Catching Up

Happy New Year, Hoosier fans!  I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays.

It's been a while since I posted and there's a few reasons for that:

1. That Loyola game disgusted me to the core.
2. I was driving all over the country for a week-and-a-half over the holidays.
3. I thought a little break after I said it was my last post ever would add to the drama.  Not really, but I said I had a few reasons and I think that means three.

It has been a roller coaster ride for the Hoosiers the last couple of weeks.

First, following the horrible loss to Loyola, IU responds and takes care of business against one of the worst teams in the country in Bryant.  But they beat them like you are supposed to beat a team like that -- they beat them by 50.

But the win over Bryant and any good play by individual players was completely overshadowed by one single play.  That play was obviously the freak play that resulted in a fractured knee for Maurice Creek -- IU's leading scorer, best player, and one of the leading freshmen scorers in the country.

I was devastated by the news of Mo's injury.  The loss to Loyola followed by the Creek injury really made it feel like a dark cloud continues to hang over this program.  I hate Kelvin Sampson.

It's painful for any team to lose their leading scorer.  But it's devastating to a team that is completely rebuilding their program.  The Creek injury is going to hurt this team big-time.  Ignore for a moment that they beat Michigan.  The Michigan win certainly helped ease the pain, but don't let it fool you into thinking we're going to be all right.  It was going to be tough in the Big Ten with Maurice and there is no doubt that is going to be exponentially more difficult without him.

The Creek injury even makes the Roth injury more painful.  Now your two best 3-point shooters are out.  Not good considering what a major factor the 3-point shot is in college basketball.

But let's move on to when the roller coaster ride started going back up.  That win over Michigan in the Big Ten opener was fantastic.  And it was exactly what this team, the fans, Tom Crean, and the program needed.  The first place Hoosiers.....I like it.

It took just one game for IU to equal their conference win total from last year.  Now, the question is how many more games will they win?  See the poll question to make your prediction on how many conference games they will win.  According to Ken Pomeroy's statistical analysis, the Hoosiers will win only one more conference game and that will be at home against Iowa.  There are a couple interesting notes about Pomeroy's statistical predictions.  One is that I wouldn't think the Creek injury would be factored into the statistics in any way, so that's a bit scary.  The other is that Pomeroy also provides a prediction of overall conference record where the Hoosiers come away with 5 wins.  I don't know all the details of the statistical analysis, but it would appear that the Hoosiers don't look very good on paper in individual matchups (outside of a home game against Iowa), but the cumulative statistical analysis would suggest the Hoosiers will find a way to win 5 games.

Even with the Creek injury, I think IU will definitely lean more toward the 5 wins, if not more.  I think this team has shown consistent improvement with the Loyola game being the outlier.  The win over Pitt looks even more impressive after they beat a Top 10 Syracuse team and also just knocked off Cincy.  Michigan has been struggling, but it was still an impressive win for a Hoosier team that had to still be in shock from Mo's season-ending injury.

More thoughts on the big win over Michigan:

• Great stat line by Verdell Jones -- 20 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 steals
• Jeremiah Rivers played the type of defense on Manny Harris that we have been reading about for the last year-and-a-half.  He did an outstanding job shutting down one of the best players in the conference.  Admittedly, Harris had a bit of an off game and appeared frustrated by foul trouble, but Jeremiah made everything extremely difficult for him.
• Devan Dumes came up big.  He hit 3 big treys in the first half and played tremendous defense.
• I like Watford's mid-range game and his upside is huge.  19 points for the freshman.
• I am still excited about the way that Jordan Hulls stepped up and hit all 6 of those free throws in the final 28 seconds.  I continue to envision Hulls at the free throw line and sealing more and more wins in the future.
• After Rivers missed two more important free throws with about 3 minutes to go, it was good to see him come through with that acrobatic 3-point play with 1:12 to go in the game.  It was a big-time play at a clutch moment and he hit the free throw.
• I think it is really cool when Doc Rivers is in the crowd (and I ain't just talkin' a big head).
• Tom Pritchard had a great blocked shot where he came flying out of nowhere to reject a Michigan fast break.  This happened in the middle of IU's 15-0 run and the crowd was going wild.

I'm sure there will be times where Creek's absence will be glaring.  But if Hulls and Dumes can play as well as they did against Michigan, this team will be able to compete and pull out a few more wins this conference season.

Tomorrow night, they head out on the road to Ohio State and that will probably be a completely different story.  With or without Evan Turner, I just don't see the Hoosiers having success in Columbus, but I am anxious to see how they respond to the road environment.

Go Hoosiers!