As can be expected, play was somewhat inconsistent vs. last game. Devan Dumes had a much worse night, scoring 10 points but needing 3-12 shooting to do so. Nick Williams had a much better game, shooting just under 50% and grabbing nine boards as well, something IU need desperately if they’re going to compete against Big Ten teams. Matt Roth also showed his range going 4-9 from deep for all 12 of his points and some of those threes were from Eric Gordon’s neighborhood. Daniel Moore had another nice game with 6 assists and only two turnovers, but more on him later this week. And Tijan Jobe was…Tijan Jobe, picking up two fouls and a turnover in just three minutes.

As a team, free throw shooting improved significantly, getting up near 80%. Shooting was especially good in the second half as IU went 10-20. Doing that over the course of a game is what’s going to be necessary to win games against any competition better than IUPUI or Northwestern State. IU cannot afford to have even a really bad shooting half or a really bad defensive half and hope to beat a Big Ten team.

The Hoosiers are now off until November 24th, when they face Notre Dame in the first round of the Maui Invitational.

In 2010, where IU is behind, most of the big guns are committed. Dominque Ferguson and Deshaun Thomas are the headliners, and are headed to Kentucky and Ohio State respectively. Justin Martin is also in the top 50 and will head to Louisville. Travis Carroll is in the top 70 and committed to Purdue. Russell Byrd is a prototypical Crean-type player but will head to Michigan State. Terone Johnson is also on his way to Purdue. That leaves Donnie Hale as the only uncommitted Rivals Top 150 player in the state of Indiana.

2011 has a number of talented players. While 2011 hasn’t been rated and picked over like 2009 and 2010 have, there is a nice list of talented players, many with familiar names, from the state, including:

• PG Marquis Teague- 6′1″ Pike
• PG/SG Jeremiah Davis- 6′2″ Muncie Central
• PF Ryan Taylor- 6′6″ Lawrence North
• PF Cody Zeller- 6′7″ Washington
• C Michael Chandler-6′10 Lawrence North
• PF Marshall Plumlee- 6′10″ (Hoosier by birth) Christ School, NC

My thought is no. I want to dispel something of a myth. There’s this idea that one of the reasons the fans didn’t like Mike Davis was because he didn’t recruit the state well. That’s not entirely accurate. I think there was (and is) a certain portion of the fan base that demands that the vast majority of the recruits come from the state of Indiana. I think though the majority of fans just want good players who are good kids. Davis’ issue was that at a time when Indiana was churning out a ton of great talent, Davis basically whiffed on all of it (aside from Robert Vaden and AJ Ratliff) and at the same time failed to bring in sufficient talent from outside the state.

So as a gross generalization, I would say you’re OK as IU’s head coach if you never recruit a player from Indiana but constantly bring in a high level of talent. That said, with the demands so high, you would be stupid to ignore all the talent in your backyard. It’s just not as critical for IU to recruit Indiana well as it is for Texas Football to recruit Texas well. A football team needs 35-50 really good players to compete for a national title. A basketball team needs about 8. It would be a lot harder for Texas to consistently get that number of football players if they didn’t do the bulk of their recruiting in Texas.

And finally, do we really want Crean to “make room” ever? If there’s a shakeout with playing time over the next year or so and a number of players leave on their own, that’s fine. But I would say that a program with a reputation for running kids off is not the type of program we want to have here. As much as Kelvin Sampson’s undoing was one really specific thing, I think the writing was on the wall for his program. It was going to look a lot like his program at Oklahoma, which a lot of IU fans were critical about even if you ignore the NCAA violations. If Crean and the fans are really committed to rebuilding the program “the right way,” then we just have to write off most of those in-state players for 2011.

I’ll wrap this up tomorrow by looking at the oversigning issue.

So let’s take an entirely too premature look at the 2009 Hoosiers and how they will line up.

First, let’s look at the current lineup:

Starters: Dumes, VJIII, Williams, Pritchard, Taber

Rotation bench: Moore, Finkelmeier, Roth, Story, Jobe (ok, by default)

Reserves: Parade o’ Walk-ons!

