Photo courtesy of IU Athletics

After each game, Hank Glassner will provide his short, concise thoughts on the Indiana Hoosiers basketball team.

• There was not a lot of substance to write a full article on the Savannah State game, so I thought I might as well write an article combining that game with their last game against Gardner-Webb.
• Savannah State and Gardner Webb have such imposing offenses. It almost seemed like IU’s defense could do nothing about it. Not.
• Love to see Will Sheehey maintain his confidence offensively even when things are not going as planned for him. In this past game, he missed a couple of layups early on but kept his poise and clearly showed why he is the sixth man on this team.
• There were a few high post to low post passes that created easy layups in the past couple of games. It is beautiful to watch how well Cody Zeller’s passing is, especially when he is under pressure. He does a good job using his pivot foot in order to create more, something that more big men need to do.
• The transition game should not disappear once IU plays worthy opponents. If that happens to be the case, then say bye-bye to IU’s March Madness hopes.
• I have a bad feeling Derek Elston’s consistent outside jump shot will start to fade away once IU gets into the meat of their schedule. Seeing that jump shot improve from last season to this season has been like night and day. I do not know what adjustments he made…honestly it may have just been a summer’s worth of getting shots up in the gym. Whatever it is, it has been working, that’s for sure, but this is just too good to be true.
• The team’s most important statistic is also their biggest concern in these past two games: free throw shooting. They have gotten to the line 58 times in the past two games, which means they are attacking the paint offensively, but in the Gardner-Webb game they only shot 12 for 23, including 2 for 11 in the second half! Hopefully their free throw shooting is going to improve from last season’s poor performance in that category.
• It was very interesting to see Jordan Hulls get benched for Derek Elston to start the second half of the last game. It had to be because of his poor performance in the first half, right? Could this be indicative of Crean’s plans going forward? With Yogi Ferrel coming in to take the point guard reigns next season, does Hulls move off the ball as a wing or come off the bench? I think that question will be answered in Big Ten play.
• Still not a Verdell fan. In the least bit.
• Brad Stevens is a tremendous coach, but Butler is not a very good team this year. They lost to Evansville in overtime earlier this year. IU needs to come out of the gate with a chip on their shoulder, take the lead, and never look back.

That’s it from me. Until next time…