Game Thread: NCAA R64 vs. Kent State - 3/17 @ 10:45 pm (no lie)ET on TBS

[Stuhoo]

11 minutes ago, dmvhoosier12 said:

 

My thoughts exactly! I feel every IU podcaster is hyping KSU up to be the 75-76 Hoosiers. Literally unbeatable. It seems the Vegas oddsmakers should have KSU as the favorites to win the whole tournament, these guys talk. Big arbitrage opportunity to be had. 

Finally some metrics to attach to all the generic statements about their defense! They played three good teams all season. Lost all of those along with quad 3 and quad 4 losses. They played Houston tough in a truly ugly game which is laudable, but also not warranting all this gloom about Friday. I agree that it's great to motivate and not overlook Kent State, but I feel like we've tipped over the edge...like depending on how much of this chatter filters to the players/coaches/staff we come out flat and intimidated rather than prepared and confident. 

 

Hey... welcome to the board dmvhoosier12!

Nice first post - don't be a stranger.

[coonhounds]

 

Finally some metrics to attach to all the generic statements about their defense! They played three good teams all season. Lost all of those along with quad 3 and quad 4 losses. They played Houston tough in a truly ugly game which is laudable, but also not warranting all this gloom about Friday. I agree that it's great to motivate and not overlook Kent State, but I feel like we've tipped over the edge...like depending on how much of this chatter filters to the players/coaches/staff we come out flat and intimidated rather than prepared and confident. 

Hopefully the players don't come out flat because fans and talking heads are saying their opponent is tough. If kent st gets hot we could definitely lose because we have seen it time and time again. Look how bad we got destroyed last year. That was a decent team but not sure 30 plus points better lol. Excitement and anxiety are high right now so time for our guys to get focused and play each game hard for 40 minutes like each one may be their last as a hoosier

 

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[RaceToTheTop]

22 minutes ago, coonhounds said:

Hopefully the players don't come out flat because fans and talking heads are saying their opponent is tough. If kent st gets hot we could definitely lose because we have seen it time and time again. Look how bad we got destroyed last year. That was a decent team but not sure 30 plus points better lol. Excitement and anxiety are high right now so time for our guys to get focused and play each game hard for 40 minutes like each one may be their last as a hoosier

 

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FWIW, the loss to St. Mary's wasn't the first NCAA game the Hoosiers played last year, so I wouldn't chalk that up to listening 'fans and talking heads talking about an opponent'.  There wasn't enough time for them to hear anything about their opponent from Tuesday to Thursday.

[Hovadipo]

 

[Hoosier Roots]

I hate the matchup against a small ball mid-major led by a senior guard with a Name like Sincere Carry but I think the hype around Kent state is really being overdone. 
 

They’re 1-3 against tournament teams with the only win coming against 16 seed northern Kentucky. They lost to 12 seed Charleston, Gonzaga, and Houston. Everyone keeps pointing to that Houston game as an example of how good Kent st. can be but I think that game was a product of Houston just playing their worst offense of the year more so than greatness from Kent st. I’m my opinion it will take some pretty bad basketball from us to lose this game. 

[RaceToTheTop]

18 hours ago, Uspshoosier said:

I’m glad they did it.   Penalize teams that don’t schedule during the non con.  248 non con sos with 2 Q4 losses.    

Agree, although I would say that TCU (which was 24th and a 6 seed on the committee's list) and Texas A&M (which was 25th) was deserving of switching spots and seed.  TCU might have had the worst non-conference SOS of any power 5 team at 343 -- and they also lost a Q4 game.  The breakdown of TCU would be 8-11 against Q1, 13-11 against Q1/2;  Texas A&M was 7-6 against Q1, 12-7 against Q 1/2.  I have to say I like A&M's breakdown more than TCU's -- TCU was 1-5 in their extra Q1 games and 1-4 in their extra Q1/2.  IMO I don't think that is enough to overcome the one less Q4 loss and a dreadful non-con SOS.  Splitting hairs at that point, but I put A&M over TCU in that case.

The other spot I think deserved exchanging was Memphis' 8 for Northwestern's 7.  Northwestern had a bad non-conference SOS (253) while Memphis's was 47.  Overall SOS, Memphis was 33;  Northwestern's overall SOS was 74.  Memphis was 26-8, Northwestern was 21-11 despite the easier overall SOS.  Memphis was 4-4 in Q1, 13-7 in Q1/2,  Only 6 Q4 games.  Northwestern was definitely good in Q1 (7-6), 12-11 in Q 1/2.  9 Q4 games.  I know the committee loved Northwestern's road wins and their two Q1a wins and that Memphis Q1a win over Houston wasn't factored in, but I liked Memphis's overall body of work more than Northwestern's prior to the American championship.  again splitting hairs, but I think Memphis was a 7 and Northwestern was an 8.