Next, what do we know will happen? We know Taber is gone. And we know that Finklemeier will get pushed out of the rotation. We also know that Tijan Jobe probably isn’t going to move up on the depth chart. In addition, many of those walk-ons are going to be off the team. There are 13 scholarship players, and 15 on the travel squad.

Through three games, despite all the talent coming in at his position, I think Pritchard is most likely to keep his starting spot. Assuming he puts on a halfway decent showing against high major teams, Pritchard will likely keep that spot. I also think it’s highly likely that Jeremiah Rivers is in the starting lineup. I’m not saying Crean promised him anything, but I doubt he would have transferred unless there was some understanding that signficant playing time in a guard-oriented system would be available to him.

So that leaves one question: how long is this rebuilding process? There’s two theories and they lead to somewhat different lineups. One theory is that Crean is under some “win now” pressure next year and decides to give the nod to his players who took their lumps. The other theory is that the rebuilding process is a little longer, Crean continues to preach patience, and lets his new crop of players take their lumps so he has a lot more experienced group in 2009.

So here’s what I would call option 1:

Starters: Rivers, Dumes, Williams/VJIII, Watford, Pritchard

Rotation Bench: Creek, Williams/VJIII (whomever doesn’t start), Story, Elston, Capobianco

Reserves: Moore (possible redshirt), Hulls (possible redshirt), Muniru, Jobe

And here’s option 2:

Starters: Rivers, Dumes, Watford, Elston, Capobianco

Rotation Bench: VJIII, Creek, Williams, Story, Pritchard

Reserves: Moore (possible redshirt), Hulls (possible redshirt), Muniru (possible redshirt), Jobe

While the second starting lineup is the more talented one, I think my reasoning behind the first being the “win now” lineup is pretty clear. You start a senior, a redshirt junior, two sophomores, and a freshman, but that freshman is your best player. You’ve still got a great deal of talent on the bench. That also looks more like a team Tom Crean is accustomed to coaching than the second option.

You’ll also notice that in both scenarios, neither Jordan Hulls nor Bawa Muniru crack the rotation. If the team stays composed this way (and there’s only one way it can), I don’t see it. I don’t want to brand Bawa with the project tag just yet, but we know that he’s a little rawer at this point than Elston or Capobianco. Additionally, Crean has to do something to even out the scholarship situation. He can’t replace half the team one year, half the team the next, and then only recruit one or two guys for two years, then start over. He’s got to even it out where he has 3-5 player recruiting classes. The best way to do that, without running off talented players, is to redshirt. And as I recently learned, you want to redshirt players who are good in the hopes that they become very good, not redshirt players who are bad in the hopes that they become good. That’s why aside from Moore redshirt (which doesn’t affect the scholarship situation), I think it’s more likely that Hulls and/or Muniru redshirt, especially given the log jam at Hulls’ position.

I’ll have some more thoughts on the class. Should be two more parts coming to this. But feel free to tell me I’m crazy in the comments, or post your own lineups.

IU started out slow and was down 12-5 early. But IU took the lead and kept it beginning with a Malik Story free throw to go up 19-18. IU was not seriously challenged in the second half after a 5-0 run pushed a nine-point halftime lead to a 14-point lead. IU led by as much as 26, but gave it a bit of it back in garbage time, for the final score of 83-65.

Devan Dumes proved once again what it means to have some significant Division I experience under your belt. Dumes had 21 points on 6-10 shooting, including four three-pointers. Verdell Jones struggled with his shot, hitting only 4-11, but lived at the free throw line going 10-13 from the stripe. And Tom Pritchard notched a double-double with 13 points and 10 boards.

The long term story of this game is told in one stat: five personal fouls for Daniel Moore. Daniel Moore is a nice player. He was very surprising in some highlights in his ability to break the press, handle the ball, and even get to the rim. But if Daniel Moore is playing enough minutes to foul out, this team is not going to win too many games.

