December 5, 2025 • 32 mins
On this episode, Alex Bozich is joined by Ryan Corazza of Inside the Hall to discuss what went wrong in IU's loss at Minnesota on Wednesday and to assess the 7-1 start to the 2025-26 season.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Welcome back to a new episode of Podcasts on the Brink, Friday,
December fifth. Indiana basketball coming off. I think what would
most say is a disappointing seventy three sixty four lost
in Minnesota on Wednesday night. Bosiers will be back in
action tomorrow afternoon in Indianapolis two fifteen tip on CBS
(00:40):
against Louisville and what will be an eventful day for
Indiana fans in the Indianapolis area. They also got the
Big Ten Championship just over at at Lucas Oil Stadium
tomorrow night at eight o'clock. So busy day in Indianapolis
for sports and in particular for IU fans. So looking
forward to I'm actually going up to the basketball game.
Josh Po's will be the football game. Jamie Owens our
(01:01):
photographer doing the double dips, so going to be an
eventful day for him. Ryan Krozov inside the Hall, back
on the show before we get to Ryan. If we
enjoy the show, please leave us a rating and review
over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Like the video on
YouTube if you're watching there, subscribe to the channel As
we continue our march towards ten thousand subscribers. And Ryan,
(01:22):
your film session pieces are helping us get there. They've
been well received this year. Continue the great work on that. Ryan.
Just before we get into some IU basketball talk, you
went to IU, you wrote for the Indiana Daily Student.
We're around the sports programs there. Did you ever think
that IU football would be on this stage? Because this
(01:45):
to me, you know, I've said this to a couple
of people. I've tried to think of a more improbable
turnaround story in college sports, and I can't really think
of one better than what Kurt Signette has done in
Bloomington the last two seasons.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
No, never thought this, not in the slightest. It's it's
really pretty remarkable. And you know, going into this season,
I kind of looked at it like, well, you know,
last year obviously was great, and you know, Sicknetty, he's.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Really only got to win maybe eight nine games a.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Year, right to still look better than most, you know,
pretty much any coach that's ever coached at Indiana, and
he can still do great. And I think people will
still be happy that Indiana is maybe in the mix
for the playoff here and there, maybe getting in and
short of that, still having a pretty good season. But
(02:40):
to go out to Oregon and get that win. I mean,
to go into Penn State. Obviously they're a little bit
more down this year, but to come back and win
that game and to finish the season undefeated. And now, really,
if you look at all the analytics, it's like, you know,
Ohio State's favored in this game. I think I saw
a line was starting around six or so. I think
it's come down to maybe three or four, four or
(03:02):
five maybe last I saw a day or two ago.
But these two are statistically the best teams in the country.
And I know Ohio State has obviously has the brand,
the cachet, and they won the national title last year.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
But Indiana.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
If there's any team that's gonna stack up with them
almost it is Indiana, which is pretty crazy. So this
I think people really do, truly think that these are
the best two teams in the country.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
And we'll see what happens on Saturday.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yeah, I saw yesterday the get in price last year
for the Big Ten Championship game in Indianapolis was twenty
four bucks. I saw this year like five seventy five,
five eighty just to get I thought.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
I saw like over eight hundred recently, maybe you know
the dynamic ay dynamic pricing these days on the second day,
I mean, you know these things function, fuck it by
the hour. But yeah, it's it's pretty nuts how much
it costs to get into this game.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Yeah, and I know there's quite a few IU fans
are probably gonna do the double dip as well do
the basketball game in the football game. So it'll be
a fun day tomorrow, Indianapolis. Looking forward to it. So
I wanted to have you on this morning. Thought about
doing just a general preview of the Legal game, but
I thought it would be more maybe interesting for the
(04:15):
listeners to get some thoughts on the Minnesota game and
kind of what went wrong. I know you did a
film session. I watched that this morning and published it,
edited it, and interesting to me that Nico medved kind
of the style that he plays is somewhat similar to
Darren DeVries in terms of at least the offense and
(04:35):
some of the things that they try to do going
into the game. Now, I'd mentioned to you kind of
offline that I was a little bit concerned about this game,
first Big ten road game. I don't know if it's
just the last how many years we've been doing this
of covering IU basketball, that kind of just default to
the idea that any Big ten road game could be
(04:57):
a loss, because that's kind of how it's felt for
such a long time, and the more I thought about it, really,
in this league, unless you're an elite team with superior
talent or just one or two players that can take
over a game at any moment, you're capable of getting
(05:17):
picked off in this league. That's just kind of what
we see in these venues. Minnesota in particular, I've always
kind of felt like the rims there are weird for
whatever reason. I don't know what it is, but you know,
Indiana is a really good free throw shooting team. They
go in the other night, they shoot twelve to twenty
from the line. You got the raised floor, you've got
an environment that wasn't necessarily juiced up, and I don't
(05:40):
know how that affects a road team. So not making
excuses for the performance, but it was kind of one
of those games that I saw coming. But I'm curious
just if this performance in any way changes your perception
of what you've seen of Indiana through the first eight games,
because we saw them get this ranking, which is twenty
(06:00):
second but a lot of that is because they're Indiana
the brand, and they had some really impressive wins obviously
Marquet and Kansas State, but haven't beaten it ncuaa tournament
team at this point. But I think they've done everything
to kind of justify moving themselves up in the analytics
by how they've taken care of games and how they've
beaten opponents. But yeah, big picture, does this change anything
(06:21):
about how you thinking about this team moving forward? Obviously
it makes things more difficult in terms of having a
good record in the Big Ten if you can't beat
one of your more winnable games on the road. But
I'm curious just kind of how you come out of
this game thinking about how you.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Well, I think it's a type of game that shows
how to beat Indiana and it I think, as you
pointed to all those reasons, Big ten row game, and
so I don't know if it's tough.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
You know, there's kind of this prisoner of the moment thing.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
I think if you were to tell observers or fans
that Indiana was going to be one and twenty six
on Ken Palm with a top twenty defense, a top
fifty offense before the season, I think most people would
take that, you know, right, So I don't think that
it's kind of a sky is falling moment. And really
(07:15):
it's so early in this tenure and with this team
that it's kind of hard to know for sure how
things are going to shake out from here. But in
terms of this game specifically, I do think that it
was a game that again showed how you can beat Indiana.
I think if you get physical and you can take
away derees in Wilkerson from kind of dominating a game,
kind of commanding a game, kind of getting comfortable, and
(07:38):
you got to make everybody else on the team beat you,
I think that can be problematic for Indiana, which we
saw because I mean, uh, we've seen other guys like
as Sisily has has helped off the bench. Well, he's
a freshman in his first true road game, picked up
some quick files in the first half, never really got
into it. I think we're continuing to see what it
(08:02):
seemed like Indiana needs for Reed Bailey is to score
through physicality a little bit better, maybe do a little
bit more of the dirty work. And I think he's
he struggled to do that, and so you kind of
see that gap as well, and is this a team
that can go get its own bucket. I think Connorway
can do that, but especially against better competition, I think
(08:22):
it's going to be even harder for some of these
guys to get to the rim. So I think Minnesota
had a really good blueprint for how to beat Indiana.