[Honkyman]

31 minutes ago, Hoosier Roots said:

I think that game was a product of Houston just playing their worst offense of the year more so than greatness from Kent st.

Houston played their worst offense of the year because Kent State plays really tough defense.

[dmvhoosier12]

47 minutes ago, Honkyman said:

Houston played their worst offense of the year because Kent State plays really tough defense.

I think the general point, though, is that Kent State's defense is about what IU's defense is. Kent St's slightly better ranked 38th (vs 43 for IU) in the country by KenPom; it's not a crazy top 5 defense. That Houston scored so few points, but managed to dominate the glass and win the game against a defense marginally better than IU's either means Houston either had a uniquely awful shooting performance on their Thanksgiving break game or Houston is not very good. And I would tend to agree with posters that say the former explanation is more likely.

Edited March 14, 2023 by dmvhoosier12

[Hoosierfan1901]

It’s March, we will be in a dog fight

[OliviaPope40]

On 3/13/2023 at 12:47 PM, Alford Bailey said:

If we only had a Coverdale on this team

That team also had Fife, Jeffries, Moye that team was stacked thank god for AJ blocking Boozer's shot in the Elite Eight game in 2002 even though the KSU game was the year before.

Edited March 14, 2023 by OliviaPope40

[RaceToTheTop]

57 minutes ago, Honkyman said:

Houston played their worst offense of the year because Kent State plays really tough defense.

IU has played 12 games against defenses ranked higher than Kent State.  In those 12 games, IU averaged 71.5 ppg.  Kent State plays good defense, but for what IU has played against it's very average.

The Houston game was an outlier defensively for Kent State.  If we want to base them on just one game, might as well pick the game where the game they lost to a 13-19 Northern Illinois team where they gave up 86 points.

They are pretty good defensively, but nothing that IU hasn't seen.  

[Hoosier Roots]

1 hour ago, Honkyman said:

Houston played their worst offense of the year because Kent State plays really tough defense.

I believe they played tough defense but either Houston had a fluke shooting night or they channeled the spirit of the 2004 pistons for that game 

[RaceToTheTop]

35 minutes ago, dmvhoosier12 said:

I think the general point, though, is that Kent State's defense is about what IU's defense is. Kent St's slightly better ranked 38th (vs 43 for IU) in the country by KenPom; it's not a crazy top 5 defense. That Houston scored so few points, but managed to dominate the glass and win the game against a defense marginally better than IU's either means Houston either had a uniquely awful shooting performance on their Thanksgiving break game or Houston is not very good. And I would tend to agree with posters that say the former explanation is more likely.

Houston shot bad that game but more than anything they were just throwing the ball all over the gym -- 23 turnovers.  And while Kent State is good at producing turnovers, that was abnormal them to force that many -- on the year they forced turnovers on 22.6% of possessions -- Houston turned it over almost 34% of the time that night.

[Five Prime]

Listening to Sirius XM 84 earlier.  They did a segment on each region with Coach K.  During the Midwest segment Indiana was not mentioned once.  They talked about Houston, Texas, Xavier, and Miami.  They discussed TAMU vs Penn St for awhile and how both teams were underseeded.  Not one mention of the Hoosiers...

[Class of '66 Old Fart]

 

[Honkyman]

12 hours ago, RaceToTheTop said:

The Houston game was an outlier defensively for Kent State.

Kent State narrowly lost to highly ranked teams Houston, Gonzaga and Charleston. But if their defense is no worse than IU's (earlier you were railing against IU's 3-point defense), then IU should have nothing to worry about against Kent State.

[triple]

If IU plays to its potential this manufactured drama about Kent State being an unstoppable beast, as evidenced by their three most notable losses, will vanish quicker than the blink of an eye.  Go Hoosiers!

[go iu bb]

32 minutes ago, triple said:

If IU plays to its potential this manufactured drama about Kent State being an unstoppable beast, as evidenced by their three most notable losses, will vanish quicker than the blink of an eye.  Go Hoosiers!

So hyperbolic. As far as I've seen, not one person is saying, or even implying, that Kent State is "an unstoppable beast." What people are saying is that this isn't a gimme game that IU can just sleepwalk through. If they don't show up to play, Kent State can beat them. Since this IU team is inconsistent and doesn't seem to always show up to play, therein lies the concern.

[go iu bb]

https://www.si.com/college/indiana/basketball/espn-first-take-stephen-a-smith-picks-indiana-final-four-jay-bilas-likes-kent-state-upset

 

https://www.si.com/college/indiana/basketball/4-indiana-vs-13-kent-state-predictions-picks-odds-for-friday

[Chris007]

I keep hearing and reading these national guys say how is Indiana going to deal with Kent St on this, that, and the other? But no one ever says how is Kent St going to deal with us. They have to guard us also, we get to defend them also. It's a two-way street. Will we bring our A-game? Not sure but if Kent st just brings a C-game, we don't need our A-game.