A Look Back at Northwestern State, A Look Ahead to Maryland, A Look Back to the Last Time We Played Maryland, A Look Way Ahead to a 2010 Hoosier Christmas in Las Vegas, and Not Necessarily in that Order

Christmas in Vegas with the Hoosiers (2010):
There is no "teasing" on the IU Hoops blog, so let's good right to the good stuff.  If you haven't heard already, the Hoosiers will be playing in Vegas next year right before Christmas.  It sounds like a tournament where they will play 2 home games and then head to Sin City for 2 more games.  Crean didn't have the dates when he was doing his radio show, but I thought I read elsewhere that it would be December 20-22.

My family just finalized plans for Xmas 2010 to take place at my parents house in Florida, but what could be a better Christmas present than Vegas and live IU basketball.  On second thought, I don't think I could handle it.  That would just be too much for me.  But it does sound a lot like my Christmas wish list -- a trip to Vegas and anything related to IU Basketball (especially tix in Vegas).

I also heard the Hoosiers might be headed back to Hawaii sooner than later, like maybe even within the next 2-3 years.  Just a rumor at this point, but I have promised myself that I will be going to Hawaii the next time IU plays there.  I did hear that the tournament may move to Honolulu in the future, rather than it's current venue in Maui.

A Look Back at the NW St Game: 

• Sloppy and ugly -- Neither team could get a handle on the damn ball, guys were running into each other, falling over each other, throwing balls off heads (Capo off a NW St head), throwing balls out of bounds (Jobe), and fouling the shit out of each other.
  

• Speaking of fouls, the good news was that the Hoosiers went to the line 44 times and made 34 of them.

• All in all, the Hoosiers got the job done against a lesser opponent.  The game was never in doubt, but IU didn't exactly run them out of the gym.  The game was in single-digits briefly with 12 minutes to go in the game, so definitely not a blow-out right from the opening tip.  Eventually, IU made a run to put the game away and the BTN cut away from the game with 6 minutes to go because all the fouls were making the game run extremely long.  Still not sure why we had to get to the opening tip of Ohio St versus Podunk U.

• Christian Watford had a pretty good all-around game with 17 points on 5-7 FGs and 7-8 FTs.  He added 5 rebs, 2 assts, 2 stls, and 1 blk.  Watford has certainly been effective against the cupcakes, but has struggled against the better opponents.  It would be great to see him play well during the upcoming 3-game stretch against Maryland, Pitt, and the Inbreds.

• Tom Pritchard showed some very brief signs of life, but was in foul trouble the entire game.  They were cheap fouls, but he has to stop putting himself in that position.

•  Maurice Creek had another hot start with 13 early points and then cooled off a bit to finish with 17 points.  Although he has been a little inconsistent within games (hot starts and cool finishes), he has had amazing consistency with his production in the first 6 games of his career.  He has made at least 2 three-pointers in each of those 6 games and finished with point totals of 17, 14, 18, 17, 15, 17.  That's pretty damn good.

• Jeremiah Rivers led the team in both assists and rebounding with 10 assists and 7 rebounds (all defensive).  Those 10 dimes are really good to see.  He certainly wasn't without mistakes as he did have 5 turnovers, but he played 36 minutes and that's still a 2:1 assist-to-turnover ratio.

• Not a great game for Verdell.  I thought he made some really poor decisions with the basketball in the first half, but then played a little better in the second half.  He finished with 8 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists, and 4 turnovers in 21 minutes.

• Here's a not-so-great stat from your back-up centers -- Jobe, Capobianco, and Muniru combined for exactly 0 rebounds in 25 minutes of action.

•  Jordan Hulls didn't exactly help the case I was making that he should be playing in front of Moore.....Hulls did next to nothing in 7 minutes while Moore was a scoring machine with 6 points in 6 minutes plus a steal.

• Derek Elston played really well with 12 points on 5-7 FG shooting, including 1-2 from the arc.  He also added 6 rebounds and 4 steals in just 18 minutes.

• It was good to see Dumes find his scoring again with 11 points.  At the very least, IU needs its returning players playing at the level they were last year, most notably Dumes and Pritchard.

• And then you have big Tijan Jobe.  I love the big fella, but I'm not yet sold on him seeing serious minutes.  Gavin sent me the following email:

I was listening to the Tom Crean show tonight and he gave some interesting 
insight into Tijan's playing time.  He mentioned the he is trying to get more 
minute with Elston and Watford on the floor at the same time.  This would 
require getting some minutes filled at the 5 spot.  Thus Tijan has gotten some 
time time and he has observed that our opponents have the lowest shooting 
percentage when Tijan is in the line up.  
 
He said that Tijan is our most relentless defender and that he is earning his 
minutes.

I'm not sure that Elston and Watford on the floor at the same time requires minutes filled at the 5 spot.  If the other team does not have a dominant big man and IU really wants to force the up-tempo game, why not go with Rivers, Creek, Jones, Watford, and Elston for a stretch?  I'm not saying you would use that line-up all the time, but why not give it a try and really try to run and play up-tempo.  This might be a better option when Pritchard gets in foul trouble.

I'm also surprised at the stat that opponents have the lowest shooting percentage when Tijan is in the line up.  He is an intimidating specimen just to look at and it does hurt if you bounce off him (just ask his teammates), but he just doesn't play like a 7-footer on the defensive end.

Tijan did have 2 nifty moves under the bucket for 2-2 FG shooting, but he also dropped a good pass that could have been another easy basket and he lost the handle on another one that went flying out of bounds.  So, he really had an opportunity to easily be 4-4 from the field and I am pretty damn sure that would have been a career high. 

He also had 2 blocked shots and one of them was a swat, but we need even more.  And if he's going to commit 4 fouls in 12 minutes, then I want him thinking the opponents head is the ball and taking someone's head off.  You can tell he has been learning from Pritchard on the "excuse me" fouls.

And the 0 rebounds in 12 minutes, I just can't live with that.

All in all, like everyone else, he has to make sure the good outweighs the bad.  If he can keep making strides, he is an imposing figure to have out there.

A Look Ahead to Maryland: 

• Tuesday at 7:30pm ET (6:30pm CT)
• TV:  ESPN2 (sweet, no Laskowski)
  
• "White Out" at Assembly Hall
  

Maryland struggled a little bit in Maui after heading in there as a ranked team.  They were able to beat Chaminade, but lost to Wiscy and Cincy.  Hell, IU was able to do that last year.  But, as usual, Wisconsin already looks better than everyone expected and I think Cincinnati has a pretty good team this year (now ranked and only loss this year has been to Gonzaga in OT).  So, even though Maryland dropped out of the polls today, they are still clearly the better team in this match-up.

Prediction:  IU 64  Maryland 72


Do you remember the last time IU met Maryland in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge?  Of course you do, but you can re-live it with the following links:

• Recap 
• Box Score 
• Big Ten Chronicle:  Where Are They Now? Tom Coverdale (2007)
  
• Dickie V:  Coverdale wills Indiana to classic win over Terps
  

Tom Crean talks Maryland courtesy of the IU Athletics channel on youtube: