IU looked fantastic Friday night.
It beat Mississippi Valley State 116-65 in the season opener and couldn’t have looked better doing it.
Everybody knew the offense would be better, but nobody quite expected this to happen. Freshman guard James Blackmon scored 25. Freshman forward Max Hoetzel had 19. Junior guard Yogi Ferrell had 15. Junior guard Nick Zeisloft had 16.
The one thing that could be viewed as a negative: IU turned the ball over 19 times, and 13 times in the first half.
But calm down. This shouldn’t be viewed as bad.
Here’s the thing, IU was downright terrible last season with holding onto the ball. Out of 351 teams in college basketball, IU was No. 330 in turnover percentage. It turned the ball over 21.8 percent of the time, which is awful.
For those of you who are math scholars, that means one out of every five possessions IU had, it turned the ball over.
IU played a fast-paced style, which by trade produces a lot of turnovers. But still, turnovers were one of the downfalls of last year’s team.
Ferrell was the only above average ball handler IU had. Then-freshmen Stan Robinson and Troy Williams were often out of control. Then-sophomore Hanner Mosquera-Perea turned the ball over 25.7 percent of the times he touched it.
Turnovers, along with a lack of perimeter shooting, killed the Hoosiers 2013-14 season.
Friday night, during the first half at least, people were saying the same thing.
But like I said earlier, calm down.
It’s obvious Mississippi Valley State practices one thing a lot: trapping. They loved to trap out of both the 2-3 zone and when they extended their pressure full court.
They’re very good at it, too. The Delta Devils are no VCU, but their defense will wreak havoc on several teams this year. IU just had too much talent to get bogged too heavily down by the Delta Devil defense.
That’s why I’m saying the amount of turnovers shouldn’t be viewed as an issue. IU, in its first game of the season, had to go up against a team that’s main objective was to create chaos on defense.
Plus, it was the first of several IU players’ games in their career. The nerves had to be a factor.
This team has several more ball handlers than it did last season. Ferrell, Blackmon and Johnson all are great ball handlers. And all three of them started Friday.
When you basically have three legitimate point guards out there, your turnovers will go down.
That takes a lot of pressure off of Robinson and Williams, because they don’t have to be primary ball handlers.
The turnover issue isn’t gone. It’s still there.
But it’s much better than last year. That’s for sure.
ehoopfer@indiana.edu
