UK Basketball Preview – Know Your Enemy: Indiana Hoosiers

GAME 10 – 12/12/2009

12:00 PM – ASSEMBLY HALL – BLOOMINGTON, IN

INDIANA HOOSIERS (4-4)

TV – CBS

KENTUCKY LEADS SERIES 29-23

RECENT MEETINGS:
12/13/2008: KENTUCKY 72 INDIANA 54

12/8/2007: INDIANA 70 KENTUCKY 51

12/9/2006: KENTUCKY 59 INDIANA 54

12/10/2005: INDIANA 79 KENTUCKY 53

12/11/2004: KENTUCKY 73 INDIANA 58

Kentucky heads into Bloomington for their first real road test of the John Calipari era and Cal’s twitter buddy Tom Crean is waiting with his 4-4 Hoosiers. You never want to over look a bitter rival, especially on the road. And especially when that rival has blown you out the last two times this game was on their home court. Indiana is what is known as a “trap” game, a game that on the surface appears to be an easy win but then turns into a bitter, hard fought war. Dick Vitale told us about 56 times Wednesday night that this would be a tough game, so let’s hope that the Cats heed that shrill warning.

Indiana is coming off the biggest win of their season, a 74-64 win over the previous 7-1 Pitt Panthers. Indiana has faced one SEC team and lost 89-71 to Ole Miss. The Hoosiers also have close losses to Boston University and George Mason plus a double digit loss to Maryland. Let’s take a look a the Hoosiers and see what tricks they may have up their sleeves.

THE STARTERS

G- MAURICE CREEK, FR, 6’5, 200 — 15.6 ppg, 4.1 reb, 2.0 assists

G- JEREMIAH RIVERS , JR, 6’5, 214 —7.3 ppg, 5.8 reb, 4.4 assists

G – VERDELL JONES – SO , 6’5, 185 — 12.5 ppg, 3.8 reb, 3.1 assists

F- CHRISTIAN WATFORD – FR, 6’9, 220 — 13.3 ppg, 6.5 reb, 0.6 assists

F – TOM PRITCHARD , SO , 6’9 , 248 — 4.9 ppg, 3.3 reb, 0.5 assists

The Hoosiers have very big guards but unfortunately none of them are near quick enough to match the speed of John Wall. And of UK’s last couple of games, the talent level of the IU guards finish well below UConn and UNC. Maurice Creek is a pretty good shooting guard and is shooting at a 48% clip. He is the main 3-point threat for the Hoosiers as he has 17 of the teams 30 trey and hits them at about a 40% clip. Rivers is a pretty solid rebounder and has the most assists on the team. He also has by far the most turnovers and is not a particularly good shooter at just 39% and has just one 3-point attempt on the season. Verdell Jones, a former UK recruit, is evolving into a solid guard, but is not a very accurate shooter and not much of a 3-point shot either. He has the ability to make things happen with the ball but would finish a distant third in a footrace with Wall and Bledsoe. Devan Dumes is good for 5 points a game off the bench and is the second leading 3-point threat. Jordan Hulls has a high ceiling for a freshman but is just playing about 15 minutes a game now.

While the Wildcats have a pretty good advantage over the Hoosiers in the guard department, UK’s big men should have no problem on Saturday. Watford is the poor man’s version of Patrick Patterson and he does have just a 40% shooting percentage and he turns the ball over a good bit. Pritchard starts, but gets into foul trouble a lot so averages about 18 minutes a game. When he is in, he shoots well (60%) and does not turn the ball over much. He is however, slow as dirt and should be DeMarcus’s foil all day. Derek Elston, the 6’9 Freshmen, is a virtual scoring machine, averaging 7.6 points in 16 minutes. The Hoosiers really only go 8 players deep, so staying out of foul trouble will be at a premium.

OUTLOOK

The biggest key to the Hoosiers success will be their ability to stop the UK runs and streaks. UK has already decimated North Carolina and UConn with 28-2 and 12-0 streaks and IU is nowhere in the talent level of those two teams. Lest we forget, UK started out this game 14-0 last year and toyed with IU the whole first half 36-13. On a good day, IU will be able to stop the huge streaks but I am unsure that IU can keep up with UK for 40 minutes and stop all the mini 6 and 8 point streaks UK can throw at them. To do this, look for an attempt to slow this game down and keep the score under 60. Tom Crean wants to force UK to play that ugly Big 10 brand of basketball but are too slow to keep it up for the whole game.

Not to be too harsh on the Hoosiers because the Wildcats left Assembly Hall thoroughly dominated the last two trips there, but this comes down to a talent issue, and looking at talent solely, UK wins handily. With that in mind, I am sure this game will be closer than I imagine as Tom Crean is the right guy to rebuild this program. But as of now, IU is just a year or two away. UK 71, Indiana 63

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