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Well.
That wasn't good.
Wake Forest goes on a 9-2 run to close the game and knocks off favored Indiana in the opening round of the Maui Invitational. What did we learn?
1. Indiana shot it poorly from the three point line. They lost. You should get used to this pattern.
Like, listen. It's your prerogative to be as mad as you'd like to be on the internet -- but it should be well-understood with this basketball team what's going to happen when this team doesn't shoot the ball well. They're going to lose, and it could be to a team of any caliber. Thomas Bryant is enough to make Indiana a top-10 caliber team when they're shooting it well, but he's an 18-year-old freshmen that isn't going to be the type that Indiana can ride to a victory on an off night. The offense looked like garbage for a good deal of the game, running at a frantic base, turning the ball over, and often jacking up ill-advised shots. Granted, this is the only way this team can play. It does not have the size and defensive ability to play a slow down style game. The worst this basketball team looked was in the opening 8-10 minutes of the game, when the offense looked to be treading water and moving like molasses compared to the one seen last Thursday at home against Creighton.
Indiana, as presently constructed, is a fatally-flawed team that depends on a attribute in shooting that is fickle by nature to win basketball games. They're going to beat teams they shouldn't. They're going to lose to teams they shouldn't. The sooner you realize this, the better.
2. Thomas Bryant has absolutely no idea how to hedge on a ball screen. None.
Watch these two buckets. This is bad. This is very bad.
He's 18. He's going to be a great player at Indiana -- and in the NBA after that. He's got a hell of a way to go on defense -- especially on ball screens.
2. Indiana's going to miss Hanner Perea, Devin Davis, and Emmitt Holt and you were very wrong if you felt otherwise.
For as limited as these three might have been on the offensive end at times, they did one thing well that cost Indiana this basketball game -- rebound on the defensive glass. It's not a stretch at all to call Indiana a lackluster defensive basketball team. The more defensive possessions Indiana has, the more points they're going to give up. It's a simple, simple equation. Wake Forest had 18 offensive rebounds in this basketball game. Indiana had 19 defensive rebounds. That's. Not. Good. And given Indiana's size, playing style, and personnel, I'm not sure it's a fixable problem.
Indiana gets St. John's some dang time in the morning tomorrow on some ESPN network. Yay.