With college football season in full swing and the first list of rankings for the college football playoffs to ponder, I haven’t given much thought to the upcoming college basketball season. Indiana has played 3 exhibition games and two regular season games and have yet to suffer a loss. In fact, all but one of games have been very lopsided victories, especially, North Carolina (76-58).
In spite of these big-margin wins, I can’t tell if this team is any good. The team has only two players returning from last year—Sam Alexis and Trent Sisley. They are both “big men” so they will play in or near the post. They are both decent players, but neither is one you would call “a player to watch.”
The other 15 players on the roster are unknowns. Most of them I have never heard of. They are transfers from Duke, Villanova, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame, SMU, and Alabama, but I don’t remember any of them being stars on their former team. There are four players who are true freshman so they are complete unknowns.
The Notre Dame transfer is Markus Burton, the 2023 Indiana High School Mr. Basketball. He is a 6’0” guard from Mishawaka, Ind. who spent 3 seasons in South Bend. He was All ACC all three years averaging 19.1 points, 3.8 assists, and 1.8 steals per game. He shot 43.8% from the field, 33.2% from 3-point land, and 84.7% in free throws. In 5 games at Indiana he has averaged 10.5 points in 24.5 minutes per game. He has shot 46.7% from the field, made 3 of 5 three’s, and 4 of 6 free throws. His stats at Notre Dame were decent and so far at IU are just ok. I haven’t watched him play much, but he seems timid and not terribly aggressive. It’s early and he is adjusting to new teammates, a new coach, and a different court. So far, my impression is he is not the second coming of Steve Alford or Isiah Thomas!
Like so many recent (last 15 years) IU teams, this team has had scoring droughts in the mid to late first half. These droughts erase big leads and are very frustrating for Hoosier fans. They are hard to understand. It’s like they get tired and need a break. Let’s hope these scoring droughts stop.
IU does have three 7-footers: 7’-2” Samet Yigitoglu, 7’-0” Clemens Sokolova, and 6’-11”(almost 7’) Aiden Sherrell. Only Yigitoglu and Sherrell have had meaningful minutes, and to me were unimpressive. Sherrell leads the team in rebounding. Maybe I need to watch more closely. They don’t seem very aggressive.
The jury has yet to meet to decide if this IU team is any good. At first glance, they seem to be more talented and bigger than last year’s team. Maybe that will result in a record better than last year’s 18-14 (9-11). It certainly should. I hope the next few games will clarify the situation.
