Indiana's basketball schedule for 2009-10: initial thoughts.

by John M (The Crimson Quarry) on Aug 19, 2009 4:49 PM EDT

As I posted earlier, IU now has released the basketball schedule for 2009-10. Here are my initial impressions:

The two Big Ten teams that IU plays only once are Penn State (away) and Michigan State (home). This has been released before, but I'm not sure I mentioned it. It would be better for IU if the locations were reversed. This feels like 0-2; we would have a chance at 1-1, maybe, if Penn State came to Bloomington.
The only nonconference games that IU plays away from Bloomington are three games in a tournament in Puerto Rico and a newtrual site game against Pittsburgh at Madison Square Garden in New York. In other words, no true non-conference road games.
In the Puerto Rico tournament, IU played Mississippi in the first round, and either Kansas State or Boston U in the second round. The teams in the other half of the bracket are Dayton, George Mason, Villanova, and Georgia Tech. In other words, at the very least, IU should get two decent nonconference games out of that event.
As has previously been announced, IU's BT/ACC game will be at Assembly Hall against Maryland, a rematch of the 2002-03 game that IU won in overtime at Conseco Fieldhouse, which itself was a rematch of the 2002 NCAA Championship game.
The RPIs of the lesser-known teams on IU's schedule: Howard 330; South Carolina Upstate 288; Northwestern State 311; North Carolina Central 335; Loyola (Maryland) 194; Bryant 306.

There isn't much in between in this schedule. There are six quality opponents, one team ranked around #200, and five that are around 300 or worse. Without knowing what to expect from the team, this seems like a reasonable schedule for an NIT-type team, although if IU is unexpectedly better, the schedule provides the opportunity for some nice wins.

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Schedule

I hate to pencil in any wins given the mystery surrounding this team, but I do hope Crean has them at the level where they can win all of the smaller school games at home. At the very least, we’ll be more talented and hopefully better coached than those teams. That would put us at 6-0 in those games, which also equals the win total from last year. That’s a good place to start.

Lack of road games is both a concern and a blessing. A blessing in that we won’t be thrown to the wolves early, a concern because the Big Ten gyms aren’t going to be any friendlier to our young team, which wouldn’t surprise me to see result in a loss or two alone.

As I mentioned in the fanshot, I love the Puerto Rico matchups, and I really like the ACC/Big Ten pairing. We’ll have plenty of shots early against major conference programs to kind of get an idea of where we are in the national picture as well as hopefully showing some progress not only as a program, but as those games progress.

Season goals from the schedule? I don’t know yet. It’d be a nice goal for this team to aim for the NIT, but maybe they aren’t yet a .500 team. I hope the frosh can progress like Purdue’s kids did a couple years back, but it’s hard to know until we see them. I guess my low ball prediction has to be 10-12 wins. I don’t know yet that even at our best we can be a bubble team, but that’d be awesome.

by Nathan S. on Aug 19, 2009 7:14 PM EDT reply actions

Goals

Good analysis of the schedule. With the talent level up, and everyone having more time to get used to the system, I think that a reasonable goal for this team has to be winning all of the games they should win in the pre-season, and winning a game in Puerto Rico. That’s 8. Big Ten: play .500 ball, which means winning most of your home games and stealing one or two on the road. I’d love for them to overachieve, and I know that I’ll expect more. But that puts you at about 17 wins, and a few games over .500. If they can pull off a couple of upsets, and more importantly avoid some let downs, they could play themselves into a bubble scenario. I am not counting on that. Realistically, it’s probably an NIT year. I’d love to be wrong.

by hoosierdaddynow on Aug 20, 2009 8:45 AM EDT up reply actions

Still above where I'm ready to be

I guess you and John may see something better than I do, but I think we’re all in the same boat. I don’t want to overassume anything for this team, so that might explain why I expect the low to be 10-12, but somewhere around 15-16 as the high.

I like figuring at least 1-1 or 1-2 in Puerto Rico (are we actually playing three games? Or just two?). We lose against Kentucky without a doubt since they won’t be vacating the season for two or three years and I doubt we can hang with Pittsburgh. Maryland is a toss up, really, since I don’t think Maryland is looking to be the ACC powerhouse they were back when we last played them. We have to win all of the small games or else I’m going to be very displeased with the progress of the program. So, 7 or 8 wins going into Big Ten play seems a reasonable goal.

I figure in the Big Ten, the only teams we shouldn’t expect to win against is Purdue (I know…), Michigan State (at least it’s only one), and probably Illinois (but they manage to suck no matter how good their team is, so maybe). I can see five wins we should get at least, with three or four more swing games. We could find ourselves at 8 or 9 Big Ten wins, but I wouldn’t be too upset with 6 or 7, unless it’s a bad 6 or 7.

That would put us right about the NIT line if we win seven or eight Big Ten games. But I would love to be a bubble team this year. That would make 10-11 an awesome year.

by Nathan S. on Aug 21, 2009 12:17 AM EDT up reply actions

I really have no idea what to expect from this team, again. Winning all of the small school games and stealing a couple from the “loseable” side would be nice. I have no feel. Your prediction makes sense logically, but I have to enter the season hoping for more.

The Crimson Quarry, SB Nation's Indiana Hoosiers blog

by John M (The Crimson Quarry) on Aug 19, 2009 10:28 PM EDT reply actions