But even though IU won’t win too many games, this was a good sign. With almost the entire team playing their first significant minutes of Division I basketball, this was a prime game for IU to lose against a cupcake. And considering that a Kentucky team that was supposed to be better than last year lost to a similarly talented VMI squad, we can consider it to be a victory if IU can avoid a home loss to a mid major.

Head over to the game thread for comments, and discussion.

Malik Story led the way with 15 points and seven boards off the bench. According to the Scoop, Crean is still (at least for the time being) in throwing stuff at the wall to see if it sticks. Especially according to this quote:

“It’s hard for me to look and think, let’s pay through this,” Crean said. “We don’t have any demonstrated ability to play through it yet.”

Indiana finally had big men out there, as in more than one. Kyle Taber made his triumphant return and pulled down nine boards in just 15 minutes. Tom Pritchard had another nice game, with 12 points and nine boards, although you would like better than 3-10 shooting from a guy who is doing his damage around the basket. And Tijan Jobe only had 2 fouls in 10 minutes, so that’s hopefully improving.

It will be interesting when Taber is back at full strength because Crean will have some big decisions to make. Does he roll out a more traditional line up of say Devan Dumes, Matt Roth, Nick Williams, Pritchard, and Taber? Or does he stick with the four-guard line up around Taber or Prtichard, and keep two big guys in reserve on the bench? I think if one of two things happens (one of which is really unlikely) then Crean won’t have to put both of his useful big guys on the floor at once.

The more likely scenario is that a combination of Nick Williams and Malik Story can slow down opposing forwards and spread the fouls out while still maintaining a high level of offense. The less likely scenario is that a guy like Broderick Lewis is able to give IU something, giving IU a bigger, stronger player to give significant minutes to.

Two exhibition games, two wins, which is more than some teams can say at this point in the season. So at the very least, IU has already avoided one of the ultimate indignities that some people might have thought was possible: a Michigan/App State or Michigan State/Grand Valley-esque loss to a lower division team.

Last year’s record: 25-8, lost in first round of Big Ten tournament, lost in first round of NCAA tournament.

Key Losses: Kelvin Sampson, DJ White, Eric Gordon, Armon Bassett, Jordan Crawford, Lance Stemler, DeAndre Thomas, Jamarcus Ellis, and a few other guys who didn’t contribute that much.

Key Additions: Tom Crean, Nick Williams, Verdell Jones III, Devan Dumes, Tom Pritchard, Matt Roth, Malik Story, Tijan Jobe

1. Significant developments in the offseason

Wow, where to begin. Kelvin Sampson is out, Tom Crean is in. Eric Gordon and DJ White left for the NBA. Lance Stemler and Mike White graduated. Armon Bassett and Jamarcus Ellis were kicked off the team, a decision that Tom Crean supported. Eli Holman transferred to Detroit-Mercy where Ray McCallum was hired. DeAndre Thomas was shown the door, as was Brandon McGee. And Jordan Crawford decided he didn’t want to hang around for this, and turned out the proverbial lights on the way to Xavier.

Somewhere in the middle, the recruiting class was jumbled around. Devin Ebanks decided he didn’t want to play for Crean and went to West Virginia. Terrell Holloway agreed and went to Xavier. Matt Roth and Tom Prtichard decided to stick it out and come to IU. Crean nabbed junior college transfers Devan Dumes and Tijan Jobe. Nick Williams sought and obtained a release of his NLI from Marquette and followed Crean to Indiana. IU fought off Minnesota for the services of Verdell Jones. Jeremiah Rivers transferred from Georgetown and will sit out a year. And mysterious California recruit Malik Story signed up. Oh yeah, and a bunch of walk-ons were added.

2. What are the team’s biggest strengths?

Contrary to what you might be reading (even here), this is still Indiana. There’s a lot of work to do before the luster is returned to the program, but it’s still a diamond. Which means a couple of things. There will always be a lot of people there. There will always be a significant home court advantage. There will be oodles of support even for a team that some people are suggesting could go winless in the Big Ten.