And this is not going to be the first Big
Ten team, be it road or home, that really get
after Devirees and Wilkerson and can live with other guys
(08:44):
trying to beat them.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
So we saw a little bit of Indiana trying to
counter maybe the defensive game plan of overplaying those guys
in the perimeter with some of the back cutting. But
as you kind of looked back, as you looked back
at the game and kind of thought of it more,
is there anything moving forward that you think when Indiana
watches the film of this game or comes out of
(09:07):
this game and says, this is kind of what we
failed to do. Obviously, I mean missing eight free throws
didn't help, because you know, you make three or four
of those in the game, pressure feels totally different. You know,
maybe things change a little bit. The defensive rebounding obviously
wasn't ideal giving up fourteen second chance points, although I
know they only gave up ten offensive rebounds. Every second
chance point you give up is can in a close
(09:30):
game can be detrimental to your chances of winning. But
I'm curious if there's anything that moving forward that you
think we could see differently in terms of trying to
counter some of these attempts to just take those two
guys out of the game, because we know that that's
not going to stop, and it's going to happen again
tomorrow Saturday against Louisville, and teams moving forward are going
(09:52):
to know, Hey, what's let's let Tayton Connorway shoot threes.
Let's you know, let's read Bailey try to finish against content.
But what's not let Lamar Wilkerson and Tucker de Breese
get going for the perimeter, which Marquette did the first
game that we saw and they got blown off the court.
So now that this blueprint is kind of established, what
(10:14):
can be maybe the counter for Indiana moving forward. Maybe
this isn't a question that you can answer many this
is a question for Darren Debrees to answer, But I'm curious,
just you know, you studied the film, watch these games
as close as anyone, So I'm curious for your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Well, right, the overplaying on the three pointers, it's the
back cutting, but I think Minnesota also was good at
going with them on that and not getting baited too hard.
And it's funny seeing what the stuff that they run,
they do similar actions, so it's like, are they kind
of used to guarding this, right ibiot in practice or whatever.
(10:47):
But I think it was that coupled with God to remember,
I know there's a lot of veterans on this team.
There ain't anybody in that lineup that has ever played
a big ten road game, right, And so I think
even though it was a sparse crowd at the Barn,
even though but it is a weird place to play,
and I think that also factored into it because there
(11:10):
were and one of the plays I broke down for
film session today where the way they were like hot
potato in the ball around weirdly and led to a turnover.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
There was more.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
I don't you know, maybe this team has hit some
ruts maybe in some of these games against the lesser opponents,
like they weren't really moving the ball as well as
they had and maybe the energy wasn't up, but I
don't I have not seen this team look kind of
as flustered as they looked, and and just kind of
(11:41):
being in a road environment and being, yeah, a little
shook by it, And so I think that also played
a pretty big factor in this game. And to your
point as well, I think at halftime they realized, all right,
this is a physical game. They're not really letting us
do much for the perimeter. Let's get go the basket
and get followed. And they had ten free throws in
(12:02):
the first seven and a half minutes of that game,
and they went three to ten or the second half
rather than they went three to ten and then the
last whatever, they only had I think four to three
free throws the rest of that game, right, So they
did again have a counter, and I think it was
a good plan, but they kind of went away from
it as the second half war long.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
So yeah, it's a little tough to balance.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
How where the sort of percentages in terms of this
was just because Minnesota guarded this way and this pretends
bad things to come for Indiana. But I think on
top of that, the other thing in the stew here
is just that they did not handle the road environment.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Well, so that's something, you know, I don't know how
quickly you learn that.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I know, Devrez after the game basically made a comment,
you know, to that effect that they've they've got a
lot of veterans on this team.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
I think that can definitely help, but not in this league.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
And you know, this is part of the balance of
the transfer reporter era. I think it was good that
he identified a lot of older players, but at the
end of the day, this is still kind of like
your mid major all star is playing in the Big
Ten for the first time, and there's while they have
a basketball experience more so than if he just had
(13:17):
a bunch of freshmen that came into this season, especially
at the college level and playing a lot of games.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
There is not Big Ten experience. And it sounds a
little cliche, but I mean it's true. You know.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Yeah, the other thing, and you made a point of
this in film session that I think kind of disrupted
the flow of the game or kind of what Indiana
likes to do in terms of its substitution patterns. They
brought Trent Sislely in the game, who has kind of
given them a spark at times in different games and
has been that positive force off the bench. He comes
(13:52):
in and it was kind of a welcome to the
Big ten type of moment that you see sometimes freshmen
go throughly picks up a couple of fouls, you know,
you're expecting him to play, you know, decent minutes in
most games moving forward, He's proven himself to be a
contributor and a guy that they can rely on. And
(14:13):
he struggled obviously in this game. I think he made
one three pointer in the second half, but that was
really it in terms of what he was able to
bring offensively, and I think that kind of disrupted what
Indiana wanted to do in terms of just its rotations
and lineups. And then obviously they brought in research for
the first time and Nick Dorn, but neither of those
(14:35):
guys really looked up ready for the moment. I thought,
and again not nitpicking in terms of substitution patterns, but
I thought, for the first time this season, you know,
we used to always talk about so there were different
lineups that kind of looked weird at times with under
Mike Woodson, it was kind of a theme. I thought,
for the first time there was a lineup out there
at one point that they had Research and dorn In
(14:58):
i think in right out the other two or but
it was it was almost like, you're not scoring the
ball very well right now, where's the offense gonna come
with this group? And so that was the first time
I kind of looked at it and said, this isn't
the great greatest lineup to maybe be playing on the road.
So I'm just curious kind of your thoughts on maybe
how those fouls from Sisily impacted things and just the
overall rotation in the first half, and and how that
(15:22):
may be factored into two things. Maybe feeling off there
for a bit a minute.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
That's exactly what I thought as well.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
That and it was right around that twelve minute time
out in the first half where Woodson love to kind
of bring his bench lineup in and you're like, who's
gonna score in this lineup?
