Column: Hoosiers show promise, still more to learn

There couldn’t have been a more blatant discrepancy between IU’s final exhibition win against Hillsdale and the Hoosiers’ 100-72 season-opening victory against Chicago State Friday evening at Assembly Hall.

Against the Hillsdale Chargers, IU Coach Tom Crean’s squad played a rather conservative game offensively, finding itself in a 13-2 hole near the midway point of the first half.

But against the Cougars, IU was aggressive offensively from the tip, racing to a 47-28 halftime lead.

The Hoosiers’ tendency to attack the basket was a clear display of the result of college basketball’s new foul policies. IU set a school record with 45 made free throws on 55 attempts.

“I want them to attack the rim,” Crean said. “I want them to get to the foul line. I want them to really challenge the basket.”

While Crean will continue to preach that mentality — as he should — those 45 made free throws should be viewed in context. Against less athletic teams such as Chicago State, fouls will be called in droves.

The same conditions won’t be present during Big Ten Conference play, making execution in the half court one of a myriad of necessary areas of improvement for this season’s Hoosiers.

“There’s probably a five-page laundry list of things we have to be better at,” Crean said. “That’s kind of where we’re at in the season.”

If you’re expecting those improvements to be made quickly, you’ll be sorely disappointed.

Crean possesses a roster replete with talent but thin on experience.

Essentially, IU’s young players simply don’t know what they don’t know.

“I think we might have had one back cut layup tonight, and that’s not enough,” Crean said. “Now, that is a sign we just don’t understand it yet. We don’t understand as well how to move without the ball.”

Perhaps most evident of that collective youth and inexperience was the Hoosiers’ failure to rotate defensively on Chicago State’s 3-point shot attempts, of which the Cougars had 36 but only converted eight.

More often than not those were open looks that, had they gone in, would have been potentially disastrous for IU.

“We got a young team,” sophomore forward Jeremy Hollowell said following an impressive outing where he tallied 16 points, four blocks and four rebounds. “We’ve got a lot to learn.”

The present circumstances, while bleak on the surface, set up a season in which Crean’s Hoosiers will improve progressively with the hope to be as close to a “finished product” as there can be in college basketball.

November, December and even January may not provide the amount of aesthetically pleasing basketball IU fans were accustomed to last season.

However, down the stretch IU will be a dangerous team capable of grabbing headlines come postseason play.

“There are things to build on and a lot of games,” Crean said. “I think this game started a span of seven games in 20 days, so we’re going to learn a lot in a short period of time. We’ve gotta keep making sure that they understand.

“And the No. 1 focus above all else is are they getting better? Are they improving? And you wanna improve inside of the games, and, certainly, in the days leading up to the games.”

­— ckillore@indiana.edu
Follow men’s basketball columnist Connor Killoren on Twitter @IDS_CGKilloren.