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 While we were all gone this weekend the Indiana University Basketball team had the pleasure of traveling to the Bahamas to play a weekend of games. I believe, and I could be wrong, that the NCAA allows Division I basketball teams to make a trip like this once every four years and IU picked the right season to do so. With Freshman phenom Eric Gordon coming into town and super Senior D.J. White on his way out, this may be the best chance for the Hoosiers to make a push to the Final Four. It gives the team an opportunity to play together and allows Coach Sampson to put together a structured practice, which isn't normally allowed. As you can see, this trip can be very beneficial if done correctly.
I'll give you the links for the recaps of the three games and then I'll give you my thoughts on them, all the games have box score links on them, so check that out as well.....Game 1, Game 2, Game 3.
The first thing we all need to keep in mind is that the competition that the Hoosiers were playing was not even close to Division 1. More than likely it was just a bunch of dudes brought together to play against them. So, the Hoosiers were supposed to blow out these teams and they did just that (Other Big Ten teams were not able to do the same on their own trips). That was a disclaimer, so here we go.
- Eric Gordon is going to shoot the ball....a lot. He wasn't brought in to defer to someone else. He's going to lead the team in field goal and probably free throw attempts. I don't necessarily mind this, but he did take 20+ shots the first two games. That's a bit much for my taste, but who knows what the tempo of the game was. You know IU is going to be scoring 75 points at the most this season, in most cases, so it will be up to Gordon to make sure he gets quality shots.
 - D.J. White was extremely productive in limited minutes. The big man had a long Summer since he already played, and dominated, the Pan Am Games. I figure he was just out there to do his thing and make sure he didn't get injured. Coach Sampson played this one the right way.
- Can someone get me some info on Jamarcus Ellis, STAT? Dude nearly averaged a triple double on the trip and had a ton of assists and steals (7.3 points, 7.3 rebounds, 9.3 assists and 5.3 steals). I know he wasn't running the point, so he must have been playing the SF position or something. I don't expect him to put up those stats all season long, but he might make people quickly forget about Rod Wilmont and his all-around play. If you've seen him play, let me know what we should expect.
- The Hoosiers displayed the defensive intensity that everyone has come to expect from a Kelvin Sampson-led team. With Armon Bassett on the perimeter hassling offensive players (hopefully) and big D.J. down low....opponents should struggle to score this season.
- IU averaged about 28 assists while making a little more than 47 field goal attempts per game. Like Buck Rampage said to me earlier.....they probably had more assists in one game than they had the entire time Mike Davis as in town.
- Sampson went with the same starting five each game: Bassett, Gordon, Ellis, Lance Stemler (yep), and D.J.
- Looks like Sampson is going to stick with Stemler, so prepare for that. If Stemler can hit a jumper, he helps the team tremendously. If he doesn't.....he's worthless. I don't want to hear anything about defensive hustle.
- After the starting five Sampson was giving the most time to Jordan Crawford, Brandon McGee and Mike White. Freshman Eli Holman was not allowed to make the trip because he hasn't been declared eligible by the NCAA Clearinghouse, but I hope IU goes with more than an eight man rotation this season. As Buck said last week, AJ Ratliff is out for the first semester, so it will be interesting to see who steps up to bring that spark off the bench....and if he gets to play when his suspension is over.
- This was a positive trip for IU as they did exactly what they were supposed to do. They won, but most importantly, they spent time together getting acclimated to not only each other, but Coach Sampson. They now head back to campus to go through individual workouts and whatnot until the season starts.
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I've heard/read that Ellis could play the point. They said he can really handle the rock well for his size at this level. I don't know maybe Sampson was trying him out a bit there. Sorry, I haven't been keeping up much this offseason as usual.
get used to seeing them win anywhere outside of the Big 10, because that's what you'll be stuck with going into the season there billybob
I'm not even sure that makes sense Boney. Should I get used to them NOT winning outside of the Big 10 or ONLY winning outside of the Big 10 (which would mean no Big 10 Title?) I'll hold on my response until a clarification is given.
Um Jack, I think he means they won't win alot of Big 10 games. Man I really, really don't like IU, but they should be pretty solid this year. Your absolutely right about Gordo too, he's a scorer, thats what he does and let him do it. He's gonna be very good this year, hopefully the fans won't turn on him if he has a few bad nights shooting the ball. The big 10 as a whole won't be too intimidating, so i think Indiana has a great opportunity this year. MSU could be good too if Morgan takes the next step, U of I is not going to make the tournament probably, and thats my team. If Koutos is good, Ohio state should be good again, but not even close to last year.
