Indiana men’s basketball and getting Too Close For Comfort

These games are weirder than you’d like them to be.

Army Is Poor.

The Army Is Terribly Terrible.

Not the Units. Fair Army. Indiana’s collegiate men’s basketball team played tonight on the court. The one has a KenPom ranking lower than three hundred. Yes, engaged in a face-off. For the entire forty minutes, it was an actual game.

It was not intended for it to occur. To say so is reasonable.

Look, basketball in November is strange. Teams who have played together before, like Purdue, which you are all familiar with, appear fantastic. Teams like Indiana that have a ton of new pieces? Not at all!

The Indiana team you witnessed tonight, as well as in the exhibition games against Florida Gulf Coast, is the same team you will see when they take the court in January. Whether for the better or worse, things will change.

Gamers will grow and change. Lineups will start to take shape. Things ought to improve.

Should be.

A great many questions followed the Hoosiers into this season. Few answers have emerged through the first two games. If anything, it’s been more questions.

What’s up with the starting lineup?

Who can lead the offense off the bench?

What’s the identity on offense?

What’s Mackenzie Mgbako going to look like?

Threes? Anyone? Please?

The starting lineup has ended up being mostly what was expected: Johnson, Galloway, Mgbako, Reneau and Ware. Right now, it’s not working all that well. That may be different in a month or two. The lineup itself may be different. Again, there’s not a good way of knowing.

Ware is a true center. Reneau is probably more valuable as a five. Mgbako’s skillset is that of a modern power forward.

Personally, I’d like to see a lineup with three guards, Mgbako and Ware on the floor. That’s five capable shooters (another topic entirely) and one that can get down the court quickly and push the ball in transition.

Indiana is running into the same problems it had with the Trayce Jackson-Davis/Race Thompson frontcourt only without any of the experience those two had. All those bigs aren’t giving them a rebounding advantage either, they won that margin by a narrow 29-26 tonight.

Mind you, all those 3-pointers (38 of them!) are getting a ton of bounce off the rim but also, come on man.

There were a lot of lineups on the court today that didn’t work. With a ton of new players, that’s to be expected. They’re lineups we likely won’t be seeing much as the season goes on, barring some serious development.

Again, it’s November and the team will look different with time. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t cause for some concern here.