Horned Frogs will have upset on their minds

Hoosier fans’ emotions have run the gamut with this young team, haven’t they?

So far, we’ve seen blowouts both ways, good performances, bad performances, close wins that should have been larger and lots and lots of turnovers.

Tonight, there’s a definite chance we’ll be adding “home loss” to that list.

On its face, I see no reason Texas Christian should beat the Hoosiers.

The Horned Frogs don’t have much more height; they don’t shoot the ball incredibly well; they don’t force an inordinate amount of turnovers – nothing.

But Kentucky waits on Saturday, and I’m betting this young team doesn’t yet know how to play one game before looking ahead to another.

Furthermore, TCU coach Jim Christian is a man who knows how to win. In six years at Kent State, he never once won less than 20 games, and he left the Mid-American Conference with a better winning percentage than any other coach in conference history.

He’s a man who knows how to win.

Texas Christian is what we “gotchya media” types like to call a trap game, and my guess is the Hoosiers are about to spring the trap.

But fear not, sports fans, I’m here to tell you how the Hoosiers can avoid said trappery.

Follow along, will you?

1) Focus – This must manifest itself in defensive communication, limiting turnovers and pushing the ball inside to keep defenses from collapsing the lane. The Hoosiers have struggled with the first two at times, and against a team without much size on them, the third will be important to keeping the floor open.

2) Star power – Get the ball to Tom Pritchard. End of story.

Pritchard is a far more complete player than people realize – he just needs to assert himself better. His post moves are solid, he works well around the rim without traveling much and he creates well. He just needs to go up tough every time. Give him the chance tonight.

3) Find the hot hand – Matt Roth, Nick Williams, Devan Dumes and Malik Story have all shown the ability to light it up this year. IU needs to make sure it figures out who’s got his shot tonight and feed him as best they can.

That also means those without their stroke shouldn’t force the issue, perhaps instead looking to push the ball inside, which leads us to ...

4) Get to the free-throw line. The best way to kill an upset-minded team is to deny them momentum, and stopping play to score free points does that in spades.

Tom Crean’s bunch did a solid job of hitting its free throws Saturday in the loss to Gonzaga, knocking down 19-of-24 free ones. Hit that number from the line again tonight, and victory will be all but inevitable.

There you have it: Zachary Osterman’s foolproof, four-point forecast for avoiding the trap.

Now if I could just get Tom Crean on the phone ...

Osterman’s prediction: IU 76, TCU 71