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Hovadipo

Game Thread Part 2: IUBB vs BC Mega Boogaloo | 1:00PM *NOT TELEVISED*

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5 hours ago, Class of '66 Old Fart said:

Xavier Johnson “X” @XavierJ0hnson

It’s only the beginning… I know it’s only been 2 months but I’m really blessed to play in an IU jersey with these dudes. They’ve accepted me from day one and I love my gang.

That's the kind of statement a leader makes. If the leader is the point guard, so much the better.

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21 hours ago, Stuhoo said:

Just watched the whole thing—THANK YOU SEAN CAVANAUGH FOR THE VIDEO!

My personal takeaways:

Xavier is a significant upgrade. He is made for a four out high ball screen.

Parker Stewart has old man game and excellent court vision. He took and barely missed a bunch of good shots.

Jordan Geronimo is significantly improved—rebounds out of his area and really defends.

Rob looks kinda the same, but he’s now clearly X’s backup.

How does one find said video.  Tried looking on twitter under Sean's name but no luck so far

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2 hours ago, Demo said:

Good article and insight as always by Mike. There was a play in the 2nd half of the Sunday game where Rob’s defender fell going for a steal in the backcourt, giving Rob an open court and a man advantage. He pushed the ball to the free throw line, no defender switched to him. He had easy access to the lane. And he backed it out. Johnson would have attacked until he either got to the rim or created a look for someone. It wasn’t all Archie with Rob. Instinctively, he’s just a really cautious kid.

Anyone have any more info on the closed scrimmage mentioned in the @Mike Schumann piece?

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1 hour ago, lillurk said:

Anyone have any more info on the closed scrimmage mentioned in the @Mike Schumann piece?

What was whispered in my ear in the Bahamas made it into the published IU notes on the scrimmage.  Mainly, it was about how well Parker Stewart played, and then when we saw him with the first team at practice on Thursday before the first game against BC Mega, it was pretty obvious he was going to start.  My strong feeling is that if you prove you can make shots you are going to play a ton because I don't think they have reliable shooters at the 1 and 5 spots right now.

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16 minutes ago, Mike Schumann said:

What was whispered in my ear in the Bahamas made it into the published IU notes on the scrimmage.  Mainly, it was about how well Parker Stewart played, and then when we saw him with the first team at practice on Thursday before the first game against BC Mega, it was pretty obvious he was going to start.  My strong feeling is that if you prove you can make shots you are going to play a ton because I don't think they have reliable shooters at the 1 and 5 spots right now.

And when Parker started he played outstanding defense but couldn't hit a jumper lol.

 

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On 8/19/2021 at 5:09 PM, Class of '66 Old Fart said:

Tony Adragna (IU Film Room) puts out a free email and today's email compared some stats from the 2 games in the Bahamas to last year's season and the difference in styles Woody vs. Archie.  Clearly 2 games is an exceedingly small sample but if the sample is reasonably valid going forward we're going to be so much more fun to watch and a much better ball team.   

Game 1
Indiana had 75 offensive possessions in their first contest against BC Mega. In the 2020-21 season, they averaged 67 per game. Thus, the tempo was much faster than the way IU played last season. At 67 possessions per game, Indiana's tempo was 289th in division 1. If they averaged 75 possessions per game, they would have been 8th. That's a stark contrast in playing styles, in and of itself.

If the only statistic I shared was the tempo, it'd still explain why Hoosier fans had more fun watching the Woodson-led squad vs. last year's team. A faster pace tends to be more fun to watch.

But let's look at offensive efficiency in game 1. Indiana scored 1.06 points per possession. Oddly enough, that's exactly what Purdue averaged last season, good for 80th in the country in the 2020-21 season. That's in the top 1/4th of the country in terms of raw offensive efficiency. Adjusted for the opponents Purdue played last season, they actually had the 26th best adjusted offensive efficiency in the country.

Obviously, we'll never know where BC Mega's defense stacks up against a Big Ten defense, which is why I used the raw offensive efficiency numbers. Indiana's raw offensive efficiency last year was at 1.00, good for 189th in the country.