Speaker 3 (15:37):
And yes, I totally agree that.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
It was kind of this lineup where you're like, all right,
things are starting to unravel a little bit here. And
again you have you not only have a freshman in
research on the on the court, you're a guy that
hasn't played one minute in a regular season at all,
and he's he's asked to come in in this road
environment as well, and he's on the court with Dorn,
and yeah, it was it was a little bit of
(15:59):
a weird lineup, but I think defensively they attacked research
a bit, and then on offense, as things started to
tighten up, you had I think Dorn, who's been a
pretty you know at times, has been a decent, pretty
good spot up shooter for Indiana from from the three
point range, but because they couldn't quite get anything going,
all of a sudden, he's starting to like drive off
(16:20):
the perimeter, which I don't quite think is his game.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
And so, yeah, it did get a little hairy there.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
And I agree that it was kind of one of
these lines where it's like we that combot, that five
has not played together all season, and all of a sudden,
you're on the road in the Big ten. And you know,
it wasn't like they he played for ten minutes. It
wasn't like a super long stretch. But as things kind
of started settling in this game and Minnesota started to
pick it up a little bit more on defense, Uh,
(16:48):
it was kind of an odd combo. There's also that
like a.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
What do you call it?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
The uh when they challenged that out of that was
it out Indian or out that they lost, which I mean,
you know that's gonna happen, but that was kind of
an other kind of decision made there that that didn't
end up in their favor. But yeah, it was quite
an odd lineup. And but you know, at the other token,
it's like at some point they gotta you know, Cicily
(17:13):
has been good off the bench, but uh, they do.
It will be interesting to see if research can can
kind of get into the lineup, maybe be another playmaker.
I know, kind of what his his game is a bit.
I know when they had their their trip this summer
that he did pretty decent down there.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
So it's tough.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
That he had to get work done on the road
to start, and you hope it doesn't kind of bury
his confidence.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
But the reality is they got Lil Lo on Kentucky
coming up next.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
They got all big, They got a lot of big
ten games to go, and so at some point you
just kind of got to hold his feet to the
fire here if you want to try to work him in.
It's not like he only missed the first game or
two and he's able to come in against some of
these guaranteed game opponents. He's if he's gonna play, it's
it's gonna start to have to be against quality competition.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Yeah, I mean, I think the reason many ways is
kind of searching for what's going to be the remainder
of the rotation after Alexis and Sicily because you look
at Nick Dorn. He obviously played really good in the
previous game to this, but didn't give them much at Minnesota.
Josiah Miles. I mean, even going back to the Puerto
(18:22):
Rico trip, he didn't get a lot of time there
and didn't shoot the ball very well. And this season
has really not broken through in any meaningful way in
terms of getting time on the court, and you know,
it's getting to the point of the season where you wonder,
is he going to have a role on this team
in terms of rotation. Real Jason Drake, we've not seen yet.
(18:43):
He's think a guy that I think they're hopeful can
maybe give them something in the guard position. But he
played really well last year at Dreuxel but has not
been able to get healthy enough to get on the
court restitch as a freshman. Obviously, he's twenty years old,
a little bit older. Has a lot of international experience,
but as you mentioned, a little bit different coming into
your first game on the road in the Big Ten.
I don't care what the venue is, It's going to
(19:04):
be a tough challenge. So I think they need to
solidify beyond Alexis and Sicily like, who are the one
or two guys that we can go to consistently and
those are going to be your guys that you roll with.
And I think that's still pretty much up for debate.
The other thing I just wanted to get your thoughts
on mentioned it a little bit earlier. Reid Bailey played
(19:24):
really well in the Kansas State game, did a great
job getting to the foul line. That was the you know,
I was at that game. The most aggressive I've seen
him in an Indian uniform was didn't back down from
the physicality. He didn't back down when when Kansas State
tried to you know, body him up. Did a really
good job just trying to go to the rim and
(19:45):
finish plays or get fouled. To me against Minnesota kind
of reverted back to some of the things we saw
earlier in the season where he looked timid one for
five on twos which not a good number for a
guy who's six foot ten is primarily shooting around the basket.
But the thing that it's kind of set out to
me and I'm curious what you think of this and
(20:06):
if this is something that maybe that they're going to
change or try to do more often. I mean, it
was kind of pitched in the I don't want to
say he's pitch, but we kind of looked at him
as a guy that was maybe going to be capable
of stretching the floor a little bit. Seventeen to forty
one last year on threes at Davidson, not a terribly
high volume, but at least a little bit of a threat.
He's taken two to three pointers the whole season and
we're a quarter of the way through the season. Is
(20:28):
this something that you think can be effective that they
need to maybe look at going more to in terms
of getting him on the perimeter, taking some three pointers,
maybe helping space the floor, because it doesn't seem like
unless he's got unless he's on the move towards the
basket and has a little bit of space, he's not
(20:48):
been really effective offensively around the basket because he's just
not strong enough to finish over bigger opponents, and that's
only going to become a bigger challenge as the competition
level picks up. I mean, louisgo is gonna have guys
at the rim that are taller, longer, and more athletic,
and a lot of these Big ten teams, you know,
I've watched a couple of these games. I mean, they've
(21:09):
got three or four guys better taller than Reed Bailey,
that are stronger than Reed Bailey, that can jump higher
than him. So I'm just kind of curious what you
think in terms of how this shapes out the rest
of the year. Is there are other things that can
do with him or is this kind of gonna be
a limitation of this group the rest of the season.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Yeah, So I get why he is on this team,
and I think he fits the mold of what Daren
Devrieze was looking for in terms of highest this straight
right and kind of fitting in with this offense that
has a lot of guys that share the ball well.
But I think the problem that is really revealed itself
(21:52):
this season as what Indiana needs out of that five spot.
It's just not his game, right, And so I feel like, yeah,
the season wears on. It's like, oh yes, Like this
game was a perfect example. The only basket he made
was in the in those first six possessions of the
game for Indiana, Minnesota.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Had like two on the ball against Devrees.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
As you said, like he's good going to the ball,
He's going to the rim off of these kind of
short roles and there's nobody in front of him.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
That's what that was. He rold short.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Devis made the pass, he dunked at home, and other
than that, he didn't make a basketball game.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
So yeah, it's key. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
I feel like from observing this, he's kind of in
a tough spot where it's like what they need from
him is not his game.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
So I don't really know if that resolves itself.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
I'm sure there's gonna be a few games here, just
like a Kansas State where he does a little bit
of a better job with it. But I think on
the whole, it's just it's kind of a mismatch, And
I think you're right that as the competition rams up,
it's going to be even more exposed. Obviously Alexis can
bring a little bit more, uh in that regard, I
don't think he's he's the full solution and and really
(22:58):
they've really been split in their minutes. I think in
this game it was, you know, twenty they both played
about twenty minutes or twenty one to nineteen. So I
think Alexis can do a better job of scoring at
the rim. However, his game is a little bit more
one on one, which is okay. I think they they've
cleared out for him, and he's got a really high
percentage in the paint. But he's just kind of a
(23:21):
guy I don't think you can ride for, you know,
thirty plus minutes a night. I think just his style,
and he's kind of an off the bench kind of
more energy guy than I don't think they're going to
be churning to him and all of a sudden Bailey's
barely playing or he's just a backup for five or
ten minutes.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
I think this split is going to continue.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
And so it's ultimately what people were saying about this
team before the season in terms of rim protection, in
terms of.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
Playdown low is the reality.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
So they're going to have to have their strengths kind
of out muscle some of their weaknesses, and in some
games we've seen that right. I think Kansas State, when
they've defended really well and they've had Bailey, Bailey did
play well, but there are going to be nights like
this Minnesota game where his strengths don't really match up
with what is needed in the game, and Indiana might
(24:10):
have an off night otherwise, and you're going to see
some losses.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Yeah. I've had a people, a couple of people ask me, like,
why why is alexis not starting? You know, I think
there's obviously had some injury concerns last year. I don't
think he's a guy that you want to routinely play
thirty plus minutes a game and burn them out. I mean,
it's a long season. I think they're gonna have to
figure out how to get the best version of both
of those guys going on a consistent basis, because, let's
(24:37):
face it, this team's not gonna beat anybody if they're
primary focus is trying to score at the rim and
get these guys, you know, going in terms of post ups,
and this is not the basketball that we watched the
last four years. It's not going to be. They're gonna
have to obviously that they want to get touches at
the rim, but they want them to be clean. Looks
(24:58):
it's not going to be. You know. I think Alexis
is a guy that you live with going one on
one and he's shooting over seventy percent on twos. But
you look at Reid Bailey like he's in the mid
fifties on two point field goal percentage right now, but
look at the two previous years at Davidson, he was
under fifty percent and that's in the A ten. So
any any suggestion that he's going to be a guy
(25:20):
that you throw the ball down and let him go
to work, I don't think is right. So I think
they've done a I think they're doing the right thing,
just in terms of trying to I don't want to
say platoon these guys, but split their minutes as much
as possible, trying to get them going, try to unlock
the best version of both of them.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
The other thing, well, I'll like chry am in on this.
