The Indiana basketball team rolled through its November schedule undefeated. But did the schedule help or hurt the Hoosiers?
Indiana basketball was largely untested in its first seven games of the year as the Hoosiers easily went undefeated through November. They were able to get wins to start the year while weathering the storm of not having Devonte Green for the first few games and getting Trayce Jackson-Davis adjusted to the college game.
It is a great way to start the season, but the Hoosiers still haven’t played outside of Assembly Hall. Their strength of schedule ranking is No. 342 out of 353 teams, according to Kenpom.com. To say it hasn’t been a great schedule would be an understatement. Their best win was over Louisiana Tech, who is currently 5-2, but they haven’t beaten anybody good either.
Their schedule is the reason that even at 7-0, not many people are talking about the Hoosiers and they only got 13 votes in the AP Poll. This isn’t to say that the Hoosiers aren’t any good, but we are still in wait and see mode. The good news is we get to see how good they are when they host Florida State on Tuesday night.
The biggest question, though, is did the schedule actually help or hurt the Hoosiers? There is the thought that getting wins early is never a bad thing no matter the competition. Most of sports is momentum driven and when you are winning games early you can get on a roll that can lead you to much tougher wins later in the year.
The other argument is that you have to play good teams to get better. Even if you lose those games, playing against better competition will only make you better. You have to play at a higher level to win and you must learn how to handle the pressure of playing a much more talented team.
In the eyes of the committee when it comes to selection to the NCAA Tournament, a close loss to a good team can have more bearing then beating up on the Troy’s of the world.
While the November schedule was weak, the rest of the schedule gets much tougher for the Hoosiers. They now get to prove if the 7-0 record is because of the schedule or if they are actually a good team.
To Indiana’s credit, they did what they needed to do in November and won all their games. We get to see, now, if the momentum from the wins will carry on and make the early schedule a positive or if they will get exposed and the easy wins did nothing to prepare them for what is coming up.
My guess is it will be somewhere in between. It is never a bad thing to get wins, but they aren’t battled tested yet and it could cause some problems for the Hoosiers especially with a couple of Big Ten games coming up. And those are games they don’t want to lose and get behind the standings before the conference schedule really gets going.