Indiana Basketball: Can Rob Phinisee regain his swagger?

After his performance last season can Rob Phinisee regain his swagger? I really hope so.

You can’t help but root for the young man. He has been a great representative of Indiana University during his time in Bloomington. Has he produced on the floor the way we hoped he would? Probably not, but I guarantee nobody feels that way more than Rob himself.

I think the frustration that fans have felt with Rob is because he just hasn’t shown the improvement from season to season that we expect. As a freshman, Phinisee averaged 6.8 points ppg and shot 36.1% from the field, and 31.0% from three. In year two those numbers showed very little improvement. 7.3 ppg, 37.4% fg, and 33.3 from three. Season three actually showed a regression, which is always disappointing. Rob’s numbers dropped to 7.1 ppg, 34.7% fg, and a woeful 26.0% from behind the arc.

Indiana Hoosiers Basketball

I am fully aware that stats don’t tell the whole story. A player’s value to his team is not able to be measured by the basic stats we all like to throw around. At the same time, stats don’t lie either.

In the areas that I mentioned, scoring and shooting, Rob has actually regressed from his freshmen year. I am not gloating about that. It brings me no pleasure to report it. I would much rather be writing about Rob’s meteoric rise.

Even Phinisee’s assist numbers have remained dormant. He averaged 2.9 as a freshman, 3.4 as a sophomore, and then back down to 2.9 as a junior.

His rebounding numbers buck the trend a bit. They have actually gotten worse. He was a decent rebounder for a 6-1 point guard in the Big Ten Conference at 3.3 a game as a freshman. That dropped to 2.5 as a sophomore and then dropped again last season to 2.3.

I don’t know how to explain that. Perhaps it was something schematically with Indiana’s defense that changed and it didn’t allow him to pursue them as much? I don’t know. If it wasn’t that, then it was just a lack of effort.

It has become pretty clear by now that Rob Phinisee’s niche on the basketball court in the Big Ten is never going to be scoring.

Rob Phinisee’s niche on this Indiana basketball going forward is going to be as a defensive stopper. He’s not a natural scorer, and he is not a dynamic point guard. He is not a consistent three-point threat, but he can defend.

In fact, new Indiana assistant coach, Dane Fife, thinks so highly of him as a defender it prompted him to say a while back, “I don’t think there’s a better defender in the league than Rob Phinisee,” Fife said. Coach Fife continued, “My personal story is a lot like Phinisee’s. Defense is his niche, and he can make money doing it if he really puts his mind to it.  And he will get confidence if he plays good defense.”

Dane Fife is more optimistic than I am about Rob’s offense. He thinks they can help Rob get his groove back, much like Fife did his senior season when he raised his three-point field goal percentage to a stellar 47.8%. I would love for Coach Fife to be right. I am just not that optimistic.

But I also don’t think that Phinisee needs to be a great three-point shooter to help this team. I think the thing he can do that will help the most is becoming an All-Big Ten Defensive Team level defender.

Coach Fife thinks he is that good. Better even. “We’ve got to get Rob Phinisee back to being an NBA-type defender, he’s that good.” That’s high praise coming from the former Co-Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year (2002).

I wrote in my roster review of Khristian Lander a few days ago that I believed that Lander is the answer for Indiana as the backup to Xavier Johnson at the point. I stand by that wholeheartedly. And that is not because I don’t like Rob Phinisee. I do. I am really glad he has chosen to play at Indiana.

But I think Rob’s role on this team is going to be as a gritty defensive stopper; a next-level defender. If he can do that, he will be hard to keep off the floor. If not, he may see the 27 minutes a game he played last season diminish.

I remember another guy about Rob’s size that carved a niche for himself with his defense at Indiana back in the early ’90s. His name was Chris Reynolds. Remember him?

If Rob is willing to sell out to this idea, his could be a big part of what Indiana does in 2021-22. That is what I am hoping will happen. If anyone can bring that defensive prowess out of Rob, I would think it would be Dane Fife. Dane was as gritty a defender as I remember at Indiana.