IUBB vs Baylor (Exhibition) - Sunday, 10.26.25 @ 1:00 on B1G+

[str8baller 7,988]

3 hours ago, Aaron said:

Rest of guys look like mid-major players in size and ability (especially Bailey at the five really concerns me) and it’s why Indiana easily won their services in portal. Team lacks size and athleticism and ability to win or lose will be entirely on heart, hustle, and 3’s falling.

Enright played and started for a P5 team last year. He was also pretty coveted by a coach who had a top 15 DefE last year at a power 5 school. I think the lack of athleticism might be a tad overstated.  I’ve seen guys like Bo Ryan and Tony Bennett put out really good defensive teams without a ton of top line athletic talent.  
 

But that does kind of bleed into the rebounding. Yes we struggled to rebound on the defensive end. But a huge portion of their advantage was in the 16 vs 4 offensive rebounds stat. I doubt you’ll see us get many this year as guys hustle back to set-up our half court defense. The aforementioned mentioned Ryan and Bennett rarely had prolific offensive rebounding teams for the exact same reason. So we’ll usually get out rebounded but hopefully to the tune of getting good D efficiency (which will somewhat be dampened if we still struggle with defensive rebounds).** We got there in the second half and Coach Drew even praised it in post game.  
 

I think the rate at which we will make 3’s won’t affect our floor as much as it does our ceiling. Our floor will be determined by how well they defend. If we defend like the first 10 min of that exhibition somewhere in the mid-teens is realistic. If we defend like we did in the second half, we shouldn’t have a problem making the tourney.   
 

 

**while I agree on some of Baileys limitations, Baylors two leading rebounders were long athletic guards. We can shore up a significant portion of our rebounding issue by getting better at blocking out as a team. 
 

 

[HoosierHoopster 9,108]

^^^  And while it was just an exhibition game and we shouldn't take it for more than that, our guys did hang with a good Baylor team and did so with minimal sideline coaching in at least the closing minutes of the first half and game. a 15-win take from that seems really unwarranted, imo. 

To me, this is a team that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts -- and that's the opposite of a Woodson coached team.

[Home Jersey 17,194]

Bailey is one of the biggest questions for many posters coming off this game. 

The next meaningful competition we play is Marquette. 

He will match up with Ben Gold, 6'11 235 (Reed is 6'10 229)

He played 25 mpg last year and averaged 7.4ppg 4.3rebs .9 assists .8 blocks. Shot 37% from 3 on 4 attempts a game.

He will be the starter this year. This player profile from a Marquette site was an interesting read, some excerpts:

Quote

 

The fact of the matter is that Ben Gold is probably not best suited to be a traditional 5 in a college basketball rotation, but it looks like that’s going to be his role. Set screens, score in the post, rebounding like crazy.... maybe not the best use of his skills, so Marquette’s going to have to find a way to make Gold an efficient center. He’s probably a better-than-you-realize rebounder but given Marquette’s overall rebounding problems under Shaka Smart’s direction, it’s hard to look at Ben Gold and say “yep, there’s the solution to the problem.”

So on top of the idea that he’s going to have to produce in order to justify the starter’s minutes, Gold is also going to have to be able to stay on the floor. For each of the past two seasons, the big Kiwi has averaged more than four fouls per 40 minute per KenPom.

...

But of everyone on the roster, Gold is perhaps the only one who is seeing a major reconfiguration of what’s being expected of him. 

“God, Andy, just give us the Torvik algorithm expectation already, come on!” Yeah, I know, I wanted to set the tone first..... because the algorithm isn’t super exciting. 5.5 points, 4.5 rebounds, 1.1 assists in a little more than 21 minutes a night. See? You were expecting more from Gold in your head, weren’t you?

...

Offensive rebounding. I don’t know how often Gold will end up in a good position to be there for that if Marquette does play a lot of 5-out with him on the floor, but easy putbacks is a fun way to get a lot of two-pointers.

We have to at least acknowledge the possibility that Caedin Hamilton might fit the 5 position on the floor better than Gold. Not just because of the skills by the way, but also because Hamilton visually appears to be a more physical inside presence than Gold has shown himself to be and/or than Gold visually appears to be.

Shaka Smart has said in the past that part of what the coaching staff is doing with Gold is trying to get him to believe he can be as good as the coaching staff believes he can be.

 

Marquette added nobody in the portal. They lost their 3 leading scorers I think. So they will be playing freshmen and looking for guys to step up in new roles. Should be a fun early season match up.