First, apologies for the day-lateness. Thanks to an overeager waitress at Duffy’s in Chicago on Saturday night, I never wanted for a fresh Fat Tire, which, as you can imagine, is not the best way to avoid drunkenness if you’re trying to sit and watch the IU game. Many beers and a pretty tremendous hangover later, and here I am. Monday morning. Ouch.

Anyway, The Morning After is made a little bit more fun today, simply because we don’t have to gripe and whine for 1,000 words. No, Saturday’s win over Southern Illinois was about as impressive as possible, a sign that our high expectations for this team are warranted. Onward:

– 2-3 zone. Oh, the 2-3 zone! First, let’s give credit where credit is due: Southern Illinois had a bad shooting night. Whether they’re just a bad shooting team, or IU caught them on a bad time … well, that doesn’t really matter, because the Hoosiers leveraged Southern’s poor shooting with a 2-3 zone that solved multiple problems. First, it forced Southern to keep shooting from outside, thereby stopping a slew of early Saluki layups. (My table of amateur statisticians counted seven of the first eight shots as layups.) Second, it served as a way to rest an IU team that, thanks to Southern’s insatiable ball pressure, had to earn every single step forward in the half court offense. Add that to the fact that most players would rather play a million zones than one possession of half court man-to-man, and you had an IU team that looked better on defense than it has at any point in time early in the season. I still have hope that Sampson can develop this team, but it also seems equally as likely that they’re just not a very good group of ball defenders. If zone is what it takes – 2-3 against poor shooting teams’ 3-2 against good ones – then so be it. Zone it is.

– IU’s turnovers per field goal made weren’t stellar, but they were better than Tuesday’s abysmal effort against Georgia Tech. Perhaps Southern Illinois’ defense forced IU to congeal offensively, since ball pressure was heightened and trips into the lane were limited. Whatever the cause, IU looked more in sync on offense, looked more willing to make an extra swing pass, and so on. It’s good to see DJ get lots of touches in the post, for example, and be able to work into a rhythm on that little dribble fade he loves so much. It’s also lovely to see the Hoosiers work a little bit of perimeter team play into their usual diet of penetration.

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