and I like what I see.
Hoosiers Open Exhibition Slate with 95-50 Win over North Dakota - iuhoosiers.com
A few observations from Assembly Hall today...
The first possession of the game saw DJ set a solid screen and roll directly to the bucket where Calloway found him for an easy dunk. Man was it nice to see 'Motion' being run in Bloomington again. To me it is the most enjoyable basketball offense there is to watch as a fan.
The 3 pt line will be a part of this offense. Stemler and Shaw both have a very pure stroke and both nailed multiple 3s coming off of double screens. And Ratliff showed why he was Mr. Basketball in the state of Indiana. In a structured offense, he can and will flourish and today was using screens to pop open for the 3, as well as to roll to the hoop for layups.
Offensive rebounding was totally different today. Granted North Dakota would struggle to beat North Central, but all of IU's bigs were crashing the boards... including Ben. That was a nice thing to see.
And after getting a rebound, the rebounders were looking to make a very quick defensive to offensive transition off missed shots. And with Calloway pushing the ball and Wilmont running alongside, easy baskets in transition will be very important.
On the defensive side of the ball, there are going to be 3 keys to sucess this year...
1) On the ball pressure. Calloway is going to be a nightmare for opposing point guards.
2) Fronting the bigs inside. IU is going to be undersized against most teams and Sampson had DJ, Ben and Mike fronting all day long today. Unfortunately, this is new to these guys and could take them awhile to understand. DJ got burned repeatedly today on the defensive end.
3) Helpside defense. Again it is nice to see team oriented defense as opposed to the one-on-one, on an island, defense IU has been running the last 6 years.
The difficulties this team will face will be size related inside. They are not big. Another concern is going to be at the point. With Calloway putting a ton of pressure on the ball, if he gets in foul trouble, it will be very important for Armon Bassett to mature rapidly. It will be very interesting to see how this season plays out.
Go Hoosiers!
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1 comment:
Thanks for the 1st person report for those of us that couldn't be there. I can't wait for a week from tonight to see the first game on TV. Sampson is going to have the Hoosiers back at the top.
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