdue is 9-16. Against "LIke" opponents IU is 9-9 and Purdue is 7-13. IU has the advantage in both cases. Purdue just isn't that good. IU is looking at a NCAA bid and Purdue should probably start thinking NIT. On the other hand we have the home/away problem. Purdue is 10-4 at home and IU is 2-6 away. That certainly doesn't count in our favor. IU has a better offense than Purdue. Yes, hard to believe. We are scoring 72.16/game and Purdue checks in at 68.55. That is a spread of almost 4 ponts in favor of the Hoosiers. On defense Purdue tops us 63.65 to 67.74. Again about a 4 point spread. Bottom LIne this looks like a close game, if both teams show up to play. Based on the home court advantage and the fact that Purdue beat us in Bloomington, I'd be a sucker to pick the Hoosiers. But this is a rivalry game and you can probably throw out everything that has happened in the past. Call me sucker for picking with my heart and not with my head. Hoosiers 72 Purdue 63 Let's shut up those "IU sucks" chants!

On paper IU doesn't win this game. So, the smart thing to do is to pick Penn State. However, I don't think it matter any longer. I don't think I've been out of the top 5 all year but I'm not going to catch fwgreenway. Unless he gets a sever case of the dumbs, he is going to win this season pulling away. Great job all year. If we were in a chess match I'd conceed. I guess I am conceeding. Taking a look at all the picks that are in so far, I think most of you agree. I hate to pick against the Hoosiers and then root for them to win. No fun in that and nothing to be gained Now on to the actual serious business of making a selection. Very interesting pattern for Indiana this year. When we are competitive we usually win. When we are going to lose we lose big. I don't care what the spread is for the game that pattern has held almost all season. I'm a pattern guy, if you haven't guessed. We have 15 Big 10 games in the books and only 4 have been decided by 6 points or less Maryleand -1, Michigan State +4, Northwestern +4, and Nebraska +6). That is why this team has been so frustrating. We have too many games where we just weren't competitive. Against common opponents PSU is 15-8 and we are 13-12. Against teams with "Like" ratings we are 8-9 and they are 12-6. IU is 13-3 at home and Penn State is 5-3 in away games. We average scoring 76 points/ game and Penn State averages 72. We both average giving up 68 points/game. Penn State won 8 games in a row in the Big 10 before stumbling against Illinois in their last. We all know how well IU have been playing. You have to give the edge to Penn State. That is why they are ranked and we are not even close. Penn State puts up between 20 and 25 3's/game and in their last three have hit 14-11-4. the four was against Illinois and so we know why they lost that game. So, duh, if we want to win this one we need to guard the 3-point line and force a repeat of the Illinois result. So, all of that said, I'm climbing out on a limb today and predict that the baskets and refs will be friendly to the Hoosiers. At least I can enjoy the game and not worry about standings. Indiana 80 - Penn State 72