It was pretty much what we expected out of Saturday’s game between IU and Savannah State. The Hoosiers earned a comfortable win with a final score of 95-49 in Assembly Hall on ?Saturday.
The Tigers are one of the worst offensive teams in the country, and it showed. They followed up a 17-point first half with 32 points in the second, but much of that was spent against the Hoosier reserves.
IU’s 2-3 zone that worked so well against Pittsburgh last week continued to shut down its opponents when the main rotational players were in.
“They’re learning the different segments that go into how everybody’s got to be connected,” IU Coach Tom Crean said. “If you’re going to beat good teams, you can’t have one guy doing this or one guy relaxed over here. So we’re learning that.”
IU spent the entire second half against Pittsburgh and almost the entire game against Savannah State in the 2-3 zone, and it has been effective.
“This is probably the first time all year where we’ve had back-to-back games where the defensive intensity was the key to the game,” Crean said. “If your team is connected on defense, you have a chance to be ?really good.”
However, this game didn’t show us much about this Hoosier team. They were expected to dominate, and they did — in every facet. Anything less than a 30-point victory would have been a disappointment.
And on a Sunday that saw Big Ten teams fall, IU freshman guard James Blackmon Jr. said IU didn’t need to watch Michigan or Purdue get upset early in the day.
“We learned that from our Eastern Washington game,” Blackmon said. “If you don’t get up on a team from the start, they start to gain confidence. Tonight we just wanted to start from the beginning and that’s what we did.”
But IU didn’t look very focused at the start of the game. Savannah State’s press caused trouble for the Hoosiers for the first several minutes. After a very sloppy start for both teams that led to an early 10-9 IU lead, it was IU junior guard Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell who righted the ship and stopped the turnovers.
“At one point I had a turnover trying to throw it under the backboard,” Ferrell said. “But after that, I felt like we weren’t very stagnant with the ball. We got it out, pushed, looked up the court, looked towards the middle. I think that’s the biggest thing for us. We just have to attack the press.”
IU committed just three turnovers through the next 15 minutes, a huge factor in IU’s 33-8 run into ?intermission.
Turnovers are one of three benchmark categories for IU that will be key throughout the year. If the Hoosiers continue to win, it will likely be due to success in these three areas.
The first, already mentioned, is turnovers. After being so dreadful last year in this respect, IU has showed serious improvement. The Hoosiers were just decent at holding on to the ball. They averaged 11.8 coming into the game and committed 14 on Saturday.
Granted, three of those were in the final 2:45 of the game, with the end of the Hoosier bench in the game, but it’s still something IU will need to keep an eye on.
The second statistic to look for is 3-point shooting. This team’s offense is reliant on the deep ball more than any Hoosier team we’ve seen in a while.
Whenever the offense breaks down or it gets late in the shot clock, IU always looks to the perimeter for an open look.
IU shot impressively from deep against the Tigers, going 10-of-21 from behind the arc, good for 47.6 percent.
The final category is the offensive rebounds allowed. Savannah State grabbed 11 offensive rebounds and had just three in the first half. After giving up 25 offensive rebounds to Pittsburgh last week, it would have been a huge red flag if it struggled to box out Saturday.
If IU continues to perform well in those three categories, it will keep winning this season.
crkrajew@indiana.edu
