One of Indiana’s biggest games of the year is upon us.
The No. 22 Hoosiers are set to take on No. 6 Louisville on Saturday afternoon at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana. Both teams sit at 7-1
and are coming off their first loss of the season, Indiana falling to Minnesota and Louisville to its old friend John Calipari and Arkansas.
It should be a fun one to watch at least. Here’s three things to know about the game:
Stats to know: Cardinal pace and space
Quite a bit has been made of the shift in Indiana’s style of play under new head coach Darian DeVries, who has re-introduced leveraging the 3-point line after almost a decade of shooting-deficient offenses in Bloomington. The Hoosiers aren’t the fastest team around, but they get down the court when they can.
Well Louisville is the supercharged version of that. Here’s where the two teams rank in key stats, via KenPom:
- Adj. Tempo: Indiana 177th, Louisville 47th
- Avg Possession Length (offense): Indiana 128th, Louisville 10th
- 3P%: Indiana 68th, Louisville 111th
- 3PA/FGA: Indiana 56th, Louisville 3rd (oh)
- A/FGM: Indiana 6th, Louisville 19th
Yeah, if there’s a stylistic thing going on here, Louisville is ahead of Indiana by a considerable amount. The Hoosiers are above average in every category except for adj. tempo, where they’re just about the average in the sport. That doesn’t mean Louisville is better (that’s a separate discussion, but the Cards have shown themselves to be) but it does mean Indiana may be more well equipped to at the very least attempt to keep pace.
Player to know: Mikel Brown Jr.
Mikel Brown Jr. was actually one of the last high school recruits Mike Woodson and co. were in on before he opted for Louisville once Pat Kelsey established proof of concept in The ‘Ville.
He went into this season as a pretty firmly established prospect for next year’s NBA Draft and he’s looked the part up to this point. He has great size for the point guard spot at 6’5” and gets plenty of shots up in an offense designed for just that.
Brown averages 17.6 points, 3.5 rebounds and 5.6 assists while shooting 27.4% from long range (on 7.8 attempts) and 39.6% from the field in 27.5 minutes per game. It’s very much not the Mikel Brown Jr. show, four Cards average double digits and more than a few pass the ball well, but he’s the head of the snake, to use an old cliche.
He’s a lot to handle between his size and overall volume. The shooting percentages aren’t great but he makes up for that in volume. If he’s really hitting shots? That’s a huge problem.
The doubleheader effect
There’s two Hoosier teams playing in Indy on Saturday, with No. 2 Indiana taking on No. 1 Ohio State in the Big Ten Football Championship Game in the evening.
With that in mind, there’s gonna be a solid amount of crossover between the two and tickets for this one will be in demand. Both Louisville and Ohio State are within easy driving distance of Indianapolis, so the crowd makeup will be interesting to say the least.
