Gm 13: +/- Player Analysis - Michigan State

Welcome back to another addition of the +/- Player Analysis for your 2011-2012 Indiana Hoosiers! This was a tough loss for the Hoosiers.  IU had stretches of dominant play mixed in with stretches of horrendous play.  How IU bounces back will be a very interesting question that will be answered on Saturday in Bloomington.

Key Players:

• Christian Watford - Watford came up huge for the Hoosiers again tonight.  Watford scored 26 points and grabbed 10 rebounds as he passed the 1000 point scoring mark for Indiana.
• Will Sheehey - This game was built for Sheehey.  I can see Sheehey playing a major role in the IU vs MSU game at Assembly Hall later in the year.
• Jordan Hulls - Hulls had one of his worst games as a Hoosier. His shots weren't falling (2-10 FG), he turned the ball over (4 TO) and he couldn't seem to get the offense moving.

With that being said, let's jump into the +/- Player Analysis

+/- Player Analysis vs Stetson
*Just in case you forgot, here is a quick breakdown as to what the +/- Player Analysis is looking at. Example: Here is a quick example of how the +/- stat is determined. Zeller, Watford, VJIII, Hulls and Sheehey start the game for IU. Therefore the score is 0-0. Coach Crean makes his first substitution at 15:00 with the score IU up 15-10. Oladipo comes into the game for Sheehey. For this stint in time, Sheehey would earn a +5 (while Sheehey was in, IU increased their lead by 5 points). The Lineup of Zeller, Watford, VJIII, Hulls and Sheehey also earned a +5. This will continue throughout the game.

Game Overall 

 

Key Takeaways:

• Being the first loss of the year, it is expected for Indiana's players to be in the red.
• Pritchard and Roth were the only Hoosier players in the green.  Their positive numbers were helped during their stint in the first half with 6:29 remaining with the Hoosiers trailing 14-28.  Led behind two Roth 3's, IU was able to cut the deficit to 7 points at the half.  The lineup of Hulls, Watford, Oladipo, Roth and Pritchard went +7 for this 6 minute stretch.
• Jordan Hulls is an interesting story tonight.  Hulls played all but 5 minutes of the game.  While Hulls struggled and couldn't find his game all night, he didn't hurt the Hoosiers as bad as you might think.  In fact, during the 5 minutes of the game when Hulls was out, IU was outscored by 14 points.
• Remy Abell recorded the worst Pts/Min of the season going -10 in 2 minutes of game time.  Remy was a part of a two minute stretch in the first half where Michigan State increased their lead from 21-14 to 28-14.
• I cannot stress this enough, anything in the GREEN, means the player had a positive impact on the game and helped IU's chances of victory.

Lineups of the Night: 

 

Key Takeaways:

• Here you can see the game flow throughout the night. The chart reads from the beginning of the game to the end from top to bottom.
• Overall, Coach Crean used 14 different combinations of players in the game. Of his 14 combinations, 4 were positive, 2 were neutral (0) and the remaining 8 were negative.
• Of all the stints in this game (19), there were 6 positive, 3 neutral and 10 negative.
• 3 units played multiple times tonight.

Best Lineup of the Night:
The best lineup of the night (+7) belongs to Hulls, Roth, Oladipo, Watford and Pritchard. This group played together once tonight in the first half.  With 6:29 remaining and IU trailing 14-28, Coach Crean subbed in Hulls, Oladipo, Pritchard and Roth for VJIII, Abell, Elston and Zeller (who just went -7). This group went on a tremendous 11-0 run before losing some steam at the end of the half.  

Worst Lineup of the Night:
The worst lineup of the night (-7) belongs to Abell, VJIII, Watford, Elston and Zeller.  This unit played immediately before the best lineup of the night.  The group entered the game at 8:41 remaining in the 1st half with IU trailing 14-21.  This group was replaced with the exception of Watford at the 6:29 mark after giving up 7 unanswered points.

Season to Date:
As many people like to point out, looking at the +/- for one specific game is not entirely telling. Tracking this over the course of the year, will give a much clearer picture as to what each player brings to the team. Below is the updated season to date +/- for each player.

• All players decreased their season averages including Roth and Pritchard (who went positive)
• Cody is still the top guy in the season to date.
• Austin Etherington improved his numbers considerably during the UMBC

Lineup Combinations Here are some quick stats related to the Lineups Tom Crean has used throughout the season:

• Coach has used 178 different lineups this year.
• Of those 178, only 53 are negative year to date. (Increased 11)
• Best lineup is +71 (went -4 vs Mich St; Crean's favorite unit (31 times) of Hulls, Oladipo, VJ3, Watford, Zeller)
• 2nd Best Lineup is +25 (went Even vs Mich St; New Lineup of Hulls, VJIII, Oladipo, Elston and Zeller who went +7 vs Howard)
• New worst lineup is -7. (Consists of Abell, VJIII, Watford, Elston and Zeller.)
• 49 (Increase of 7 this game) lineups have been used multiple times this year.

Lineup Creator! Here is your chance to play Coach Crean!What you can do is go to this link, "+/- Lineup Generator" and it will open an Excel file for you. Using the filters already on the page, you can filter the lineups for the year to see how all the different combinations of players play together.For instance, if you wanted to see how the team does when Oladipo and Sheehey are in the game together, filter both their columns. This will return all lineups for the year that Oladipo and Sheehey have been on the floor together!