This is where I also think coaching comes into play, right,
And I got a new coach in here, and how
can he manage effectively manage what he has to make
this team still greater than the some of his parts.
To know that there are these weaknesses, and how can
(26:01):
he kind of coach around that, coach within that and
still get wins Because you know, if you look at
West Virginia last year, Tucker goes down pretty early in
the season and they were able to kind of still
figure it out, still be pretty a really good defensive team, right,
And this is sort of I think what there's been
a thirst er desire for out of the head coaching
(26:23):
spot in this program is yeah, Okay, there's some weaknesses here,
and yeah, we don't have top top level talent, we
don't have really kind of above the rim athleticism, we
don't have a lot of size.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
But what do we have?
Speaker 2 (26:37):
And how can I effectively coach and manage this team
in a way that elevates that that guts out these
wins that in close games?
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Right? This is part of the reason.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
One of the many stats and one of the reasons
he was hired was his record in close games.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Right. It's a pretty good record in that regard.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
And so this is kind of the test now, right,
I think there's been you know, whether this day and age,
whether you like it or not, it's kind of.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Like every game is what have you done for me lately?
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Right, we see people like freaking out over this game
online about that about the loss, and so it was
kind of the first time I think fans are like, oh,
what the kind of what the heck's going on here
with this team?
Speaker 3 (27:20):
And so how does he respond? How does he get
the team to respond?
Speaker 2 (27:24):
And that's really kind of this kind of got to
be the story of the season because I think the
weaknesses are there and I don't think they're going to
get magically figured out. I think it is what it is,
and how do you work around that and how do
you still get wins and make this team a tournament
team based on all this?
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Yeah, I mean I think big picture too. You kind
of just look at some of the numbers, and you know,
as much as we've talked about this offense and this
new style of play, to be seventeenth inst the defensive
efficiency through eight games, that's that's a solid number. I mean,
Indiana their two point field goal defense on the season
is fourth in the country. We've talked about the lack
(28:04):
of rem protection, lack of shot blocking. That's a good number.
And now I think that number is unlikely to hold
up to that level when the meat of the big
ten schedule arrives, and we saw a little bit the
other night some concerning things in terms of I think
Minnesota's guards Reynolds and Assum were ten of sixteen on
(28:27):
twos and most of those shots were at the rim.
So I think that was another thing that kind of
pops stood out in the game. Letting that those guards
get that deep into paint I think really hurt Indiana
in particularly Reynolds, but he's a guy that's aggressive and
likes to dry. But kind of going back to some
of the other numbers, I mean, the twelfth in the
country in terms of turnover percentage, this team takes care
(28:48):
of the ball. They don't. I mean they lost it
and they only turned the ball over six times. Imagine
if they were turning the ball over the other night
thirteen or fourteen times. How much different this game looks.
Three point shooting percentage in the top seventy in the country,
twos that are in the top thirty. Just a lot
of solid things in terms of the metrics, in terms
of the style play. Are you surprised, just defensively where
(29:11):
that number is right now? Again, I don't think it's
likely to end up seventeenth in the country after they
get through the meat a big ten play. But I've
you know, I've been, you know, I was. I came
into this season expecting Indiana is going to have to
just score ninety five a game to win, and they've
done that on some occasions, but to be to be
that stout defensively, it's been really impressive so far.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
I am surprised because I think so much of the
focus was on the offense, the style of play. There's
going to be more threes, it's going to be a
little bit more open, there's gonna be better ball movement
in spacing, more five hour concepts, and so there's so
much focus on that that it was a little bit
understated that last year at West Virginia they finished fifteenth
in adjusted defensive efficiency with that roster that he had,
(29:58):
And honestly, it's one of these things again with the
coaching and the foundation, where you know, I agree, they
might not keep around there if they're seventeenth now, but
even if that, it's like a top twenty five thirty
defense for his first season. Now, you could go back
and look at Mike Woodson had a pretty dang good
(30:18):
defense his first year as well, so you know these things,
these things, as more data arises, things can change, right,
But to have that foundation on defense I think is
really key for a team and a program because he
can rely on that, right and if he's able to
kind of no matter what personnel he has, still craft it.
And you know, it's pretty clear what the principles are here.
(30:42):
It's we don't want the opposing team to shoot threes.
We want to kind of run them off the line.
And and a lot of these teams now Minnesota not
as much, and we will again see how it goes
against better competition, but it's kind of funneling teams to
try to shoot mid range or longer twos, right, which
is going to make them less efficient. And there might
just be some teams that are like, well, we're not
(31:03):
going to take these and we'll keep working at or
we have a better counter to what Indiana is doing
in that regard.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
But I think like what.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
The fundamentals and what they're trying to get teams to
do on defense has led them to this number. And
that's just kind of what Debrees is trying to do
with his defense and the offense is what Now it's
a forty seventh on Kenpom. Yes, since forty seventh, so
I would have expected kind of the inverses, maybe a
seventeenth on offense and forty seventh on defense. So again,
(31:33):
we'll see as it goes. But yes, I am surprised
by it, but there.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Is some history.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
I mean, I know it's only kind of a one
year sample size last year that he can have a
top twenty defense without like a star Layton team.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Yeah, for sure. Well, Ryan, thanks for making the time
early on this Friday morning. Busy weekend ahead for I
USE Sports. Looking forward to to covering it all over
on the Hall. Thanks again everybody for listening to Podcasts
on the Break and we will be back soon with
another episode if you again. If you like the show,
(32:09):
please leave us a five star rating and review over
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soon with another episode of podcast on the Break.