The Hoosiers' effective field goal percentage in game 1 was 47.18%, whereas last season their eFG% was 48.5%.

Defensively, the Hoosiers gave up .88 points per possession in game 1, where last season their average was 1.01. 1.01 points per possession was 142nd in the country. 0.88 points given up per possession would have been 5th in the country.

So for game 1, the pace was faster than last season, the Hoosiers were more efficient on the offensive and defensive end, but their shooting percentages were largely unchanged.

Game 2
In game 2, possessions did dip by four, as Indiana had 71 possessions. That still would have been a top 70 pace in the country last season.

From an offensive standpoint, Indiana didn't really have a good performance. They averaged 0.90 points per possession, which is worse than last season, and their eFG% was 38.2% - almost ten percentage points lower than what we saw last season.

However, Indiana turned in yet another outstanding defensive performance. They held BC Mega to 0.77 points per possession. If that was what they averaged for the season last year, it would have been first in the country by a wide margin.

I'll dive in below about some of the offensive woes.

Averages
By combining both of the games, what were the trends we can look at from these contests?

Indiana averaged just about 73 possessions per game, which is six more per game than they averaged during the 2020-21 campaign. 73 possessions per game would have put Indiana around 30th in the country last season in terms of raw pace. Again, you can not underestimate how big of a style shift that is. If that trend continued, it'd shift Indiana from one of the slowest paces in the country to one of the fastest paces in the country in one season.

From an eFG%, it was actually a pretty ugly trip. Indiana's eFG% was 42.81%, down from last season's 48.5%.

From an offensive efficiency standpoint, Indiana was actually just a hair worse at 0.98 points per possession compared to last season's 1.00.

Turnover percentage was down significantly in the Bahamas, as Indiana's turnover percentage was 11.68, where it was 17.2% last season. 11.68% would have been #1 in the country last season.

Defensive efficiency is really where Indiana excelled. 0.83 points per possession for the trip is outstanding and would have been #1 in the country last season if that's what they averaged.

Takeaways
So what are the takeaways from this data? The first thing I want to address is the offensive numbers. In game 1, Indiana outpaced last season's offensive efficiency pretty significantly. By Woodson's own admission, he has installed very little offensively for the team. Indiana on the offensive end was relying on few sets and offensive intuition that Woodson has taught.

The fact that they were already more efficient in one of the games just by those standards is extremely encouraging to me. By having so few sets, BC Mega had any sets that they wanted to run in game 2 scouted heavily. So that game was played even more on offensive intuition, and Indiana struggled a bit.

As I stated earlier, there's the saying 'numbers never lie' but sometimes they don't tell the full story either. Just watch my film room on the offensive side of the ball and look at the spacing. There are already very positive changes happening on the offensive end that are more structure-based than set-based currently.

Just as Indiana's offensive efficiency numbers are a bit deflated for good reason, the same can be said about the inflation of their defensive numbers. Did Indiana have a good weekend of defense? Absolutely. But BC Mega is still trying to figure themselves out too with roster attrition and adding their own players. They're very much in pre-season form, as well. So Indiana boasting numbers that would have made them the best defensive team in the country last season isn't telling the full story, either.

The stats that I'm most encouraged about are tempo and turnover percentage. There's no point in playing at a fast pace if you're going to throw the ball all over the gym. Instead, Indiana was able to pick up the pace from last season and still secured the ball. That's important.

Overall, it's important to remember that this team is still very much in pre-season form. They've had 10 full practices to start establishing Mike Woodson's identity, and we were able to see glimpses of that throughout this trip. The most encouraging aspects were the smiles on the faces and the players legitimately talking about how much fun they're having. Those are the intangibles that numbers can't tell the story of.

First, Coach Adragna is excellent. His reviews are dead on often with in depth breakdowns of the sets and how they were executed (or not). 

Second, my favorite line here "and offensive intuition that Woodson has taught." Hallelujah! 

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