Thought From the Game: IU vs. TCU

First off, this team is improving. They are not yet giant-killers, but they are getting better. With their recent performances against quality teams like Cornell, Gonzaga, and now TCU, Tom Crean has to be at least a little pleased with how his boys are competing. Whenever I am watching the game, I continually text my friends this message: "They just play so hard!" As a coach, I know you would always want that to be said of your team. Once Crean can match up some more talent with that type of effort, we will be a tough team to beat. During the Big Ten - ACC Challenge, Jay Bilas said that if Crean coached this team to ten or twelve wins, it would be a masterful job of coaching. Well, I think Crean is a masterful coach, and I think ten to twelve wins are in our future. I fully expect us to beat Northeastern and Lipscomb if we continue to play like we did last night, and I expect us to win four or five conference games, four home tilts, and one road upset (which is really any game). Returning to the present, however, let's take a look at some of the positives and some areas that still need improvement based on the TCU game.

Positives

- The defense is improving with each game. Up until about two minutes left in the game, IU had held the Horned Frogs to around 40 points on about 41% shooting and 23% from threes. The desperation barrage at the end skewed the defensive statistics, but the Hoosiers had nonetheless played outstanding defense most of the night. While the opponent was not Wake Forest or Gonzaga, anytime you are playing a D1 opponent, especially a hot one on a winning streak of six games, holding a team between 40-50 is a huge accomplishment. A few defensive things stood out to me:

1. Eleven steals. Of TCU's 21 turnovers, that means IU forced at least 11 of them. They were in the passing lanes and pressuring the ball better than any other game this season.

2. Charge-taking. I am not sure how many we actually got, but there are one play in particular that stood out to me. Kyle Taber attempted to take a charge, and it was not called, but when his man passed the ball off, Daniel Moore was in position and took a called charge less than two seconds later. It was beautiful.

3. Help defense. Steven Bardo made a point of picking out one of the rare cases of poor help defense on the telestrator last night, but there were several great instances. Our sinking and filling was great last night. Sinking and filling has to take place when a man gets beat off the dribble, which will happen to us a lot since we are not as athletic as most teams. When someone goes to help the man who got beat, the rest of the team has to jump into position to help the man who is helping the man. Defense is not as simple as it sometimes looks! On one play, Tom Pritchard had to leave his man in the paint to help out a guard who was beaten on a drive from the wing, which seemingly left his man open under the bucket. However, our sink and fill was great, as Devan Dumes quickly dropped down from the top of the key to cover for Pritch, jumping in front of his man and stealing the pass intended for a dunk, but instead leading to a transition bucket for us. I thought that was an amazing play, but one that often goes unnoticed.

Other Positives

1. Second-chance points. Pritchard channeled his inner-Dennis Rodman last night and came away with nine offensive boards. As a team, the Hoosiers had 13. Having 13 extra possessions in a game to run plays, kill times, get better looks or easy put backs, those are the things that break the other teams' back.

2. Devan Dumes. When he is on, he gives this team a great lift. He shot 50%, including 3/8 from threes. He must stay out of foul trouble and be on the floor a lot, since he is IU's best player at getting his own shot.

3. Big Tom. He continues to be a beast when he's on the floor. Fifteen points, 11 boards, and two blocks. He is not as athletic as some, but he uses his frame and smarts to be about as effective as any other big man in the conference.

4. Team togetherness. I know this is something that Crean has instilled in them. This play was a microcosm of it: Pritch had the ball on a rebound and was standing near the baseline. A TCU player forced him out of bounds and he fell into the cheerleaders and photographers. As soon as it happened, the whole team dashed to him, helped him up, and congratulated him for his great play. Simply awesome.

Areas to Improve

1. Turnovers. I know that the final count was bloated by the last two minutes of play, but 19 turnovers is going to be a problem against Big Ten teams. The Hoosiers must tighten up their passes and make better decisions when they penetrate. No more jumping to pass!

2. Transition fast breaks. The Hoosiers squandered several chances for easy buckets with poor decisions in transition or in odd-man attacking situations. A couple stand out. One was Daniel Moore's poor decision to pass to Taber instead of shoot and open 8-footer, leading to a charge. Another was Malik Story's turnover on a 2-on-1 after a steal when he mishandled the ball, fell, and TCU went on a fast break. With the Hoosiers struggling to find baskets, they can't continue to miss out on easy chances.

3. Daniel Moore as a scoring option. Bardo nailed this one on the head. Moore is a nice player, and as the commentator said, while Crean will bring in top point guards, Moore still has a chance to be a major contributor, but only if he becomes a legitimate threat to score. I'm not saying he needs to jack up shots, but he negates how effective a penetrator he is when he won't shoot after beating the defense. He has to gain confidence in a go-to shot, a little 10-foot pull up or a tear drop, something along those lines. Opposing defenses need to respect him a a viable scoring option because that will open up more passing lanes and make his job as a point guard much easier.

4. Another three point shooter. Dumes seems to be the only guy who has a green light to shoot it, but IU has to have another guy who can shoot from outside on the move. Matt Roth is an amazing standstill shooter, but he is not yet at the point where he can make shots coming off screens with a defender in his face. His threes typically come on missed defensive assignments, or off of drive-and-kicks. Story is the obvious choice here. He has to become more consistent as an outside option, or teams will start scouting IU and pack it in, eliminating some of Pritchard's touches in the paint. And on that note...

5. Pritchard in the paint. Now hear me out. I know he has been really effective so far, but Big Ten teams are going to scout us hard, probably already are, and Tom's life is going to get much harder unless he is able to make some minor changes. There was one play where TCU went and quickly doubled Pritch on the catch last night, and he was lucky that is bounced off of the Frogs out of bounds; the results could have been much worse. He needs to be a bit more aware in the post. Right now, he is standing and holding the ball too long, and using too many static dribbles to get to scoring position. He needs to catch, look, and go much more quickly to beat solid big men consistently. Nitpicking, but something that could be an issue down the line.

6. Finishing a team off. If there were more time left than two minutes, Crean would have no doubt called a time out to calm his team down and set up some sort of press breaker or special set. With the game in hand, he let it play out. This team, however, now knows they need to have that killer instinct, taking pride in effectively finishing off an opponent in emphatic fashion. We call it ripping out their heart and stomping on it. Secretly, Coach Crean is probably somewhat pleased about the last two minutes of the game, since he now has that ending to be a visual aid to his players of how not to end a game (and as a reason to condition!).

All in all, a great, confidence-building win for IU. The Hoosiers play Jodie Meeks, Patrick Patterson, and the Kentucky Wildcats on Saturday at at 4:00. I'll be watching that and then heading to the Circle City Classic to do some scouting and reviews of the North Central vs. Lafayette Jeff and the Lawrence North vs. Ft. Wayne Luers games. What a great day of basketball!