Welcome back to a new episode of Podcasts on the Brink, Friday,
December fifth. Indiana basketball coming off. I think what would
most say is a disappointing seventy three sixty four lost
in Minnesota on Wednesday night. Bosiers will be back in
action tomorrow afternoon in Indianapolis two fifteen tip on CBS
(00:40):
against Louisville and what will be an eventful day for
Indiana fans in the Indianapolis area. They also got the
Big Ten Championship just over at at Lucas Oil Stadium
tomorrow night at eight o'clock. So busy day in Indianapolis
for sports and in particular for IU fans. So looking
forward to I'm actually going up to the basketball game.
Josh Po's will be the football game. Jamie Owens our
(01:01):
photographer doing the double dips, so going to be an
eventful day for him. Ryan Krozov inside the Hall, back
on the show before we get to Ryan. If we
enjoy the show, please leave us a rating and review
over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Like the video on
YouTube if you're watching there, subscribe to the channel As
we continue our march towards ten thousand subscribers. And Ryan,
(01:22):
your film session pieces are helping us get there. They've
been well received this year. Continue the great work on that. Ryan.
Just before we get into some IU basketball talk, you
went to IU, you wrote for the Indiana Daily Student.
We're around the sports programs there. Did you ever think
that IU football would be on this stage? Because this
(01:45):
to me, you know, I've said this to a couple
of people. I've tried to think of a more improbable
turnaround story in college sports, and I can't really think
of one better than what Kurt Signette has done in
Bloomington the last two seasons.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
No, never thought this, not in the slightest. It's it's
really pretty remarkable. And you know, going into this season,
I kind of looked at it like, well, you know,
last year obviously was great, and you know, Sicknetty, he's.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Really only got to win maybe eight nine games a.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Year, right to still look better than most, you know,
pretty much any coach that's ever coached at Indiana, and
he can still do great. And I think people will
still be happy that Indiana is maybe in the mix
for the playoff here and there, maybe getting in and
short of that, still having a pretty good season. But
(02:40):
to go out to Oregon and get that win. I mean,
to go into Penn State. Obviously they're a little bit
more down this year, but to come back and win
that game and to finish the season undefeated. And now, really,
if you look at all the analytics, it's like, you know,
Ohio State's favored in this game. I think I saw
a line was starting around six or so. I think
it's come down to maybe three or four, four or
(03:02):
five maybe last I saw a day or two ago.
But these two are statistically the best teams in the country.
And I know Ohio State has obviously has the brand,
the cachet, and they won the national title last year.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
But Indiana.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
If there's any team that's gonna stack up with them
almost it is Indiana, which is pretty crazy. So this
I think people really do, truly think that these are
the best two teams in the country.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
And we'll see what happens on Saturday.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yeah, I saw yesterday the get in price last year
for the Big Ten Championship game in Indianapolis was twenty
four bucks. I saw this year like five seventy five,
five eighty just to get I thought.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
I saw like over eight hundred recently, maybe you know
the dynamic ay dynamic pricing these days on the second day,
I mean, you know these things function, fuck it by
the hour. But yeah, it's it's pretty nuts how much
it costs to get into this game.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Yeah, and I know there's quite a few IU fans
are probably gonna do the double dip as well do
the basketball game in the football game. So it'll be
a fun day tomorrow, Indianapolis. Looking forward to it. So
I wanted to have you on this morning. Thought about
doing just a general preview of the Legal game, but
I thought it would be more maybe interesting for the
(04:15):
listeners to get some thoughts on the Minnesota game and
kind of what went wrong. I know you did a
film session. I watched that this morning and published it,
edited it, and interesting to me that Nico medved kind
of the style that he plays is somewhat similar to
Darren DeVries in terms of at least the offense and
(04:35):
some of the things that they try to do going
into the game. Now, I'd mentioned to you kind of
offline that I was a little bit concerned about this game,
first Big ten road game. I don't know if it's
just the last how many years we've been doing this
of covering IU basketball, that kind of just default to
the idea that any Big ten road game could be
(04:57):
a loss, because that's kind of how it's felt for
such a long time, and the more I thought about it, really,
in this league, unless you're an elite team with superior
talent or just one or two players that can take
over a game at any moment, you're capable of getting
(05:17):
picked off in this league. That's just kind of what
we see in these venues. Minnesota in particular, I've always
kind of felt like the rims there are weird for
whatever reason. I don't know what it is, but you know,
Indiana is a really good free throw shooting team. They
go in the other night, they shoot twelve to twenty
from the line. You got the raised floor, you've got
an environment that wasn't necessarily juiced up, and I don't
(05:40):
know how that affects a road team. So not making
excuses for the performance, but it was kind of one
of those games that I saw coming. But I'm curious
just if this performance in any way changes your perception
of what you've seen of Indiana through the first eight games,
because we saw them get this ranking, which is twenty
(06:00):
second but a lot of that is because they're Indiana
the brand, and they had some really impressive wins obviously
Marquet and Kansas State, but haven't beaten it ncuaa tournament
team at this point. But I think they've done everything
to kind of justify moving themselves up in the analytics
by how they've taken care of games and how they've
beaten opponents. But yeah, big picture, does this change anything
(06:21):
about how you thinking about this team moving forward? Obviously
it makes things more difficult in terms of having a
good record in the Big Ten if you can't beat
one of your more winnable games on the road. But
I'm curious just kind of how you come out of
this game thinking about how you.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Well, I think it's a type of game that shows
how to beat Indiana and it I think, as you
pointed to all those reasons, Big ten row game, and
so I don't know if it's tough.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
You know, there's kind of this prisoner of the moment thing.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
I think if you were to tell observers or fans
that Indiana was going to be one and twenty six
on Ken Palm with a top twenty defense, a top
fifty offense before the season, I think most people would
take that, you know, right, So I don't think that
it's kind of a sky is falling moment. And really
(07:15):
it's so early in this tenure and with this team
that it's kind of hard to know for sure how
things are going to shake out from here. But in
terms of this game specifically, I do think that it
was a game that again showed how you can beat Indiana.
I think if you get physical and you can take
away derees in Wilkerson from kind of dominating a game,
kind of commanding a game, kind of getting comfortable, and
(07:38):
you got to make everybody else on the team beat you,
I think that can be problematic for Indiana, which we
saw because I mean, uh, we've seen other guys like
as Sisily has has helped off the bench. Well, he's
a freshman in his first true road game, picked up
some quick files in the first half, never really got
into it. I think we're continuing to see what it
(08:02):
seemed like Indiana needs for Reed Bailey is to score
through physicality a little bit better, maybe do a little
bit more of the dirty work. And I think he's
he struggled to do that, and so you kind of
see that gap as well, and is this a team
that can go get its own bucket. I think Connorway
can do that, but especially against better competition, I think
(08:22):
it's going to be even harder for some of these
guys to get to the rim. So I think Minnesota
had a really good blueprint for how to beat Indiana.
