MIAMI – Indiana’s traveling party woke with the sun Saturday morning for a charter flight home from the Battle 4 Atlantis, the Hoosiers working their way through security and customs at Lynden Pindling International Airport still smarting from a difficult trip to The Bahamas.
IU lost its first two games in an event it had eyes on attending the moment it last left Nassau, following a preseason tour in Mike Woodson’s first summer on the job. Indiana was as much an idea as anything then, but it is firmly formed now — talented, well-resourced, full of potential and deeply frustrating to its fans.
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A firm thumping of worn-out Providence in the 7th-place game Friday at least salvaged something from an otherwise disappointing week.
The national ranking will be gone from Indiana’s scorelines for a while, and with it the shine of a potential Big Ten contender. Perhaps that’s for the best. This team as currently constituted needs time to work through its shortcomings, if it is going to realize its preseason promise.
And yes, that promise still exists. There are reasons to believe in this group long term, with a lot of season left to play. Let’s examine some of them.
Offensive punch
At its best, this team can score with anyone on its schedule. Even through a 1-2 swing through The Bahamas, four different Hoosiers scored in double figures at least once. Malik Reneau scored 21 points twice. Mackenzie Mgbako had 25 in the Providence win, Trey Galloway 18.
The Hoosiers shot nearly 36% from behind the arc and 74.6% (44-of-59) from the free-throw line, continuing promising, if limited, trend lines of improvement in those two previously frustrating areas.
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And they did that with Kanaan Carlyle out in Game 3 against Providence, Myles Rice struggling all week and Galloway just now approaching full fitness following offseason knee surgery.
This has since the summer looked like the most talented offensive team Woodson has yet coached in Bloomington. When it turned that offense on against Big East competition Friday, we were reminded why.
Experience
This is relatively self-explanatory, but teams that struggle early in seasons only tend to pull themselves together as the winter goes along if they know how.
Galloway and Anthony Leal are fifth-year players. Oumar Ballo is a sixth-year player. Reneau has been with Woodson for the best part of three years now, Mgbako two.
Rice is technically just a redshirt sophomore but it’s his fourth year in college. Carlyle and Gabe Cupps are just sophomores but sophomores that have seen a lot of floor, and no one knows the Big Ten better than Luke Goode.
This roster still clearly needs time to gel. But it has a lot of wins and combined tournament appearances among its number. What needs done won’t look too daunting.
Guard play
Yes, it has to improve. But their history suggests Galloway, Rice and Carlyle will all find their level eventually.
All have been impact guards at a high-major level over an extended period of time in their college careers. All have the capacity to be dynamic two-way players, something we’ve already seen in glimpses from Rice in his first season at IU and Galloway on his journey back to fitness following the knee surgery.
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Carlyle is still looking for his offense but has had good moments at the other end of the floor. A player who at times was essentially asked to carry Stanford last season should eventually find his level in a freer role in Bloomington.
And behind them, Cupps and Leal provide steady, solid minutes.
“Guards win games” was the maxim by which Woodson rebuilt his roster in the offseason. We have yet to see the best of that backcourt when it matters, and we are of course not guaranteed to at any point. History, though, suggests we will eventually.
Opportunity
Not in nonconference play. Indiana made its bed there, putting all its eggs in the Atlantis basket and then threw them into the ocean.
Barring a surprise package from Providence this season, the Hoosiers won’t have much to speak of from out-of-conference play on their NCAA tournament resume. If anything, there’s pressure on them now to take care with the rest of their nonconference slate, because none of those games are losable.
The Big Ten, however, provides ample opportunity.
Shaping up as one of the top three conferences in the country this season, alongside the Big 12 and the SEC, the Big Ten has 16 of its 18 teams ranked No. 76 or better in Ken Pomeroy’s national ratings. Six of those are ranked in the top 25, and 11 in the top 50 (Indiana is just outside that group, at No. 52, nationally).
Parity looks like the order of the day for now, in the nation’s largest conference, and that means most nights — home and away — will present chances for quality wins. Chances that, as they come, IU must seize.
Mike Woodson’s history
This is limited to Indiana, understand. It’s difficult to compare a college season to an NBA campaign.
But in each of his first three seasons, Woodson’s teams played their best basketball sometime between the end of January and early March. If that trend holds, this team may yet improve in the ways necessary to do the same.
IU puts its best ball on the floor in its final 9-10 games in Woodson’s first season. It found its stride in a 10-3 stretch from mid-January to late February the next year. Last season is an outlier in multiple ways, but the Hoosiers did win five in a row running into the Big Ten tournament quarterfinal, before they were rudely dismissed by Nebraska.
History does not guarantee the future. And nothing about this team’s potential guarantees its success. Indiana learned that the hard way in Atlantis this week.
But the season remains long, as does the runway for IU to land this proverbial plane. If Woodson and his players can learn from their failings in The Bahamas, there is time yet to make it right.
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: 5 reasons to believe IU basketball can still realize its potential
