That's the Game: Lamar

There’s really not too much to say about beating Lamar by a score of 85-72.  This is a young team who is playing four games in the span of a single week, a tough order this early in the season.  There are those who are saying the Hoosiers should have won by more, and there is definitely room for improvement, but Indiana did just what it needed to win.  Was it pretty?  No, not by a long shot.  But it got the job done.

The Good:

• The return of Devin Davis.  Devin Davis, who suffered a traumatic brain injury on Halloween night, returned to the Assembly Hall for the first time, surprising his teammates by meeting them in the locker room and sitting behind the bench.  Davis was released from a rehabilitation hospital in Indy on Wednesday, and all reports are of the progress he is continuing to make.  He was smiling on the court during warmups, even doing complicated handshakes with his teammates, a good sign for memory and motor skills.  This was a welcome sight for all Hoosiers, and was by far the biggest highlight in a less than impressive win for Indiana.

• Turnovers (or lack thereof).  Hoosier fans had to be concerned when the team turned it over seven times in the first half (the same number of turnovers as they had the entire game against SMU) against a weak team like Lamar.  But Indiana righted the ship in the second half, only giving it away two times for a total of nine for the game.  No player had more than two turnovers, and Robert Johnson, who had four against SMU, had only one.  It should be noted that of the nine turnovers, seven were steals by Lamar with four of them resulting in dunks or layups and another resulting in a missed transition three-pointer.  This indicates that the Hoosiers were getting lazy with their passes, something they can’t afford to do against better teams.  On the other hand, it also means there were fewer dumb unforced turnovers (like stepping on the baseline or traveling), a welcome sign with a young team.

• Guard Play (for the most part).  With an asterisk on the defensive end, the guards for Indiana once again played well.  They secured 18 rebounds (led by James Blackmon Jr. with 6), which is critical for this undersized team.  Blackmon once again led the scoring with 21 points (including 5-7 from deep and 4-4 from the free throw line), while Yogi Ferrell chipped in 19 (including 3-5 from deep and 2-2 from the line) and Johnson added 13.  With the guards being such a large percentage of the team, they will need to continue to play well as a group, although it doesn’t really matter which of the group step up in a particular night.

• **The Play of Emmitt Holt.  This is a very tentative “good” thing, seeing as Holt played for only five minutes.  But in that time he scored four points, grabbed two boards (one of them of the offensive variety), had a steal and one turnover.  He was physical down low while he was in and was active on defense.  Considering he signed with the Hoosiers just days before classes started and was well behind his teammates (having missed all of the summer workouts and the Canada trip), the fact that he has the skill he does is a good sign.  He is going to have to learn quickly, as the non-physicality of Hanner Mosquera-Perea paired with the absence of Devin Davis leaves a large defensive gap in the paint.  As I’ve said, if he can contribute 10-12 minutes of solid play a game, this team is going to look much, much better.

The Not-so-good:

• Intensity(or lack thereof).  The Hoosiers never had it, never really tried to put a very bad team out of its misery.  Instead, Indiana let them hang around, even getting the score as close as 77-70 in the closing minutes of the game.  The Hoosiers were lazy on both ends of the court, throwing lazy passes on one end and allowing easy drives and entry passes on the other.  Now to be fair,  this was the team’s third game in a span of five days and came only two days after the tough SMU game.  So fatigue was likely an issue, as was the lack of practice time to hammer out any flaws discovered against the Mustangs.  Add to this the facts that it is really difficult to “get up” for a game against one of the weakest teams in the country and that this is a prime time to experiment with lineups and game plans, and it really is a recipe for a bit of a letdown.  The real test will be seeing how the Hoosiers respond against Eastern Washington on Monday.

• Defense (and that damn 2-3 zone).  Offense is what makes games fun to watch.  Defense is what wins games (and championships).  For the Hoosiers, offense will be there with room to spare.  But this is beginning to look like Indiana football from the past few years, namely can the Hoosiers score more points on offense than its defense is going to give up?  Now, as I said, this game was one to experiment with game plans, meaning the Hoosiers did some things they most likely would not have if they were playing a higher-level team.  That being said, the 2-3 zone in particular looked absolutely horrendous.  The players in the paint were unable to keep the Cardinals from scoring easy points at the same time as the perimeter guys were unable to put enough pressure on the guards to keep them from driving at will.  They also allowed a guy who had made two three-pointers on the season to hit 4-7 from deep.  All around the court guys looked out of position, whether it was Mosquera-Perea looking absolutely lost or any of the guards over-helping and leaving guys open.  As I said after the last game, I really hope we see less and less of this scheme as time goes on.
• *It should be noted that in the final 3:30 of the game the Hoosiers played primarily a five-guard lineup (with Mosquera-Perea subbing in for all of 30 seconds) and allowed Lamar to score only two points during that stretch.  This defense, even with 6’0” Ferrell guarding the post, actually looked ridiculously good compared to the 2-3 zone it had used earlier in the game, and I found myself liking it more than the four-guards-plus-Hanner lineup to start the game.  I’m not sure how much we’ll see of this lineup moving forward, but I liked it.

• Free Throws.  The Hoosiers hit 16-24 from the line, with five of the misses coming from Mosquera-Perea and three coming from the usually-dependable Collin Hartman.  So I guess you can’t really say that the whole team had trouble shooting, considering the four other guys who shot free throws hit them all.  It’s really Mosquera-Perea who is the most concerning, as he is Indiana’s only legitimate big man.  He has the ability to draw fouls at a high rate, but it doesn’t matter too much if he can’t hit the ensuing free throws.  So moral of the story: Mosquera-Perea needs to get in the gym to work on his free throws and on boxing out.  Oh, and on not jumping at every shot fake that comes his way.  If he can get the hang of these things he could turn out to be a valuable big man.

Final Word:

Lackluster would once again be the best final word for this game.  But this being the third game in a five-day span, I'll take lackluster over adjectives like "disastrous" or "catastrophic."  Based on last night, the Hoosier defense has a very long way to go, giving up way too many easy points to a very bad team.  The plus side is that there shouldn't be too many games in which the strength of Indiana's offense doesn't offset the weakness of their defense.  For now, they can use this game as the learning opportunity it is and grow from it.

Up Next:

The Hoosiers host the Eagles of Eastern Washington in the final game of the "Hoosiers Showcase" tomorrow (November 24) at 7:30 on ESPNews.  This will be a tougher team than Lamar, with the Eagles ranking 148th out of 351 by Ken Pomeroy.  They are 3-1 on the season, with their lone loss coming against SMU.  Their wins? Against Texas Southern, Utah Valley, and Walla Walla (I'm not making this up, they are the Wolves and are an NAIA school).  The Eagles haven't been particularly good at anything related to free throws on either end of the court, but have been very good at hitting two-point shots and are actually hitting around 11 threes per game.  It’ll be interesting to see if the Hoosiers use the dreaded 2-3 zone for long, as it has been ineffective at both keeping opponents out of the paint and preventing them from shooting threes.  The Eagle defense hasn't been impressive thus far, ranking in the bottom 20 in adjusted efficiency per Pomeroy.  He likes Indiana to win by a score of 79-67 with an 88% chance of victory.  My gut's going to say that the Hoosiers will be just as fatigued as last night, meaning the defense is still going to be rocky.  Because of that, I'm going to put the score closer to 88-76, but Indiana could surprise me by locking down the paint and blowing the Eagles out of the gym.