Indiana Basketball: “Roulette Questions” for upcoming season

Here are some roulette questions for Indiana Basketball

College basketball is one week away, and Indiana is left with questions. I have come up with a few topics worth noting as we prepare for a pivotal year for the program.

I’m calling these topics “roulette topics” because at this point if you were to bet money on an outcome winning would require as much skill as betting on black. No one knows how these things will play out. You could say there is a 50/50 chance for either scenario to play out. Let’s get to it.

New offense

More modern, better suited to personnel, Hoosiers make strides offensively

OR

Could be poorly implemented, rigid, and ignore the strengths of players.

I have a huge love/hate relationship with Archie Miller as the head coach. It’s like dating a pretty girl with a great personality, who makes you laugh and makes you a better person, but who has absolutely no musical taste whatsoever. There’s a lot to like but every time you get in the car and the Bluetooth connects to her phone it’s going to be like listening to nails on a chalkboard for 30 minutes. Even if you stick with the girl, you’re always going to be hoping that aspect of her changes.

For me, Miller’s equivalent of a poor taste in music is his inability to coach offense. He is a fantastic recruiter, a good leader, and a good defensive coach, but the offense has been absolutely atrocious during his time at Indiana. What makes it so upsetting to me is the solution seems so simple yet it is always overlooked.

Part of the reason for the Hoosiers’ offensive struggles is that Miller needed time to build his own roster. The roster never really felt like a unit capable of playing together cohesively on offense. For instance, Romeo Langford is a phenomenal offensive talent, but a lack of shooting on the roster meant teams could just clog the lane and take away his biggest strength with relative ease. That isn’t Miller’s fault.

At the same time, Miller did play a role in mismanaging Langford. He never set up plays to use Langford’s adept mid-range game and never made an attempt to surround him with better shooters. Last season, Miller insisted on posting Trayce Jackson-Davis up time and time again last season even though Jackson-Davis is not a low post scorer.

One thing is for certain: there will be a new offensive system in place this season. It probably won’t be radically different, but players have expressed more satisfaction with it in preseason interviews. The fact that Miller is willing to change the offense is a really good sign to me.

At the same time, it is concerning that it took this long to do something about the offensive problems. The fact that it has taken so long to address makes me wonder if anything can be done to improve this team’s scoring ability.

Some coaches are so entrenched in their strategies that they never change and the game passes them by. Most Big Ten teams are playing 2020 basketball. Last season, Indiana played 1980s basketball, and they were outmatched almost every single game offensively. Opponents are using an iPhone 12 offense and Miller is using a flip phone offense.

It may be that Indiana comes out with a shiny new offense built for the modern game of basketball and thrives. It is equally possible that Miller just can’t coach offense and we see no improvement from the last three seasons.