And this is not going to be the first Big
Ten team, be it road or home, that really get
after Devirees and Wilkerson and can live with other guys
(08:44):
trying to beat them.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
So we saw a little bit of Indiana trying to
counter maybe the defensive game plan of overplaying those guys
in the perimeter with some of the back cutting. But
as you kind of looked back, as you looked back
at the game and kind of thought of it more,
is there anything moving forward that you think when Indiana
watches the film of this game or comes out of
(09:07):
this game and says, this is kind of what we
failed to do. Obviously, I mean missing eight free throws
didn't help, because you know, you make three or four
of those in the game, pressure feels totally different. You know,
maybe things change a little bit. The defensive rebounding obviously
wasn't ideal giving up fourteen second chance points, although I
know they only gave up ten offensive rebounds. Every second
chance point you give up is can in a close
(09:30):
game can be detrimental to your chances of winning. But
I'm curious if there's anything that moving forward that you
think we could see differently in terms of trying to
counter some of these attempts to just take those two
guys out of the game, because we know that that's
not going to stop, and it's going to happen again
tomorrow Saturday against Louisville, and teams moving forward are going
(09:52):
to know, Hey, what's let's let Tayton Connorway shoot threes.
Let's you know, let's read Bailey try to finish against content.
But what's not let Lamar Wilkerson and Tucker de Breese
get going for the perimeter, which Marquette did the first
game that we saw and they got blown off the court.
So now that this blueprint is kind of established, what
(10:14):
can be maybe the counter for Indiana moving forward. Maybe
this isn't a question that you can answer many this
is a question for Darren Debrees to answer, But I'm curious,
just you know, you studied the film, watch these games
as close as anyone, So I'm curious for your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Well, right, the overplaying on the three pointers, it's the
back cutting, but I think Minnesota also was good at
going with them on that and not getting baited too hard.
And it's funny seeing what the stuff that they run,
they do similar actions, so it's like, are they kind
of used to guarding this, right ibiot in practice or whatever.
(10:47):
But I think it was that coupled with God to remember,
I know there's a lot of veterans on this team.
There ain't anybody in that lineup that has ever played
a big ten road game, right, And so I think
even though it was a sparse crowd at the Barn,
even though but it is a weird place to play,
and I think that also factored into it because there
(11:10):
were and one of the plays I broke down for
film session today where the way they were like hot
potato in the ball around weirdly and led to a turnover.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
There was more.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
I don't you know, maybe this team has hit some
ruts maybe in some of these games against the lesser opponents,
like they weren't really moving the ball as well as
they had and maybe the energy wasn't up, but I
don't I have not seen this team look kind of
as flustered as they looked, and and just kind of
(11:41):
being in a road environment and being, yeah, a little
shook by it, And so I think that also played
a pretty big factor in this game. And to your
point as well, I think at halftime they realized, all right,
this is a physical game. They're not really letting us
do much for the perimeter. Let's get go the basket
and get followed. And they had ten free throws in
(12:02):
the first seven and a half minutes of that game,
and they went three to ten or the second half
rather than they went three to ten and then the
last whatever, they only had I think four to three
free throws the rest of that game, right, So they
did again have a counter, and I think it was
a good plan, but they kind of went away from
it as the second half war long.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
So yeah, it's a little tough to balance.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
How where the sort of percentages in terms of this
was just because Minnesota guarded this way and this pretends
bad things to come for Indiana. But I think on
top of that, the other thing in the stew here
is just that they did not handle the road environment.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Well, so that's something, you know, I don't know how
quickly you learn that.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I know, Devrez after the game basically made a comment,
you know, to that effect that they've they've got a
lot of veterans on this team.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
I think that can definitely help, but not in this league.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
And you know, this is part of the balance of
the transfer reporter era. I think it was good that
he identified a lot of older players, but at the
end of the day, this is still kind of like
your mid major all star is playing in the Big
Ten for the first time, and there's while they have
a basketball experience more so than if he just had
(13:17):
a bunch of freshmen that came into this season, especially
at the college level and playing a lot of games.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
There is not Big Ten experience. And it sounds a
little cliche, but I mean it's true. You know.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Yeah, the other thing, and you made a point of
this in film session that I think kind of disrupted
the flow of the game or kind of what Indiana
likes to do in terms of its substitution patterns. They
brought Trent Sislely in the game, who has kind of
given them a spark at times in different games and
has been that positive force off the bench. He comes
(13:52):
in and it was kind of a welcome to the
Big ten type of moment that you see sometimes freshmen
go throughly picks up a couple of fouls, you know,
you're expecting him to play, you know, decent minutes in
most games moving forward, He's proven himself to be a
contributor and a guy that they can rely on. And
(14:13):
he struggled obviously in this game. I think he made
one three pointer in the second half, but that was
really it in terms of what he was able to
bring offensively, and I think that kind of disrupted what
Indiana wanted to do in terms of just its rotations
and lineups. And then obviously they brought in research for
the first time and Nick Dorn, but neither of those
(14:35):
guys really looked up ready for the moment. I thought,
and again not nitpicking in terms of substitution patterns, but
I thought, for the first time this season, you know,
we used to always talk about so there were different
lineups that kind of looked weird at times with under
Mike Woodson, it was kind of a theme. I thought,
for the first time there was a lineup out there
at one point that they had Research and dorn In
(14:58):
i think in right out the other two or but
it was it was almost like, you're not scoring the
ball very well right now, where's the offense gonna come
with this group? And so that was the first time
I kind of looked at it and said, this isn't
the great greatest lineup to maybe be playing on the road.
So I'm just curious kind of your thoughts on maybe
how those fouls from Sisily impacted things and just the
overall rotation in the first half, and and how that
(15:22):
may be factored into two things. Maybe feeling off there
for a bit a minute.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
That's exactly what I thought as well.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
That and it was right around that twelve minute time
out in the first half where Woodson love to kind
of bring his bench lineup in and you're like, who's
gonna score in this lineup?
Speaker 3 (15:37):
And yes, I totally agree that.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
It was kind of this lineup where you're like, all right,
things are starting to unravel a little bit here. And
again you have you not only have a freshman in
research on the on the court, you're a guy that
hasn't played one minute in a regular season at all,
and he's he's asked to come in in this road
environment as well, and he's on the court with Dorn,
and yeah, it was it was a little bit of
(15:59):
a weird lineup, but I think defensively they attacked research
a bit, and then on offense, as things started to
tighten up, you had I think Dorn, who's been a
pretty you know at times, has been a decent, pretty
good spot up shooter for Indiana from from the three
point range, but because they couldn't quite get anything going,
all of a sudden, he's starting to like drive off
(16:20):
the perimeter, which I don't quite think is his game.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
And so, yeah, it did get a little hairy there.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
And I agree that it was kind of one of
these lines where it's like we that combot, that five
has not played together all season, and all of a sudden,
you're on the road in the Big ten. And you know,
it wasn't like they he played for ten minutes. It
wasn't like a super long stretch. But as things kind
of started settling in this game and Minnesota started to
pick it up a little bit more on defense, Uh,
(16:48):
it was kind of an odd combo. There's also that
like a.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
What do you call it?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
The uh when they challenged that out of that was
it out Indian or out that they lost, which I mean,
you know that's gonna happen, but that was kind of
an other kind of decision made there that that didn't
end up in their favor. But yeah, it was quite
an odd lineup. And but you know, at the other token,
it's like at some point they gotta you know, Cicily
(17:13):
has been good off the bench, but uh, they do.
