Indiana Hoosier Non-Conference Statistical Review

The Hoosiers finished what was a decent non-conference slate on Saturday with an overtime loss to Georgetown which dropped Indiana to 10-3. In my non-conference preview, I had the Hoosiers going 11-2 and the one loss difference is 100% attributable to Eastern Washington University who shocked Indiana in The Assembly Hall during November. The Hoosiers ended the non-conference ranked #44 overall in the KenPom rankings with the #10 offense, #188 defense, and #322 strength of schedule. Given all the automatic bids these days, the Hoosiers are going to have to move up a decent amount in the overall rankings to continue playing past the B1G Tournament in March. The good news for Indiana is the rest of the teams in the conference (sans Wisconsin, Maryland, and maybe Ohio State) look fairly week which leaves #4 through #14 wide open. I think the Hoosiers are going to need at least 10 wins and possibly 11 to play in the post season and they should have every opportunity to do that given the weakness we have seen in the conference thus far.

Now that we have 13 non-conference games in the books, I thought it would be a good time to take a look back at how each player is performing per minute played so far this season. First, let's start with whom is actually playing the most minutes:

There are not a lot of surprises on this list, but one that does stand out like a sore thumb is Stanford Robinson at 10.5 minutes per game. A lot of people, including myself, thought Robinson was poised for a breakout season with any improvement in his shooting as he was viewed as the best returning defensive player and had a special talent for finding his way to the rim and the foul line. He was suspended for the first two regular season games due to some off the court issues this summer and doesn't seem to have recovered from that yet as he has majorly slumped in all areas. We might have seen this coming though had we took the trip to Canada seriously as he really lagged both Johnson and Zeisloft in minutes there as well which has turned out to be a good indicator for what was going to happen this season. It also hasn't helped Robinson's case that Collin Hartman has been so good this year which has been a major surprise as well. Hartman tore his ACL in March and has made a remarkable early return to the court as he has made all of the little plays along the way to get the Hoosiers to 10 wins.

So what are the Indiana players doing with these minutes? Let's take a look at the production per minute below:

The leader when it comes to points per minute really isn't much of a surprise to Hoosiers fans. James Blackmon has really only had one bad game (against Butler) and has played extremely well in all others. Troy Williams at .54 is slightly outscoring Yogi Ferrell at .53, and along with Blackmon at .60 - these three players have really formed a potent trio for the #10 offense in the country. The surprise from the points per minute list is Emmitt Holt at .46. He hasn't played nearly as many minutes as many of the other players, but has been very productive in those minutes. As can be seen in all statistical categories above - he is really outplaying Hanner Mosquera-Perea - and if that continues, the minutes are going to increase as well.

When it comes to rebounds per minute played, Emmitt Holt is the surprise leader at .27 (excluding Nate Ritchie who has barely played). As mentioned above, he hasn't played the same kind of minutes as Hanner Mosquera-Perea, but he has shown to be more productive as Perea comes in at only .23 RPM which actually also trails Troy Williams and Collin Hartman who are both at .24. If the Hoosiers are going to be successful during the conference season, Perea is going to have to step up his game as he does add a couple extra inches of height compared to Holt and much more athleticism.

The most shocking statistic above is that Stanford Robinson leads the team in assists per minute played at .17. He has had a brutal start to the year from a field goal perspective and a turnover perspective as you will see below - but his assists have been occurring at a higher rate than Yogi Ferrell which is stunning. Yogi is not far behind at .15 and Robert Johnson comes in next at .11. In recent games, Troy Williams (.08 APM) has really played under control and is starting to rack up assists as well on kick outs to wide open three point shooters. That needs to continue to occur for Indiana to be successful down the stretch.

The one statistic that Indiana had to clean up from last season in order to have a chance was turnovers and for the most part - they have done that. Yes they struggled against Louisville and Georgetown in this department, but they have also recorded games with less than 10 turnovers which seemed impossible coming off of last year. Leading the way of players playing more than 6 minutes a game is Collin Hartman at .02. As mentioned above, the improvement we have seen from Hartman this season is incredible, especially when you consider he tore his ACL just 9 months ago. Nick Zeisloft is next best at only .03 turnovers per minute which was expected given his high basketball IQ and lack of driving ability (meaning he pretty much just catches and shoots which doesn't lend itself to turning the ball over a high rate). On the other end of the spectrum is Stanford Robinson at .13 TPM which is dreadful and almost double all other Hoosier players. While he does produce a lot of assists as seen above, the turnovers more than cancel that out when it comes to impact on the game. Robert Johnson is at .09 TPM which isn't good either, but more understandable for a freshman that is handling the ball as much as Johnson is during his first college basketball season.

Overall, it has been a very good start for Indiana this season. However, they do have some things to improve on as a team (see rebounding and defense particularly) and there are certainly improvements needed on an individual basis as well. Hanner Mosquera-Perea needs to rebound the ball better for one and Stanford Robinson needs to stop turning the ball over as well. If improvements occur versus tougher competition in the conference season, this Indiana basketball team could be incredibly dangerous come March and that is what all Indiana fans are hoping for at this point.