1/9 IU vs Penn State University Game Thread

[DChoosier]

4 hours ago, Crimson and Cream said:

I can't tell who dislikes Johnson more, me or Archie

Archie dislikes him so much that he played him more minutes than everyone except Morgan :( 

[rebelhoosier848891]

The Good—Gutted out another win with 18 of 22 free throw shooting and only 9 turnovers!

The Bad—2 missed dunks—multiple missed layups —and 2 senior guards get a 10 second call that almost caused Archie to lose his mind!

The Ugly—no surprise here—horrible 3-point shooting— 6 of 27—brick city

But it was a WIN—and we will take it even if part of it was ugly! I do see improvement —especially the free throw shooting. I remember those games when we couldn’t hit any let alone tough ones down the stretch like tonight. Hopefully 3-pointers will improve next! Hoosiers!


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[Brass Cannon]

If this success continues and Morgan does stay for his senior year I wonder if he's our starting Center next year. 

With Phinisee at PG. 

Then god willing Romeo, Jerome and Smith filling out the rest of the starting lineup 

[Hoosier Guy]

46 minutes ago, Brass Cannon said:

If this success continues and Morgan does stay for his senior year I wonder if he's our starting Center next year. 

With Phinisee at PG. 

Then god willing Romeo, Jerome and Smith filling out the rest of the starting lineup 

Yep. I said this the other day. Phinisee, Romeo, Jerome, Smith and Morgan. Starting lineup next season

[dbmhoosier]

3 hours ago, Hoosier Guy said:

Yep. I said this the other day. Phinisee, Romeo, Jerome, Smith and Morgan. Starting lineup next season

Romeo is not coming.

[KB0]

Nice to string two wins together with a good chance at a third on Sunday.

The game last night wasn't always pretty, but few games from this team will be. Grinded out a victory with rebounding, defense, and free throws. Man, that was nice to see. 

Juwan is developing from a player who relies on second chance points to a legitimate post threat. Our guards and Hartman/Smith will need to continue to hit shots so teams won't be able to double him. 

Liked what I saw defensively. Love that Archie is not afraid to have his players double the post or when a player is on the corner/baseline. Force the offense to react and beat you. Don't spend the whole game reacting to the offense.  

Northwestern plays Minnesota tonight, so Indiana will have an extra day of rest. Sunday is a big time home game. Would push the team to 4-2 in the Big Ten with a 3 game win streak with a trip to Sparty.

[Crimson and Cream]

6 hours ago, DChoosier said:

Archie dislikes him so much that he played him more minutes than everyone except Morgan :( 

I think that's more out of necessity. All of the guards turn the ball over way too much for our liking but Rob does at least usually play good defense and despite his shooting struggles this season is our best scoring guard. I just can't wait for Phin to arrive on campus.

[GnarlyNormEllenberger]

Been a little while, but my two cents on this one and the current state of the team...

- Big win for confidence purposes. Penn State is actually a solid team (#41 Kenpom, I think), so for this season, it is a good win. This is the first time all season where we have experienced some "real" success and sustained it in the next game. In the future, we'll be expected to beat Penn State (and pretty much everyone else) at home, but for this team right now, this was most certainly a good win.

- People say it was an "ugly" win. I mean, maybe? We didn't shoot well, but we had 14 assists to 9 turnovers, went 18/22 on free throws, out-rebounded them 36-31 and led almost the whole game. Folks, we're just not a good shooting team. And that's not something that will suddenly change this year. If we're gonna consistently win games this season, we're gonna have a number of games that might look like this one. It's just who we are right now.

- Tony Carr is a good player, but he should have had at least three offensive fouls by the 12 minute mark in the first half. He was pushing off and stiff-arming his defenders A LOT and they were rarely called a foul. Officiating is something different every game...

- Very, very impressed with the continued progression of Juwan Morgan. He's easily our most consistent and best player at this point. He's become an offensive threat at pretty much any spot on the floor. Perhaps even more important has been his play on the defense. Did you notice how many points Mike Watkins or Lamar Stevens scored when he guarded them? Not many. He was switching his assignments all night long, but was consistently a defensive presence. Also played 39 minutes. He's become a VERY good college basketball player.

- Zach McRoberts deserves every minute he gets. Yes, it would help if he could keep the defense honest. But all the same, he still deserves to play as much as he is. He disrupted things defensively from the start and helped facilitate the offense all game long. Six rebounds, three assists, three steals and just one turnover. He produces in every aspect of the game outside of scoring. He's constantly moving and always hustles. 

- Glad to see Newkirk and Green bounce back with some solid performances. They didn't play GREAT, but much better than they did at Minnesota. Each knocked down some IMPORTANT free throws at the end of the game. And even though Justin Smith struggled, I really liked his confidence. That drive to the hoop early in the second half was special, he just didn't finish. I hope (and think) Archie sticks with him in the starting lineup and continues to give him good minutes because I think he's growing into something special.

- So does this mean we can all the sudden chalk up the Northwestern game on Sunday as a win and start thinking about the NCAA Tournament? No, so pump the brakes on that one. We're still a substandard jump shooting team that gives up WAY too many open looks on defense. We lack quality depth and we take a big step down when Morgan isn't on the floor. Therefore, I don't know if there is any conference game that I am completely confident that we'll win. However, outside of the game @Michigan State, I think we can compete in any of the other games.