It will be interesting to see if research can can
kind of get into the lineup, maybe be another playmaker.
I know, kind of what his his game is a bit.
I know when they had their their trip this summer
that he did pretty decent down there.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
So it's tough.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
That he had to get work done on the road
to start, and you hope it doesn't kind of bury
his confidence.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
But the reality is they got Lil Lo on Kentucky
coming up next.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
They got all big, They got a lot of big
ten games to go, and so at some point you
just kind of got to hold his feet to the
fire here if you want to try to work him in.
It's not like he only missed the first game or
two and he's able to come in against some of
these guaranteed game opponents. He's if he's gonna play, it's
it's gonna start to have to be against quality competition.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Yeah, I mean, I think the reason many ways is
kind of searching for what's going to be the remainder
of the rotation after Alexis and Sicily because you look
at Nick Dorn. He obviously played really good in the
previous game to this, but didn't give them much at Minnesota.
Josiah Miles. I mean, even going back to the Puerto
(18:22):
Rico trip, he didn't get a lot of time there
and didn't shoot the ball very well. And this season
has really not broken through in any meaningful way in
terms of getting time on the court, and you know,
it's getting to the point of the season where you wonder,
is he going to have a role on this team
in terms of rotation. Real Jason Drake, we've not seen yet.
(18:43):
He's think a guy that I think they're hopeful can
maybe give them something in the guard position. But he
played really well last year at Dreuxel but has not
been able to get healthy enough to get on the
court restitch as a freshman. Obviously, he's twenty years old,
a little bit older. Has a lot of international experience,
but as you mentioned, a little bit different coming into
your first game on the road in the Big Ten.
I don't care what the venue is, It's going to
(19:04):
be a tough challenge. So I think they need to
solidify beyond Alexis and Sicily like, who are the one
or two guys that we can go to consistently and
those are going to be your guys that you roll with.
And I think that's still pretty much up for debate.
The other thing I just wanted to get your thoughts
on mentioned it a little bit earlier. Reid Bailey played
(19:24):
really well in the Kansas State game, did a great
job getting to the foul line. That was the you know,
I was at that game. The most aggressive I've seen
him in an Indian uniform was didn't back down from
the physicality. He didn't back down when when Kansas State
tried to you know, body him up. Did a really
good job just trying to go to the rim and
(19:45):
finish plays or get fouled. To me against Minnesota kind
of reverted back to some of the things we saw
earlier in the season where he looked timid one for
five on twos which not a good number for a
guy who's six foot ten is primarily shooting around the basket.
But the thing that it's kind of set out to
me and I'm curious what you think of this and
(20:06):
if this is something that maybe that they're going to
change or try to do more often. I mean, it
was kind of pitched in the I don't want to
say he's pitch, but we kind of looked at him
as a guy that was maybe going to be capable
of stretching the floor a little bit. Seventeen to forty
one last year on threes at Davidson, not a terribly
high volume, but at least a little bit of a threat.
He's taken two to three pointers the whole season and
we're a quarter of the way through the season. Is
(20:28):
this something that you think can be effective that they
need to maybe look at going more to in terms
of getting him on the perimeter, taking some three pointers,
maybe helping space the floor, because it doesn't seem like
unless he's got unless he's on the move towards the
basket and has a little bit of space, he's not
(20:48):
been really effective offensively around the basket because he's just
not strong enough to finish over bigger opponents, and that's
only going to become a bigger challenge as the competition
level picks up. I mean, louisgo is gonna have guys
at the rim that are taller, longer, and more athletic,
and a lot of these Big ten teams, you know,
I've watched a couple of these games. I mean, they've
(21:09):
got three or four guys better taller than Reed Bailey,
that are stronger than Reed Bailey, that can jump higher
than him. So I'm just kind of curious what you
think in terms of how this shapes out the rest
of the year. Is there are other things that can
do with him or is this kind of gonna be
a limitation of this group the rest of the season.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Yeah, So I get why he is on this team,
and I think he fits the mold of what Daren
Devrieze was looking for in terms of highest this straight
right and kind of fitting in with this offense that
has a lot of guys that share the ball well.
But I think the problem that is really revealed itself
(21:52):
this season as what Indiana needs out of that five spot.
It's just not his game, right, And so I feel like, yeah,
the season wears on. It's like, oh yes, Like this
game was a perfect example. The only basket he made
was in the in those first six possessions of the
game for Indiana, Minnesota.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Had like two on the ball against Devrees.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
As you said, like he's good going to the ball,
He's going to the rim off of these kind of
short roles and there's nobody in front of him.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
That's what that was. He rold short.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Devis made the pass, he dunked at home, and other
than that, he didn't make a basketball game.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
So yeah, it's key. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
I feel like from observing this, he's kind of in
a tough spot where it's like what they need from
him is not his game.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
So I don't really know if that resolves itself.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
I'm sure there's gonna be a few games here, just
like a Kansas State where he does a little bit
of a better job with it. But I think on
the whole, it's just it's kind of a mismatch, And
I think you're right that as the competition rams up,
it's going to be even more exposed. Obviously Alexis can
bring a little bit more, uh in that regard, I
don't think he's he's the full solution and and really
(22:58):
they've really been split in their minutes. I think in
this game it was, you know, twenty they both played
about twenty minutes or twenty one to nineteen. So I
think Alexis can do a better job of scoring at
the rim. However, his game is a little bit more
one on one, which is okay. I think they they've
cleared out for him, and he's got a really high
percentage in the paint. But he's just kind of a
(23:21):
guy I don't think you can ride for, you know,
thirty plus minutes a night. I think just his style,
and he's kind of an off the bench kind of
more energy guy than I don't think they're going to
be churning to him and all of a sudden Bailey's
barely playing or he's just a backup for five or
ten minutes.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
I think this split is going to continue.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
And so it's ultimately what people were saying about this
team before the season in terms of rim protection, in
terms of.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
Playdown low is the reality.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
So they're going to have to have their strengths kind
of out muscle some of their weaknesses, and in some
games we've seen that right. I think Kansas State, when
they've defended really well and they've had Bailey, Bailey did
play well, but there are going to be nights like
this Minnesota game where his strengths don't really match up
with what is needed in the game, and Indiana might
(24:10):
have an off night otherwise, and you're going to see
some losses.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Yeah. I've had a people, a couple of people ask me, like,
why why is alexis not starting? You know, I think
there's obviously had some injury concerns last year. I don't
think he's a guy that you want to routinely play
thirty plus minutes a game and burn them out. I mean,
it's a long season. I think they're gonna have to
figure out how to get the best version of both
of those guys going on a consistent basis, because, let's
(24:37):
face it, this team's not gonna beat anybody if they're
primary focus is trying to score at the rim and
get these guys, you know, going in terms of post ups,
and this is not the basketball that we watched the
last four years. It's not going to be. They're gonna
have to obviously that they want to get touches at
the rim, but they want them to be clean. Looks
(24:58):
it's not going to be. You know. I think Alexis
is a guy that you live with going one on
one and he's shooting over seventy percent on twos. But
you look at Reid Bailey like he's in the mid
fifties on two point field goal percentage right now, but
look at the two previous years at Davidson, he was
under fifty percent and that's in the A ten. So
any any suggestion that he's going to be a guy
(25:20):
that you throw the ball down and let him go
to work, I don't think is right. So I think
they've done a I think they're doing the right thing,
just in terms of trying to I don't want to
say platoon these guys, but split their minutes as much
as possible, trying to get them going, try to unlock
the best version of both of them.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
The other thing, well, I'll like chry am in on this.
