5 reasons to believe IU basketball can still reach its potential

MIAMI – Indiana’s tour group awoke with the sun Saturday morning for a charter flight home from the Battle 4 Atlantis as the Hoosiers fought 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 desperately wanted to compete in the last time it left Nassau, following a preseason tour in Mike Woodson’s first summer in charge. Indiana was more of an idea than anything else back then, but today it’s firmly entrenched – talented, well-resourced, full of potential and deeply frustrating for its fans.

INSIDER:IU cannot eliminate Atlantis’ losses but must learn from them.

A strong blow against a depleted Providence in the seventh-place game on Friday salvaged at least something from an otherwise disappointing week.

The national rankings will disappear from Indiana’s results list for a while, and with it the luster of a potential Big Ten contender. Maybe that’s for the best. As currently constituted, this team needs time to make up for its deficiencies if it wants to fulfill its preseason promise.

And yes, that promise still stands. There are reasons to believe in this group for the long term as there is still a lot of season ahead of us. Let’s explore some of them.

Offensive strike

In the best case scenario, this team can score points with anyone on its roster. Even in a double-header against the Bahamas, four different Hoosiers scored in double figures at least once. Malik Reneau scored 21 points twice. Mackenzie Mgbako had 25 in the win at Providence, Trey Galloway had 18.

The Hoosiers shot nearly 36% from behind the arc and 74.6% (44 of 59) from the free throw line, continuing to show promising, if limited, trends for improvement in these two previously frustrating areas.

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And they did, with Kanaan Carlyle out in Game 3 against Providence, Myles Rice struggling all week and Galloway just returning to full fitness after offseason knee surgery.

This appears to be the most talented offensive team Woodson has coached in Bloomington to date since the summer. When it opened this offense against Big East competition on Friday, we were reminded why.

Experience

This is relatively self-explanatory, but teams that struggle early in a season tend to only pull themselves together over the course of the winter 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 almost three years now, Mgbako for two.

Rice is technically only a redshirt sophomore, but it is his fourth year of college. Carlyle and Gabe Cupps may be sophomores, but they are sophomores who have experienced a lot, and no one knows the Big Ten better than Luke Goode.

This squad obviously still needs time to solidify. But it has plenty of wins and combined tournament appearances in its repertoire. What needs to be done won’t look too daunting.

Guard game

Yes, it needs to be improved. But their history suggests that Galloway, Rice and Carlyle will eventually find their level.

All played high-level impact guards for an extended period of time during their college careers. They all have the ability to be dynamic two-way players, which we’ve already seen glimpses of from Rice in his first season at IU and Galloway on his road back to fitness after knee surgery.

INSIDER:IU’s new-look backcourt returns home with new injuries and new doubts

Carlyle is still finding its offense but had some good moments on the other end of the floor. A player who was essentially asked to promote to Stanford at times 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 that Woodson used to rebuild his squad in the offseason. When it comes down to it, we haven’t seen the best of this backcourt yet and of course we can’t guarantee that at any time. However, history suggests that we will eventually.

Opportunity

Not in non-conference play. Indiana set up camp there, placed all of his eggs in the Atlantis basket, and then threw them into the sea.

Aside from a surprise package from Providence this season, the Hoosiers won’t have much non-conference play to add to their NCAA Tournament resume. If anything, they are now under pressure to be cautious with the rest of their non-conference slate since none of these games can be lost.

However, the Big Ten offers plenty of opportunity.

Along with the Big 12 and the SEC, the Big Ten is one of the top three conferences in the country this season. Sixteen of their 18 teams are ranked 76th or better in the Ken Pomeroy national rankings. Six of those are in the top 25 and 11 are in the top 50 (Indiana is just outside that group nationally, ranking 52nd).

Parity appears to be the order of the day in the biggest conference in the country right now, and that means most nights – home and away – offer opportunities for quality wins. Opportunities that IU must seize when they present themselves.

Mike Woodson’s story

This is, you understand, limited to Indiana. It’s difficult to compare a college season to an NBA season.

But in each of his first three seasons, Woodson’s teams played their best basketball sometime between late January and early March. If this trend continues, this team could still improve in the ways it needs to.

IU puts its best ball on the floor in the final 9-10 games of Woodson’s first season. From mid-January to the end of February the following year, it achieved its breakthrough with a ratio of 10:3. Last season was an outlier in more ways than one, but the Hoosiers won five straight and reached the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Tournament before being unceremoniously dismissed by Nebraska.

History is no guarantee for the future. And nothing about this team’s potential is a guarantee of its success. Indiana learned that the hard way this week in Atlantis.

But the season remains long, as does the runway for IU to land that proverbial plane. If Woodson and his players can learn from their mistakes in the Bahamas, there is still time to make amends.

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