If IU can control the boards they are going to be in great shape. That means D.J. is going to have to stay out of foul trouble. I like Gordon a lot because I think he will help us get back to the days where we made more FT's than our opponents even attempted. They have some depth questions with Ratliff out and the transfers, if they can get a few guys to step up they'll be dangerous.
I just read Boney's comment for the fourth time and I'm still not sure what he's saying....maybe I'm just tired.
I don't know what boney is saying either. Gordon shows show much flash that he gets overlooked as a defender. He isn't great as a face up defender which I can't really figure out. He has the speed and quick feet and hands but I don't know if it is lack of desire or lack of defensive mentality. He is opportunistic though, and will get his share of steals coming from behind plays and pressuring the ten second line. I look for him to be able to make an impact when we press.
I don't think IU will press that much though. Sampson is kind of known for his half court pressure defense. Even with a quick, young team out there I don't think he'd press for fear that it would lead to possible open shots at the basket that D.J. would be forced to stop/foul on. It will be interesting because Bassett and Gordon are extremely quick. Plus, with Gordon carrying the offensive load I wonder how much energy he'll have left for D and how Sampson will deal with that at the beginning of the season. We might see some 22 minutes played line scores for Gordon in the out of conference schedule so Sampson can prove a point.
One of my buddies told me about Ellis last year and he said he reminded him of Andre Iguodala. Being a fan of A.I. that makes me very excited to see if this comparison comes true.
Jack you are absolutely correct on the free throw area. IU is going to attack the basket much much more this year. They are more athletic and I've read multiple times where Sampson has said he doesn't want the 3-pointer to be the first option.
If they get a healthy DJ all year with a Holman they should be solid down low.
Maybe with another year experience, Stemler is ready to step up. If you remember last year in the first few games, he was lights out. It wasn't until the spotlight got a lil bigger that he started struggling. Maybe he's gotten some of that alligator blood in him this year. I'm not counting on it, just hoping for it.
I don't know about Stemler, but you are both right on for the free throws. It is high time the Hoosiers got back to what makes Indiana ball great and that is movement and attacking the bucket. Jack is probably right about IU not pressuring much, but it is against my nature to ask a ball team to be patient on D. If DJ is resting we are going to go small and I see no reason to avoid using athletic depth to pressure. Sampson might fear that the pressure will fail and generate easy buckets for opponents but that is where coaching comes in. If he could teach it well i would dig it all the same to see it happen late in games where we are up and looking to drive people nuts.
They will still play pressure D, it will just be in the half court sets.
I'm with all of you on Boney's comments. I have no idea what it says. I think we saw too many 3 pointers last year as that was the way some of those players were molded under Davis (ie Wilmont, Ratliff). We will be a bit small this year but there are some bangers underneath with Thomas and Mike White. Stemler reminded me of AJ Moye when he had to play out of position at the 4 spot. It's bad for the player but the team needs them to play there. What I like about Gordon is he should be able to do whatever he wants on the court. It's been a while since I've seen a player be able to get to the basket as quick as he did last year. He's gifted in that he also has a great outside shot. When one of those skills doesn't work out in a game, he can go to the other. In the end, it all runs through DJ.
In the end, it all runs through DJ.
no truer (what?) words have been spoken.
Info on Robert Vaden and a guy IU was recruiting:
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070905/SPORTS0601/709050425/1247/SPORTS
http://thetimesonline.com/articles/2007/09/05/sports/top_sports/doca7cfe7f73f0aa7858625734d0002e7bd.txt
Thomas is trying to get from something like 330lbs down to 280lbs. Ya, that's a banger there.
I still don't like Mike White down low very much. He does play hard, but the man was blocked on layups more than anyone in the nation last year!
Cobra beat me to it. I just saw the article in the paper about Vaden. The funny part is they were fighting among themselves. Sounds like a disfunctional Davis team. There was another interesting article about how Bruce Pearl criticizes IU and teams like them that take the Labor Day foreign tours. Sampson came out and said he was taking the trip only to get his new guys a handful of extra practices and games which is only possible with these trips instead of a summer trip. Pearl believes that these trips should be during the summer and specifically for cultural experiences. My take is that the NCAA is at fault for the sake of Pearl's complaints and not coaches such as Sampson who are within the rules to take these trips for purposes of practices.
Pearl is probably just upset that he doesn't have a trip in his pocket to use.
He's actually more upset that he missed out on a prime "tanning" trip. You can't get that type of sun in Tennessee.
I'm sure Pearl was jealous of missing out on the "tanning." He could have used it for his next half nude women's b-ball game appearance. I actually like Pearl a lot as a b-ball coach. I was hoping Davis would have gone a year earlier and Pearl could have come back to the state where he started as a head coach.