John Gasaway is a writer for Basketball Prospectus and is a co-author of the upcoming book, The Basketball Prospectus 2010 Major-Conference Preview. He previously wrote for the Big Ten Wonk. We recently exchanged e-mails with John to help us preview the Big Ten and Indiana because, well, he’s smarter than us. The interview is lengthy, so we’ve split it into two parts. Today: Indiana and The Basketball Prospectus 2010 Major-Conference Preview.

Inside the Hall: Indiana is coming off a tough season and is still in the midst of rebuilding. They were nearly last in the country in turnovers a season ago, which I assume you believe will improve this season because it really can’t get worse. What measurable statistics are most important for Indiana to become a competitive team in a seemingly brutal conference?

JG: Measurable statistic? Points! For and against! No, just kidding. You’re asking about the stats that precede that one, and rightfully so.

Fair enough, try this on for size: If Indiana had been playing in some kind of weird parallel hoops universe last year where turnovers were forbidden and each team’s offense was judged simply according to how well they shoot, hit the offensive glass, and make free throws, your scrappy Hoosiers, even as young as they were, would have ranked a somewhat respectable seventh in the conference in offensive efficiency in Big Ten play (instead of 11th, which is where they really came out). So, yeah, the turnovers were huge.

Moving to defense we find that IU ranked 11th there as well, allowing Big Ten opponents to score 1.12 points per trip. That’s bad, sure, but it’s not catastrophic. In recent years teams like Northwestern and Penn State have on occasion done way worse than that. So there’s hope. In fact the Hoosiers were actually normal when it came to rebounding opponents’ misses–it’s just that, uh, there were no misses. Opponents lit it up from everywhere. This year’s deeper and taller roster should help make that a thing of the past.

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John Gasaway is a writer for Basketball Prospectus and is a co-author of the upcoming book, The Basketball Prospectus 2010 Major-Conference Preview. He previously wrote for the Big Ten Wonk. We recently exchanged e-mails with John to help us preview the Big Ten and Indiana because, well, he’s smarter than us. The interview is lengthy, so we’ve split it into two parts. Today: the Big Ten and a little national perspective.

Inside the Hall: The Big Ten is once again being mentioned among the top conferences in the country. From top to bottom, where does the Big Ten stand amongst the major conferences?

John Gasaway: It stands rather confidently in a clean well-lighted place at the center of the room where the league is respected but, alas, not terribly feared. The confidence comes from the exceedingly rare spectacle of a league returning its entire all-conference team (Kalin Lucas, Evan Turner, Manny Harris, Talor Battle, and JaJuan Johnson), not to mention last year’s preseason POY (Robbie Hummel).

On the other hand the Big Ten doesn’t terrify the other major conferences unduly because, even with all those returnees, our beloved glacially-paced league isn’t exactly brimming with lottery picks or even first-rounders. Turner, obviously, is going to be putting on a ball cap and shaking David Stern’s hand very soon here, and assuming Johnson and Mike Davis start consuming protein shakes in bulk I’ve seen them listed on some mocks as late first-rounders for 2011. But Turner notwithstanding there are no Walls or Warrens or Aldriches in the league right now. None of which precludes a Final Four run by a Big Ten team or two this year, of course.

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Oh, hello there. Here’s something you may be interested in: Alex joined me at The Dagger for a quick Q and A previewing the Big Ten. Alex lent his informed opinion; I messed around. Par for the course, really.

Go check it out, or I will be very, very mad at you.

As Ryan wrote earlier this week, L. Jon Wertheim’s piece in Sports Illustrated detailing the challenge facing Tom Crean in Bloomington is a must read for any Hoosier fan.

Inside the Hall caught up with Wertheim and asked him about the thought process behind the story, his dealings with Kelvin Sampson, Crean’s relationship with Sampson and more. Our Q & A is below:

Inside the Hall: Your story is the most detailed chronicle of the last 30 months in Bloomington we’ve read. Did you go to your editors with the idea or did they assign you the task knowing you’d do best at it? How long did you work on it?

L. Jon Wertheim:  Thanks. An editor at Sports Illustrated asked me if I had interest in the story, given my Bloomington ties and IU ties. I said, ‘sure,’ thinking I would write a Tom Crean profile and just sort of rehash L’Affaire Sampson. It occurred to me, though, that while the day-to-day coverage was quite strong, no one had really told the Sampson saga from start to finish.

The larger issues of race and culture and pressure to win become clearer when you can step back a bit. Also, as I spoke to people in town—everyone from IU administrators to folks at Rosie’s diner*— it was clear that the wounds weren’t entirely healed. I visited Bloomington in mid-August and worked on the story on and off for a few weeks.
* Visit if you haven’t already done so. Best pie you will ever eat.