The other biggest strength is that this team, as presently composed, plays to the strengths of the coach involved. When IU had a small team under Mike Davis, his NBA-esque isolation/spacing offense really suffered because athletically the team matched up poorly, not to mention the perils of running a man-to-man defense when you have matchup issues. Crean will be more likely to get the maximum out of these players than Davis or even Sampson would have.

3. What are the team’s biggest weaknesses?

Size, experience, and depth. IU has none of any of those. Walk-ons are being brought in just to have enough players to scrimmage. There are two guys bigger than 6’6” with scholarships, one of whom is an ex-walk-on who is recovering from knee surgery. Kyle Taber and Devan Dumes (who went to Eastern Michigan for a year) are the only players with any significant Division I basketball experience. And the drop-off from the starters to about the 9th man is a chasm.

Let me throw in one more weakness, or maybe more like a threat or challenge: the schedule. Last year, IU was brutalized (wrongly so) for playing an extremely weak schedule. This year, IU is playing a significantly more difficult schedule (based on the swing of about 7 games, my point last year). After playing in a weak tournament, a down opponent in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge, and IU’s signature true non-conference road game being a down Southern Illinois Team, not to mention Kentucky’s struggles, things are different this year. IU will go to Maui, and its much stronger field. IU will play true road games against Wake Forest and an improved Kentucky team. And IU will take on Gonzaga at Lucas Oil Stadium. And IU only plays Michigan and Northwestern once, both of whom are expected to be right there with the Hoosiers near the bottom of the conference.

4. What are the goals for this team?

I’m not going to give you some “I just hope we see some hustle and heart” spiel. This team is going to lose a lot of game. This team is not going to the tournament. This team is probably not going to the CBI even. This team might lose 20 games. So you also can’t use a lot of the traditional measures of what a good team is. And I’m not going to add to the continuing little brotherfication of IU by saying “I just hope we beat Illinois twice.”

So here’s what I ask: don’t get blown out too much. IU is going to get waxed early in the season. At Maui, at Wake, at Kentucky, against Gonazaga, IU will probably lost badly. And IU is going to lose a few games to some of the cupcake non-conference teams. But by the middle or end of the Big Ten season, IU should be at least putting up a fight at home. Against some of these midlevel Big Ten teams, or even some of the bigger ones, IU should not be getting blown out. Illinois, Minnesota, Penn State, Northwestern, Iowa, and Michigan should not be rolling into Assembly Hall and laying the wood to the Hoosiers, even this iteration of the Hoosiers. And try and knock off a big team or two or even make a little run in the Big Ten Tourney so people can all go crazy about next year.

5. Will Tom Crean be on the Hot Seat?

That’s an excellent question. We know that big-time, basketball-crazed fan bases can put a coach on a hot seat long before you might expect. There were whispers about Billy Gillispie in his first year at Kentucky. If he has another disappointing year, those whispers might get pretty loud. On the other hand, some fan bases, although not as obsessed with their team, seem to give their coaches a lot of leinency. I find it somewhat amazing that Bruce Weber isn’t on the hot seat considering the precipitous fall that team has suffered and the fact that his rebuilding project is probably two years away. Oh yeah, and his players aren’t exactly model citizens either.

Tom Crean will be on the hot seat. Rightly or wrongly, he will be. I think the fact that Bill Lynch is on the hot seat now says a lot. But we know this team is going to lose a lot of games. We know this team will be uncompetitive in some. And I’m willing to bet this team will give up 100 points and fail to score 60 (hopefully not in the same game). It’s one thing to say after a very disappointing season with a very talented group and in the middle of the total dismantling of that group that all you want is a bunch of guys who go to class, keep their noses clean, and are proud to wear the jersey. It’s a whole ‘nother thing to say that when those guys are losing 20 games. The same sort of whispers will arise around Crean that came up around Gillispie. Good thing Crean built lots of political capital, he’s going to spend a bit of it this year.

Predictions: 11-20 (5-13 Big Ten), first round loss in the Big Ten Tournament