[reconmkd]

14 minutes ago, GnarlyTimGarl said:

- Tony Carr is a good player, but he should have had at least three offensive fouls by the 12 minute mark in the first half. He was pushing off and stiff-arming his defenders A LOT and they were rarely called a foul. Officiating is something different every game...

 

I thought he was maybe auditioning for starting running back for the Nittany Lions!

[JSHoosier]

I thought going in I'd be okay with a close W, well that's what we got.  Not perfect, but a W.  Oh how I'd love to have just a comfortable W against PSU, not even a blowout, as opposed to something that leaves you afraid to unclench.

Defense did not do a good job of taking away the 3 late.  Looking at you, Johnson.

For quite a while in the first we stopped attacking and settled for long jumpers practically every possession.  That really helped PSU out.

Our guards have the bball IQ of a toe and it shows on a regular basis.

Effort was continued and did a better job of taking care of the ball.  Both good signs.

[JSHoosier]

8 hours ago, Aaron said:

First off can we please dump the myth that we don't do well against PSU? While the games are always unnecessarily close we have now won 10 of 12 against them which is by far the best against any Big Ten team recently. Other than the first 3 years under Crean where they were at their best ever and us at our worst where we lost 5 of 6, we have dominated PSU like no other Big Ten team the last 25 years.

Part of the reason the games are close though especially at home (save for the 2 Zeller years where we wiped the floor with them both times) is when we play them the Hall is dead like it is not against any other Big Ten team (including Zeller years). People rarely stand, the place is half empty and feels like an NBA atmosphere at best. PSU just doesn't excite anyone when they come here so its actually easier for them to keep a game close than it is any other team that comes in during conference play as the Hall never has its normal buzz. 

Now I want to say with the game that this is the best I have seen us close out PSU. I know they hit a couple of prayer 3's very late but we actually hit our FT's, broke their press (save for the 10 sec violation a little earlier) and adequately got the ball in bounds to keep them at bay at the very end. Every time under Crean in all these close games against PSU we have either lost (the ridiculous melt down in 2014 up 10 with a minute left) or had the game unnecessarily go to wire since we turned the ball over against their press and missed FT's in last minute to give them a chance (other than 14 we have held on despite trying to choke game away). This is the first game this season I can clearly say I saw a change for the better in the way the team played under Archie compared to the exact same situation under Crean in the last minute. Much calmer and no mistakes this time. Well done.  

Also save for a few stretches, the ball movement was pretty good tonight. Now if only we could learn to hit a few open 3's.

I had successfully repressed that memory.  Thanks a lot.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Did anyone notice Johnson losing out on several 50/50 balls? A couple of those might have actually been 75/25 balls in his favor. I remember in particular a pass that got away from him. He went after it a bit lazily and the PSU defender quickly came from behind and grabbed it for a transition layup. Johnson had AT LEAST one step on the PSU defender and still couldn't get to the ball first. There were also several long rebounds that went right in Johnson's direction and he was caught flat footed. What should have been an easy rebound was picked up by PSU.

Rojo was the only starter who didn't look like he was playing hard.

[pumpfake]

Just out of curiosity, I decided to look over the season statistics.  Boy, we really are a poor shooting team (especially 3-pt).  Our two best 3-pt percentage shooters are Justin Smith and McRoberts (albeit with only 4 and 13 attempts).  Among the players with significant attempts Newkirk leads at .345. 

It's interesting that Hartman and McRoberts have pretty comparable stat lines for the season.

(FYI, source stats at espn )

[southsidehoosier]

“I think Devonte and Josh both got that message coming out of Minnesota,” Miller explained. “If you turn the ball over, you can’t play."

 

[Stromboli]

 

[Brass Cannon]

3 hours ago, dbmhoosier said:

Romeo is not coming.

You should just make that your signature and save some time

[Whoozhers]

Did anyone notice Johnson losing out on several 50/50 balls? A couple of those might have actually been 75/25 balls in his favor. I remember in particular a pass that got away from him. He went after it a bit lazily and the PSU defender quickly came from behind and grabbed it for a transition layup. Johnson had AT LEAST one step on the PSU defender and still couldn't get to the ball first. There were also several long rebounds that went right in Johnson's direction and he was caught flat footed. What should have been an easy rebound was picked up by PSU.
Rojo was the only starter who didn't look like he was playing hard.

Rojo gets in lazy gear and stays there.
A lot of talent. Doesn’t use it 100% though. Unfortunately.


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[bigrod]

12 minutes ago, southsidehoosier said:

“I think Devonte and Josh both got that message coming out of Minnesota,” Miller explained. “If you turn the ball over, you can’t play."

 

...and yet, Rojo is out there every game.

[VO5]

20 minutes ago, bigrod said:

...and yet, Rojo is out there every game.

Like it or not he’s our best defensive guard and has the most scoring ability. Archie doesn’t really have any other options. 

[JSHoosier]

49 minutes ago, southsidehoosier said:

“I think Devonte and Josh both got that message coming out of Minnesota,” Miller explained. “If you turn the ball over, you can’t play."

 

I could read this over and over and over and over.  My goodness complete 180 from the last guy.