ITH: You were able to talk to Kelvin Sampson. We’re not aware of him talking to anyone else on the record about IU. How hard was he to track down? Did he seem annoyed by any of your questions? Did you get any sense of regret from him?

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Dan Dakich, who led the Hoosiers during one of the most chaotic stretches in school history last spring, sounded off this afternoon on the Louisville based radio show “The Front Row Ticket.” Here’s a transcript:

On the title if he were to write a book about his last six weeks at IU:

“Oh man, I don’t know. Angelo Pizzo, the guy who wrote Hoosiers, told me we need a third act and we’ve got a movie. He said it’s going to be ‘Hoosiers, Rudy and then Dakich.’ I don’t know, ‘Managing Chaos,’ I have no idea.”

On whether or not he was prepared to kick more players off the team at IU had he stayed on the job another day:

“One more day. One more day and I had two others that were outta there. There’s no doubt about that. I didn’t have time on that particular day, but you know, what Tom has done coming in there is what I told him he was going to do.”

“He had to make his own decisions. A new coach comes in, you’ve gotta figure out what you want to do and how you want to do things and give people chances. But the time Tom and I sat down and talked about it, I told him what the end result was going to be because it was not something that wasn’t obvious. It was something that absolutely needed to happen.”

“Unfortunately, in my opinion, for the players involved I think it’s unfortunate for them, because they, in my opinion again, got rid of a great opportunity, threw away a great opportunity at a great basketball program and a great school. I don’t care where you go, unless you transfer to Louisville or Kentucky or Duke or Carolina or UCLA, you’re never going to go any place that matches what IU has, other than those other schools that I just mentioned.”

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We spend plenty of time discussing IU basketball here, but there’s a whole world of hoops just beyond these borders. To help us get a national perspective — as well as discuss media and, OK, the Hoosiers too — we exchanged some lighthearted and interesting emails with ESPN.com’s Pat Forde.

Forde is one of ESPN.com’s more talented and consistently entertaining writers. He covers college football and basketball for the .com, and is a former columnist at the Louisville Courier-Journal. Our questions are in bold.

Inside The Hall: You left the Louisville Courier-Journal after 17 years in 2004 to join ESPN.com. What was the transition like moving to the most widely read sports Web site in the country? What are the pluses and the minuses of working at a newspaper versus a Web site?

Pat Forde: The transition has been great. It was hard to leave behind a lot of friends and emotional capital invested in the newspaper, and the newspaper business. It was the only place I’d ever worked as an adult. And even after moving on I’ve come to have even greater respect for some of the people there and the care given given to every story.

But if I complain about my current job, shoot me. I work for the industry leader in sports coverage, where they never think small, and never plead poverty as an excuse for not doing the job right. The impact of ESPN is amazing and was brought home to me my first fall on the job, when we broke the news that Urban Meyer had said yes to Florida. Within minutes I was on Dan Patrick’s radio show and a satellite truck was on its way to my house to do live TV for most of the rest of the day. When ESPN mobilizes to cover breaking news, it’s something to see.

As for pluses and minuses: The greatest advantages to ESPN.com are the lack of limitations. Deadlines and space are never problems, so we can cover events and issues in much greater detail than newspapers. Especially night games. Our travel budget is robust, so we go places where newspapers no longer go to report stories. The only minuses for me is the increased travel, which can be difficult with a wife and three kids. I miss a lot of stuff.

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Andy Katz is a senior college basketball writer for ESPN.com. His “Daily Word” is a staple of ESPN.com’s college hoops coverage. He is also an on-air reporter for the World Wide Leader’s coverage of college basketball and the NBA draft. We recently caught up with him and got his take on the upcoming IU season, how Kelvin Sampson is perceived by his peers, Rob Senderoff’s resignation and a few other topics. We thank Mr. Katz for his time.

Inside the Hall: With D.J White returning and the arrival of Eric Gordon, IU is back in the preseason top 10 for the first time since the 1994-1995 season. Is this team capable of a run to San Antonio and which player, White or Gordon, is the key to getting them there?

Andy Katz: Both. The Hoosiers need balance to make it to San Antonio. They haven’t had those two working parts in concert in years. If the Hoosiers get an all-American season out of White and what should be a one-and-done stellar season out of Gordon then they will have the two most important pieces in place to make a run.

ITH: The preseason media poll penciled in Michigan State as the favorite to win the conference. Are the Spartans the team to beat in the Big Ten and if so, why?

Katz: The reason was experience. The Spartans return more overall experience and have the most important player to his team in the league in Drew Neitzel. Gordon may end up having just as good a statistical season but he’s still a freshman versus a senior. It’s hard to argue that point.

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