IU 83 Georgia Tech 79

What the hell was that? That was a weird game. I don't even know where to start. I guess let's start with two things I definitely didn't expect: (1) Jordan Crawford suspended indefinitely. (2) Mike White is in the game. First, related to Crawford, he is actually suspended for 3 games and will be back for the Kentucky game, even though the ESPN Bottom Line flashed that he is suspended indefinitely about 172 times during the game. I did some quick internet searches, but could not find the exact reason why. Everything simply stated "violation of team rules". So now half of our guards are sitting on the bench in neckties. Then, all of the sudden, I see Mike White enter the game. He was supposed to be redshirted this year, but Sampson just said in the postgame conference that the Xavier game showed him that they needed more maturity and more toughness. As for me, I really like the move. I think it gives us a lot more flexibility with our lineup. Going into the year, depth was supposed to be one of our strengths. However, with Mike White planned to redshirt, Eli Holman and Brandon McGee not yet ready, and Ratliff on suspension, we were only a 7-man rotation. Then, add a Crawford suspension and it would have been a 6-man rotation without Mike White. More on Mike White in the report card. Then, there was the bizarre ups and downs of that game. One minute, I would be really impressed with IU, then the next minute it would look like we were the worst team in the country. Overall Team Performance: C Without losing sight of the fact that they won, it is clear that this team has a lot of holes and a long way to go to be a true Top 10 team in the country. Of course, now that we lost, we dropped to #15, which seems to be more appropriate. And now for the broken record portion of the report card -- our defense sucks. Especially the start of both halves. G-Tech scored 24 points in the first 10 minutes of the game and 15 points in the first 6 minutes of the 2nd half. They also opened the 2nd half with a 7-0 run. This team is giving up way too many easy baskets. IU did manage 83 points, but with only 10 assists. The good news -- players like Jamarcus Ellis and Eric Gordon were converting on their one-on-one moves. Most likely, IU will have a lot of success with one-on-one moves because they have some very talented offensive players. But I still contend that this team is much more dangerous when they either play inside-out, drive and kick, or drive and dish. There was one IU possession that I thought was perfect and the color-man even said that was IU's best possession of the night. Gordon drove the lane and everyone collapsed, he then kicked out to Stemler but it was kind of a lazy pass so the defense responded in time, then Stemler kicked to Bassett, again the defense responded but Bassett drove into the lane to again cause the defense to collapse, Bassett then kicked to Ellis and Ellis knocked down the 3. That is how I envision the IU offense working -- break the D down by driving and then make the extra pass until the high percentage open shot is there. Interestingly, Sampson said in his postgame conference that Gordon has such a soft touch that he would rather EJ just loft it up on the rim rather than throw a 90 mph pass that goes whizzing past DJ's ear. I guess I would have to agree with that since Gordon threw DJ about 4 or 5 Brett Farve type passes right out of bounds. DJ then returned the favor late in the game by rifling one off of Gordon's leg out of bounds. Those two aren't quite on the same page just yet. Gordon was called for palming on his first two touches and then had several bad passes to total what the box score is calling 8 turnovers. And I think that is being generous. DJ added in 4 turnovers, which means our best 2 players combined for 12 turnovers. Not good. So, in this case, I guess I would have to agree with Sampson....if Gordon drives and a big-man steps over to help, still just try to get it up on the rim and a few good things can happen -- Gordon is really good so he might just make it, Gordon is also good at drawing the foul and hitting his FTs, or DJ is in good position for an offensive rebound if he misses. Anything would look better than Gordon whizzing it out of bounds and then DJ putting his hands up to try to catch it a few seconds later. Eric Gordon: C So, we already mentioned the turnovers. Not good. A couple things have happened in the last couple of games. First, after scoring around 30 points in each of his first 3 games, teams quickly realized that they cannot leave him, no matter what. In addition, he is going to draw the other teams best defender. The second thing that happened is that the competition greatly increased. Xavier and Georgia Tech were able to throw defenders at him that could match (or nearly match) his size, strength, speed, and quickness. So, EJ has definitely struggled and been frustrated the last two games, but I can already see him starting to adjust. It seemed that he made an adjustment in the second half tonight. Rather than going full-speed all the way to the basket (which was leading to turnovers in the 1st half), it looked like he was starting to use his first step to get by the defender, but then he was slowing down and using his strength to finish the play. I think he will continue to adjust to the tougher competition and he'll be just fine. For those of you seeing him for the first time tonight, I think you still were able to see some glimpses of what makes him so special. Hell, he still managed 29 points even though he played like shit. But you still got to see the drive to the basket and the (what's quickly becoming his patented) tomahawk jam. And then finally late in the game, you got to see him dribbling at the top of the key and then just drain the 24-footer right in that guy's face. Also, you repeatedly got to see him find a way to get to the basket and either finish or get to the line. The thing that was missing tonight was his