IU vs. Tennessee overreactions: Myles Rice could be Big Ten's top PG, Oumar Ballo is fine

IU vs. Tennessee overreactions: Myles Rice could be Big Ten’s top PG, Oumar Ballo is fine

Posted by Admin October 28, 2024 Basketball

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IU basketball‘s 66-62 exhibition win at Tennessee on Sunday was just that: a victory in the preseason, when results ultimately do not count.

So let’s overreact to it.

Bearing in mind all the necessary caveats, there was still plenty to be encouraged by Sunday. Here are three overreactions:

IU vs. Tennessee player ratings: How new-look Indiana fared in exhibition win

Myles Rice can be the best point guard in the Big Ten

Not “is,” but certainly “can be.”

Rice was outstanding Sunday, playing through cramps to deliver a 20-point, four-assist performance on his debut. If his 3-point shot (0-of-3 Sunday) comes around, he will have a complete offensive game to draw on, and his free throws ultimately sealed the win, even if he’d liked to have made a couple more.

More than that, Rice’s ability to feel and control the pace of the game shone through every one of the 31 minutes he was on the floor.

Teammates and coaches have raved since the summer about Rice’s dynamism and speed, and there were moments when Tennessee got a rude awakening as to why. Rick Barnes’ program prides itself on its defense but struggled to control Indiana’s new point guard, who on this evidence absolutely can challenge the likes of Braden Smith and Dylan Harper for top honors at his position.

Oumar Ballo’s 6-point, 11-rebound performance was fine

Perhaps no transfer arrived to greater fanfare than Ballo, a two-time All-Pac-12 first-team selection during his Arizona career. A preseason poll of league media picked Ballo as its transfer of the year, and he even received a small handful of player-of-the-year votes.

IU fans seemed concerned, then, by Ballo’s halting offensive performance Sunday, during which he also committed three turnovers and sometimes looked sloppy in the post. But on this team, Ballo will be most important at the other end of the floor.

The Hoosiers struggled badly rebounding the ball and, at times, defending the rim last season. Too often, possessions weren’t closed out because Indiana simply wasn’t tough enough. Ballo’s performance Sunday was a reminder he immediately solves that problem. His 11 boards were a game high, and IU almost doubled up Tennessee in attempted layups (23-12), because the Volunteers had no interest taking the ball to the rim against Indiana’s 7-footer.

There will be nights Ballo dominates offensively, and nights IU needs him to. But with so many other potential scoring options around him, there will also be plenty of games like this one, when Indiana asks Ballo to control the paint and the rim and not worry about the other end of the floor.

3-point shooting concerns will disappear when shots fall

And not before.

Indiana was 4-of-19 from behind the arc Sunday, and 4-of-8 in the second half. Which of course translates to 0-of-11 in the first half.

It’s a familiar refrain, but plenty of those misses were good looks that didn’t fall. Yes, it’s a road arena, and yes, it’s a preseason game, and yes, IU made the ones it needed most, like Malik Reneau’s smooth pick-and-pop action with Rice late in the second half. Heck, even give Indiana credit for attempting 19, and 11 in one half. Embracing that volume is encouraging by itself.

But IU fans have given too many teams too much grace behind the 3-point line to assume poor shooting performances will be an outlier until the Hoosiers’ improvement proves otherwise. Indiana got good shots. When it starts making them, its fans will stop fretting.

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