This is where I also think coaching comes into play, right,
And I got a new coach in here, and how
can he manage effectively manage what he has to make
this team still greater than the some of his parts.
To know that there are these weaknesses, and how can
(26:01):
he kind of coach around that, coach within that and
still get wins Because you know, if you look at
West Virginia last year, Tucker goes down pretty early in
the season and they were able to kind of still
figure it out, still be pretty a really good defensive team, right,
And this is sort of I think what there's been
a thirst er desire for out of the head coaching
(26:23):
spot in this program is yeah, Okay, there's some weaknesses here,
and yeah, we don't have top top level talent, we
don't have really kind of above the rim athleticism, we
don't have a lot of size.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
But what do we have?
Speaker 2 (26:37):
And how can I effectively coach and manage this team
in a way that elevates that that guts out these
wins that in close games?
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Right? This is part of the reason.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
One of the many stats and one of the reasons
he was hired was his record in close games.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Right. It's a pretty good record in that regard.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
And so this is kind of the test now, right,
I think there's been you know, whether this day and age,
whether you like it or not, it's kind of.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Like every game is what have you done for me lately?
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Right, we see people like freaking out over this game
online about that about the loss, and so it was
kind of the first time I think fans are like, oh,
what the kind of what the heck's going on here
with this team?
Speaker 3 (27:20):
And so how does he respond? How does he get
the team to respond?
Speaker 2 (27:24):
And that's really kind of this kind of got to
be the story of the season because I think the
weaknesses are there and I don't think they're going to
get magically figured out. I think it is what it is,
and how do you work around that and how do
you still get wins and make this team a tournament
team based on all this?
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Yeah, I mean I think big picture too. You kind
of just look at some of the numbers, and you know,
as much as we've talked about this offense and this
new style of play, to be seventeenth inst the defensive
efficiency through eight games, that's that's a solid number. I mean,
Indiana their two point field goal defense on the season
is fourth in the country. We've talked about the lack
(28:04):
of rem protection, lack of shot blocking. That's a good number.
And now I think that number is unlikely to hold
up to that level when the meat of the big
ten schedule arrives, and we saw a little bit the
other night some concerning things in terms of I think
Minnesota's guards Reynolds and Assum were ten of sixteen on
(28:27):
twos and most of those shots were at the rim.
So I think that was another thing that kind of
pops stood out in the game. Letting that those guards
get that deep into paint I think really hurt Indiana
in particularly Reynolds, but he's a guy that's aggressive and
likes to dry. But kind of going back to some
of the other numbers, I mean, the twelfth in the
country in terms of turnover percentage, this team takes care
(28:48):
of the ball. They don't. I mean they lost it
and they only turned the ball over six times. Imagine
if they were turning the ball over the other night
thirteen or fourteen times. How much different this game looks.
Three point shooting percentage in the top seventy in the country,
twos that are in the top thirty. Just a lot
of solid things in terms of the metrics, in terms
of the style play. Are you surprised, just defensively where
(29:11):
that number is right now? Again, I don't think it's
likely to end up seventeenth in the country after they
get through the meat a big ten play. But I've
you know, I've been, you know, I was. I came
into this season expecting Indiana is going to have to
just score ninety five a game to win, and they've
done that on some occasions, but to be to be
that stout defensively, it's been really impressive so far.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
I am surprised because I think so much of the
focus was on the offense, the style of play. There's
going to be more threes, it's going to be a
little bit more open, there's gonna be better ball movement
in spacing, more five hour concepts, and so there's so
much focus on that that it was a little bit
understated that last year at West Virginia they finished fifteenth
in adjusted defensive efficiency with that roster that he had,
(29:58):
And honestly, it's one of these things again with the
coaching and the foundation, where you know, I agree, they
might not keep around there if they're seventeenth now, but
even if that, it's like a top twenty five thirty
defense for his first season. Now, you could go back
and look at Mike Woodson had a pretty dang good
(30:18):
defense his first year as well, so you know these things,
these things, as more data arises, things can change, right,
But to have that foundation on defense I think is
really key for a team and a program because he
can rely on that, right and if he's able to
kind of no matter what personnel he has, still craft it.
And you know, it's pretty clear what the principles are here.
(30:42):
It's we don't want the opposing team to shoot threes.
We want to kind of run them off the line.
And and a lot of these teams now Minnesota not
as much, and we will again see how it goes
against better competition, but it's kind of funneling teams to
try to shoot mid range or longer twos, right, which
is going to make them less efficient. And there might
just be some teams that are like, well, we're not
(31:03):
going to take these and we'll keep working at or
we have a better counter to what Indiana is doing
in that regard.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
But I think like what.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
The fundamentals and what they're trying to get teams to
do on defense has led them to this number. And
that's just kind of what Debrees is trying to do
with his defense and the offense is what Now it's
a forty seventh on Kenpom. Yes, since forty seventh, so
I would have expected kind of the inverses, maybe a
seventeenth on offense and forty seventh on defense. So again,
(31:33):
we'll see as it goes. But yes, I am surprised
by it, but there.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Is some history.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
I mean, I know it's only kind of a one
year sample size last year that he can have a
top twenty defense without like a star Layton team.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Yeah, for sure. Well, Ryan, thanks for making the time
early on this Friday morning. Busy weekend ahead for I
USE Sports. Looking forward to to covering it all over
on the Hall. Thanks again everybody for listening to Podcasts
on the Break and we will be back soon with
another episode if you again. If you like the show,
(32:09):
please leave us a five star rating and review over
on Apple podcast Spotify. I like the video on YouTube,
subscribe to the channel as well, and we'll be back
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