passing. In some of the past games, he has also gotten into the lane and made some brilliant passes for easy baskets, but tonight it was turnover city. I think I could go on about Eric Gordon forever, but I'll try to keep it to just two more points. The first is that I thought he was horrible in the 2-3 zone. He was completely flat-footed and all they had to do was throw it to the wing on his side and they had an open 3-pt attempt. I think Sampson needs to ride EJ and challenge him in every facet of the game. He seems to be the type of kid that can handle it and will respond. On offense, they don't seem to run any plays for him. He just comes down and stands outside of the 3-pt line. Eventually, they give it to him and he makes something happen on this own. With a talent like that, shouldn't they be running him off screens and being more creative in the way they get him the ball? And with the way teams are face-guarding him anywhere within 30 feet of the basket, shouldn't the back-door be open? They mentioned tonight that he has 0 offensive rebounds on the year, which doesn't surprise me because the only time he is inside the arc is when he is driving with the ball. D.J. White: B 18 points and 14 rebounds is a monster line and exactly the type of line we would like to see out of DJ. However, I would swear that he left 25 points and 20 rebounds out there on the floor. It just seemed like there were several more rebounds that he should have come down with and his FT shooting was awful tonight. He didn't quite get the 10 FG attempts that I was hoping for, but he did go 6-9 from the floor, so I still think that should be a focal point of many of their half-court trips. 18 & 14 is very nice though. I'm thinking about adding "+" to that B by his name. Nope, not gonna do it. Armon Bassett: B No scoring tonight, but his 6 assists were big. I can think of at least 4 of them that led to 3-point baskets. Did a nice job of driving and kicking. Especially when Ratliff comes back, it will be important for Armon to continue to drive and kick. Armon's defense = it stunk very much bad. Jamarcus Ellis: A Yes sir, he does it all. In the second half, IU got off to another bad start and then things were pretty dicey there for most of the half. At some point, Jamarcus decided he was going to take over and do some scoring and he went on a roll. Unfortunately, he then committed his 4th foul and had to sit out a bit. But I really liked his determination and his fight in the second half. This is the type of guy you could have on your team at the HPER and never lose a game in 30 years. 15 points and 7 rebounds tonight. Amazingly, the 7 rebs will lower his average. Lance Stemler: B+ I'm telling you, if Stemler can hit those open 3s like he did tonight, this team is dangerous. He was 3-6 from the arc tonight and all 3 of them were big -- the first was to blow open IU's biggest lead of the first half, the second was to take back the lead after being down 2 in the second half, and the third was fairly late in what was still a tight game. Unfortunately, Lance was outmatched sometimes on the defensive end, but if that gets to be too big of a problem, that's when you bring in Mike White or Big Dre. I just think that Stemler does enough of the small things (take charges, dive after loose balls, play good help defense) to make a big difference for this team if he can knock down the open looks. His 15 points were big tonight with Crawford suspended and Bassett not scoring much. Mike White: A Sure, a little frustrating that layups are so difficult for a D-1 player, but I have to give Mike White a world of credit. He's been told that he is going to redshirt his senior year. I don't care how much of a "team" guy you are and I respect that you say the right things and act with integrity in the public eye, but this still has to eat at a guy privately. Nobody wants to redshirt, much less their senior year. Then, he is suddenly called on to come in and play his first game of the season in a Big Ten/ACC matchup. And he came in and did his thing. See ball, get ball. I loved it. He was like a human bowling ball in there. He went after rebounds and he went after them aggressively. But I thought the biggest thing was his defense. I know we all love Big Dre, but I thought Mike White was a big upgrade defensively. I think it is a great move to activate good ole "40 Cent". It now gives Sampson a lot more flexibility with how he uses the #4 position. If he wants a low-post offensive threat, it's Big Dre. If he wants a hustler and hopefully someone who will hit the 3, it's Stemler. If he wants toughness and rebounding, it's Mike White. I like it, I like it a lot. Once Crawford and Ratliff's dumb asses come back, then suddenly Sampson will have a deep team to work with. Of course, 3 new additions over the next month or so probably won't help the team cohesiveness that this team is already lacking, but it definitely will be for the good of the team in the long run. My hope is that this team is playing their best basketball in March and I think that is a very real possibility. DeAndre Thomas: Incomplete Only 2 minutes. I think Sampson saw this as a game where they needed Mike White's toughness and I would agree. Big Dre will have his moments, but tonight wasn't his style of ball. Kelvin Sampson: A Although I am not exactly happy where this team is in their development, there were 3 things that I liked out of Sampson: (1) Activated Mike White (2) Suspend Jordan Crawford -- don't know what he did, but it sends a no-nonsense message to the team. (3) Kicked the whole team out of practice on Sunday and made them practice twice on Monday. Sampson wasn't happy with the defensive effort in practice on Sunday, so he kicked them all out of practice. It would appear that Sampson is trying to send his message, I just hope the team responds. Damn, this is way too long. Thank you to all those that read all of this and I will really try to be more brief in the future. Go Hoosiers!