Hope for a good match on Friday; hopefully Perea will be able to play for you guys. I'm just here to to talk a little bit about the game, matchups to watch between both teams, and wish the winner of this game good luck going forward. I'm sure no matter who wins, we all would love to see Kansas and Kentucky miss the Final Four.
I'll go position by position to start with. At PG we have Fred Van Vleet. You've probably seen our guards a decent amount, but I'll give them each a blurb or two. Fred is not as fast as Yogi. In fact, he's actually fairly slow. In a footrace, he's probably one of the slowest guys on our team. To make up for that (and his size), he is insanely good at managing his speed. His handles are top notch, and he really loves to catch players flat footed and pull up for a jump shot. The battle at PG between him and Yogi will be intense, and the guys have played each other before in AAU play. This is one of the better positional matchups in the first round.
Baker is a much better athlete than Fred, and drives a lot more. In our loss to Illinois State he dunked three times in the first half and he leads the team in blocked shots. Unlike Fred however, he is prone to making some pretty bad decisions. He likes to throw caution to the wind and throw up heat check 3s and will make an occasional risky pass inside. However, he is probably the player we will rely on the most. Even when he isn't very efficient, he still usually finds a way to lead the team in scoring but if Indiana is hot we NEED him to be at his best. We don't really have a lot of guys that make their own shot, and the team revolves around Fred and Ron creating opportunities for everyone else. It will be interesting to see how Indiana decides to approach guarding him, because it isn't as natural as Yogi/Fred is.
Cotton is sort of our forgotten third piece. He can have big games from time to time, but he rarely pushes his own shot. He 3PT shot is incredibly streaky; he'll go entire months shooting 25-30% before jumping up to 50% to close the year. However we mostly rely on his defense. He has been the MVC DPoY twice in a row for his versatility more than his raw stats. Cotton usually draws the toughest assignment on defense, whether that means a 5'10 PG or a 6'8 All-American PF (Doug McDermott). He will be at a height disadvantage at 6' but he is crazy athletic and is good both on and off the ball. He may guard Yogi, or whoever is hot for Indiana from outside.
That is the upside for us. Our guards are our strength, our lifeblood. Our posts, not so much. We start 6'5" Evan Wessel at PF out of position; in the past he played SF for us and PG in HS (on the same team as KU's Perry Ellis). Wessel's entire offense is the 3. He'll fake it and drive, but so far there hasn't been a single person that has bit on the fake this season. Evan is extremely good at getting loose balls, collecting rebounds, and that sort of thing but simply is not big enough to guard taller posts down low. Instead he pushes them out to the perimeter and denies the ball. That wouldn't be problem if we had a big defensive center.
We don't have a big defensive center. Our starter is 6'7 Darius Carter, who is also playing out of position. Carter is long for his height with good hops but has terrible lateral mobility and a tendency to foul. Good centers give him fits but he is still honestly our best option. What he lacks in defense, he makes up for on offense however. He shoots relatively well out to 17', and is a very adept post scorer that primarily relies on the hook shot. His tendency is to always shoot when he gets the ball though, sometimes putting him in bad position. And while Indiana lacks the bruiser down low to exploit the size advantage you'll be pleased to know that he struggled to guard Tuttle when Tuttle drew him out to the perimeter. With Indiana's ability to drive and shoot, it could be an issue for us.
We don't play much of a bench, though a lot of guys see occasional play we rarely go very deep. Shaquille Morris is the biggest threat as our 6th man. He's very similar to Carter in that he has good touch and can shoot, but is foul prone and makes mistakes on defense. The upside for him is high, but he has had an up and down season. There are a few guys off the bench that shoot the 3, but we aren't hiding any great post defenders or dynamics options in the backcourt.
As a group, we have struggled against big athletic teams that play zone. We aren't as good at shooting the 3 as you guys are, and depend a lot that shot to open up driving lanes and free up the paint for Carter. Our worst problem is that we go dead cold and flounder for 5 minutes or so a game when our shot is off, and even started out the year without a 3PT make for our first 60 minutes of play. The zone forces us to shoot 3s, which can backfire when we are hot or go perfect when we aren't.
Our main offense is 4 out with a lot of ballscreens for Baker and Van Vleet at the top of the key, and we use variants against all forms of defenses. We are one of the better teams in the nation in ballscreen situations, but worse in isolation. Sometimes the roleplayers get caught looking for Fred or Ron to make a play, especially towards the end of games. Everyone knows that Fred is going to get the ball and probably shoot a pull-up jumper, which has made it sometimes difficult for us to win close games (along with poor FT shooting).
The main strength of our team is probably our perimeter defense though. Our starting backcourt is exceptionally good at turning up the defensive pressure at key points in the game and forcing 3-4 bad possessions in a row. All three like to strip their man of the ball, and while Baker and Cotton aggressively jump passing lanes Van Vleet likes to dig out posts.
The keys for Indiana are relatively simple. #1, avoid TOs. #2, make 3s. #3, find a way to attack Carter. Wichita State needs to have a plan if Indiana gets hot (and you guys can get scary hot), and needs to involve guys not named Baker or Van Vleet. I don't know if Indiana runs zone very often, but I expect them to try it if it is in their arsenal. Indiana is probably best off avoiding unnecessary complexities on offense though to avoid the TO battle.
I expect this will be a close game between two very similar teams. Best of luck to you guys, and if you win you absolutely owe it to us to beat Kansas.
