Some Non-Conference Numbers

After going bust in Vegas, the Hoosiers headed home for a 3-day respite before the commencement of conference play tonight.

Now that we've closed the book on the non-conference portion of IU's schedule, let's take a look at a couple of points of interest about the season-to-date:

  • IU's assist to turnover ratio is -.005 (198 A's-199 TO's).  That's not good. Considering the fairly soft strength of schedule IU has faced, it's disconcerting to still see the persistent bumblefuckedness with the ball in Crean's 3rd season.  

Coffee & KenPom

(Or whatever Don Fischer says his name should be.)

There's nothing quite like the silent illumination of Sunday mornings spent enjoying Sumatran coffee and the Sunday papers before the rest of the house begins to stir.

I've always taken great joy in the opportunity to consume copious amounts of bold, black java while quietly taking up pageloads of information before my snot-dripping tornadoes are unleashed about the house again.

This morning provided one of those wonderful moments of peaceful reading when I happened upon Ken Pomeroy's Indiana statistics and noticed.....OH...MY...GAWD.

JORDAN HULLS CURRENTLY RANKS 2ND IN THE NATION IN EFFECTIVE FIELD GOAL PERCENTAGE!!! Oh, and he's rated the 44th most efficient offensive player in the nation (both as of Ken's last-updated individual stats- 12/12/10).

That just peeled my eyes open like a pot of coffee before sunrise.

Wow. Talk about slam shifting your brain into drive on a gameday morning.

If you can't believe how such an offensive performance could fly under the radar amidst this season's noteworthy developments, it's probably because Jordy has thus far only accounted for just about 10% of IU's total field goals attempted (53-532).

With an effective TO rate of 22.5%, compared to Jones' 30.6% & Rivers' 39.7%, we can hopefully expect to see increased doses of #1 liberally applied to the rotation as the season progresses.
 
Also of note in this morning's numbers:

-IU remains in the bottom 16.5 percentile of experience, yet has rapidly improved to become the 10th ranked most offensively efficient team & the 26th ranked on defensive efficiency. Think about that for a second. After the last two seasons of...well, you know what, that just blew your mind.

Sure, we're still turning the ball over at a pretty high clip against a soft strength of schedule so far, but there's no denying the year-to-year improvement is off the charts.

Yeah, there's also that thing about our opponents headed to the line on almost 1/2 of their possessions, putting IU in the bottom 10% in the nation in that category. But hey, if you ain't foulin', you ain't trying. Right?


-Big Tom is 26th in the nation in block % & 143rd in offensive rebounding %. 

-Vic the quick ranks 27th in the nation in steal %.

-Jeremiah Rivers leads all players in ft%: .875!!! Ha!

While you sip on those stats, I'm off to Uptown for a Popeye omelette and some more coffee.  See you at the game later today. 

Season's Greetings From The Hoosier Chronicles



Because an envelope can only hold so much awesomeness,
holiday cheers, bitches.