Overall
This was one of the craziest seesaw basketball games you will ever witness.  I'm not sure if there was ever a point in the game where IU and MSU exchanged buckets on continuous possessions.  It seemed one team was always on a 10-0, 13-0 or even 20-0 run.  IU showed great poise in the first half to come back from an 18 point deficit.  To start the second half they took an 8 point lead, which most Hoosiers fans figured would spark the Hoosiers to their 13th win of the season.  Michigan State had different plans as they came back on a 20-0 run to put IU out of the game.  The Hoosiers have a lot of questions to answer, and there isn't much time for them to find these answers as #2 Ohio State comes to Bloomington on Saturday.


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Coach Crean and Players Talk Howard Blowout

See what Coach Crean and the players had to say about the Howard blowout victory.




See what Verdell Jones, Christian Watford and Will Sheehey had to say about the win.

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Thoughts from the Alumni Section

BtownBanners would like to welcome another featured Blogger to the site. This will be a new piece after each game which are the thoughts on the game from Alumni Brian Hall. Please let us know if you like Brian's work by leaving comments and discussion in the comments section. Thanks!

Indiana 79 Savannah State 57

Indiana (7-1) was coming off a disappointing outcome from Boston College during the ACC/Big Ten challenge and I was expecting the Hoosiers to come out and be licking their chops to annihilate Savannah State (1-9). Indiana, just like in the previous seven games they have played, started out extremely slow. I know that they eventually have picked up the pace in all eight games, but I cannot help but think about how a start like we had against Savannah State will bury us against Kentucky or any team in the Big Ten. One good thing I noticed during the early part of the game was Maurice Creek was looking for his shot and was shooting the ball very well. After the first television time out, Coach Crean sent in the second unit.

I was thoroughly impressed by the play of Rivers, Moore, Sheehey, Oladipo and Elston. Their energy pumped life into the basketball team and the crowd while extending the lead. Moore was a little out of control at times, but that is to be expected, but Oladipo! Wow, I am so excited to see what he will do the rest of the year! I don’t think I can see the replay of the dunks that Victor did during Hoosier Hysteria too many times. The Hoosiers played a good game between the second media time out until the end of the bench came on the floor with three minutes left in the game. Elston replacing Pritchard at halftime seemed to light a fire in him and I have not seen Pritchard play that focused since he was a freshman.

Knowing that the cupcakes are pretty much all over for Indiana here are a few things I noticed during the Savannah State game that the Hoosiers need to improve upon if they want to be competitive for the remainder of the season. The first thing is the amount of turnovers IU is committing during the game. They were down a little in the Savannah State game, but Indiana needs to tighten up their passes and dribbling. Next is the inside game. We do not have a true center, and thanks to the NCAA’s ruling on Guy, we will not have one at our service for the remainder of the year. Capobianco did not play in this game, but between him, Elston, Pritchard, and Watford they have got to find a way to play better in the paint both offensively and defensively. Also, I think Jordan Hulls needs to take more shots because between Hulls and Creek I think we have one of the best one-two punches in the Big Ten.

Up next Kentucky.

Brian Hall

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Thoughts from the Student Section (Evansville)

The state of Indiana must be on threat level red, because Tom Crean has this place on lock-down. While still reveling in recent news of Cody Zeller’s commitment and ongoing buzz about Park Tudor guard Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell’s future decision, the Hoosier nation was blind-sided with unexpected and great news regarding two other top Indiana players. After a Hoosier victory over Evansville last night, both Devin Davis (Warren Central) and Colin Hartman (Cathedral) gave their verbal commitment to Coach Crean. Add these two to the tally, and Crean now has nine in-state commits for the next four years with hopes of adding more. This is an incredible turnaround, especially considering that over the last four years, only four Indiana recruits were locked down for the Hoosiers. Coach Crean is bringing the Indiana talent back to where it belongs. Home. Hoosiers playing for the Hoosiers is what IU is all about.

With all that being said, let’s turn our focus to last night’s game. My student season tickets had me posted up in the balcony for last night’s game. However, the lack of fans on the student side of Assembly Hall made it easy to relocate seats which were more appealing. The turnout of students continues to be dismal so far this season in Bloomington. Granted, the absence of students last night can most likely be associated with the beginning of Thanksgiving Break. I hope to see the student section fill up after break when the competition thickens.

The Hoosiers put on an ugly display throughout the first half. As one can see from the +/- stat chart below, Indiana had a horrendous first twenty minutes, doomed by turnovers and fouls. IU’s free throw shooting for the game was also terrible, less than 54%. There were positive things happening in the game, however, such as Tom Pritchard’s performance. Pritchard has come a long way since being the guy that no one in the crowd trusted to make a layup. He had a solid showing tonight and continues to show endless effort on the court. Five blocks and eight points from a guy with a broken shooting hand is enough to earn respect from me. In fact, his stats from last night did not do his performance justice in my opinion. He simply brought a lot of energy out onto the court. Verdell Jones had another nice game as well with 18 points. But it would be nice to see him lower his turnover count and increase his assist count (4 turnovers, 3 assists last night). Although he seemed to be struggling early, Maurice Creek ended up with a great performance himself. It’s great to see him scoring again with 19 points last night, 12 of which came within two minutes. At the end of the day we came out with a victory, and that has us sitting at 4-0 to start the season. I’d like to see the Hoosiers play well for forty minutes instead of just the last twenty, and ultimately I think we may be able to give some more talented teams a little bit of challenge. We are making progress one game at a time.

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