Who? Chicago State Cougars (0-0, #334 KenPom) at Indiana Hoosiers (0-0, #27 KenPom)

When? Tuesday, November 6 at 6:30 p.m. EST - Big Ten Network

Where? Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, Bloomington, Indiana

Vegas? N/A

Pomeroy? Indiana 88-59, 99.7% chance of Indiana victory

Well it’s that time of year again when we look to ignore the dumpster fire that is Indiana football and place hopes in what should be a promising season for the men’s basketball team.

Indiana will open their season against an opponent that went without a head coach for nearly FIVE MONTHS. Safe to say things are as low as a program can go as Chicago State has only won 13 games over the past three years.

Things don’t look up for this team as KenPom has them placed near the bottom of all of Division I men’s basketball at 344th place out of 353 total teams with their only projected wins at the moment coming against Non-Division I schools.

If those past few paragraphs weren’t convincing enough, I hope the stats do it more justice.

The Opponent

The only notable categories the Cougars performed well in their 2017-18 season were there offensive and defensive free throw percentages which don’t help much when your offensive and defensive adjusted efficiency is sub-300. The Hoosiers outclass Chicago State in nearly everything else.

Now I feel it’s safe to say that if I were to keep telling you how bad the Cougars are I would just be beating a dead horse. Chicago State, flat out, is really, really, really bad. Plus I’m writing this after having my mind melted by a communications law copyright and trademark test so let’s just slide into three things to watch for shall we?

Things To Watch

Green Light: During Monday’s media availability coach Archie Miller said that Devonte Green will play in IU’s season opener, something that might have come as a surprise to some after Green had been limited in practice. It’ll be interesting to watch as Green will look to hold down the point guard spot against rising star and freshman Rob Phinisee (also drink everytime we spell that name wrong this season).

TESTING, TESTING: Archie Miller will only have this game plus a Friday home contest against Montana State to tweak any issues before meeting some tough competition the following week with a home matchup against Marquette on November 14 before then having their first road game against a solid Arkansas team on November 18.

College basketball is back: There’s a very good chance that this game is over by halftime. However I do implore to just be happy that college basketball is back in our lives for the next five months, which is roughly the same amount of time Chicago State went without a coach this year. The sport has never been better and should make the sun setting at around 5:30 a little more bearable for all of us.