How to Watch (and bet)

Date: Saturday, 3/1/25

Tip-Off Time: 3:00 pm PT

TV: None

Streaming: Peacock

Radio: Huskies Gameday App, Sports Radio KJR

Location: Seattle, WA

Betting Line: Washington Huskies +3

Indiana Hoosiers 2024-25 Statistics:

Record: 17-11 (8-9)

Points For per Game: 75.8 ppg (102nd)

Points Against per Game: 72.8 ppg (187th)

Adjusted Offensive Efficiency: 115.5 (57th)

Adjusted Defensive Efficiency: 99.6 (51st)

Strength of Schedule: 23rd

Indiana Key Players:

G- Myles Rice, So. 6’3, 185: 10.9 ppg, 2.9 rpg, 2.7 apg, 42.9% FG, 33.3% 3pt, 83.5% FT

Husky fans should be familiar with Rice who starred last season for Washington State while leading them to the 2^nd round of the NCAA tournament. His counting stats are unsurprisingly down (4 points and 1 assist per game) playing on a much more talented Indiana squad that doesn’t ask him to do as much. The shooting splits are similar except for an uptick in his outside shooting which is up 6 percentage points. Rice sometimes plays the point but has close to a 1:1 assist-to-turnover ratio and much prefers to put his head down and get to the basket as the secondary ball handler.

G- Trey Galloway, Sr. 6’5, 205: 8.0 ppg, 2.3 rpg, 4.4 apg, 43.1% FG, 33.0% 3pt, 64.1% FT

Galloway leads the team in assists at 6’5 but has a much higher turnover rate than you’d want for your primary ball handler. His outside shooting has been below average at 29% although he made 4/5 against Penn State in their last game so he’s capable of getting hot. Outside of that, Galloway doesn’t contribute a whole lot on the stat sheet. He’s a below average rebounder, doesn’t get a lot of steals, and is a pretty poor free throw shooter for a guard.

F- Luke Goode, Sr. 6’7, 203: 9.1 ppg, 2.9 rpg, 0.6 apg, 43.0% FG, 40.3% 3pt, 93.2% FT

After 3 years as a solid role player at B1G rival Illinois, Goode now plays for Indiana and is up to his same old tricks. His job is to stretch the floor at 6’7 and he does it very well. Goode is a career 39% 3-point shooter and that total is up to 45% in conference play so far in addition to making 93% of his free throws. He doesn’t do a lot of dribbling but that means Goode also almost never turns the ball over. The end result is that Goode is 2^nd in offensive efficiency in Big Ten play to counteract some iffy defense.

F- Mackenzie Mgbako, So. 6’9, 222: 12.6 ppg, 4.5 rpg, 1.1 apg, 44.8% FG, 31.8% 3pt, 82.1% FT

It’s often you get a top-10 overall prospect to come back for his sophomore year but Indiana returned Mgbako. Normally that leads to a huge leap in production but Mgbako is putting up almost identical numbers to last year except for being more efficient around the rim. He’s only hitting 26% of his three-pointers in conference play but makes 54% of his 2-point shots and 82% of his free throws while taking care of the ball and playing solid defense at 6’9. He still doesn’t look like a high NBA Draft pick but is a good if not great college player.

C- Oumar Ballo, Sr. 7’0, 265: 13.7 ppg, 9.4 rpg, 1.4 bpg, 63.8% FG, 58.4% FT

Another familiar face from the Pac-12. Ballo has come over from Arizona and not missed a beat. Each of the last 3 years he has averaged between 12.9 and 14.2 ppg, between 8.6 and 10.1 rpg, and 1.3 to 1.4 blocks per game. The big difference is that Ballo is now a much more willing passer with a career high in assists by a wide margin at 2.3 per game. He’s a wrecking ball inside with one of the highest FG% and FT rates in the country and the battle between him and Kepnang will be fun to watch. If Kepnang picks up 2 quick fouls, there’s not much of a chance of slowing Ballo down.

The Outlook

It’s fair to say that it has been a bizarre season for Indiana. Coach Mike Woodson entered the year on the hot seat but that didn’t seem to be a problem as the Hoosiers were picked 2^nd in the Big Ten preseason media poll. Indiana clearly had a ton of raw talent but there were understandable concerns about how the roster fit together given a clear lack of outside shooting despite plenty of size.

Things have gone about as poorly as possible. After a 13-3 start to the year, the Hoosiers lost 8 of their next 10 games. Many of those were close losses to good teams (2-4 in games decided by 5 points or less in that stretch) but they also got bludgeoned by Iowa and Illinois in consecutive games at the start of that run. It resulted in Woodson agreeing to step down at the end of the year.

The thing is, Indiana is squarely still on the bubble. A 2-1 or 3-0 finish to the season plus at least one win in the NCAA tournament may be enough to get them across the finish line with a resume that has wins at Michigan State and Ohio State plus a 15-point home win over Purdue. The Hoosiers still have plenty to play for despite a lame duck head coach after having won 3 of 4.

The big preseason concerns about 3-point shooting have absolutely come true. Indiana ranks 265^th nationally in 3-point percentage on offense and are 324^th in the percent of their shots coming from deep. They don’t take a lot of outside shots and when they do take them, they tend to miss a lot. Or at least they did before going 10/15 from deep on Wednesday night to beat Penn State. Hopefully Indiana used up all their shooting as they hadn’t made double digit 3-point shots in a game since January 2^nd.

Whether Indiana can actually find consistency from outside will be a major story in this game since opponents have torched Washington lately from outside. Over Washington’s last 7 games, opponents have averaged 9.7 made shots from beyond the arc on 42.7% shooting. If Indiana shoots it that well yet again with the advantages they have inside then the Huskies are toast.

That inside advantage comes from Indiana ranking 8^th in the country in average height. No one in the Indiana rotation is shorter than 6’3 and the Hoosiers have mostly settled into a 7-man rotation that always plays at least 3 players 6’7 or taller. The question mark will be if Indiana has 6’9 PF Malik Reneau available. Reneau missed Indiana’s last game with an illness that was serious enough for him to go to the Emergency Department and it’s unclear right now if he’ll make the trip to Seattle.

Indiana may have plenty of size but it hasn’t translated into an elite defense. They’re a good rebounding team but rank outside the top-100 nationally on both ends of the floor. Ballo is dominant on the glass but Reneau usually slides to center when he’s out and is only a so-so rebounder for the position. Ballo is a good shot blocker but not quite elite and Reneau/Mgbako are below average in that regard for 6’9.

It’s a fair question to wonder whether the Huskies have mentally thrown in the towel. They had a golden opportunity to make the B1G tournament but lost in OT to Rutgers and fell apart down the stretch at Iowa after leading by double digits in the first half. That turned the new goal into simply not finishing last in the conference and UW responded by getting bludgeoned at Wisconsin, trailing 30+ points for most of the 2^nd half. Wisconsin is a top-ten team in the metrics and was taking out their frustration on Washington after the Badgers blew their own huge lead to lose to Oregon in OT in the previous game. But it might be a sign that Sprinkle has lost the locker room a bit.

The Wisconsin loss marks the 3^rd team the Huskies have been destroyed on the road in Big Ten play and each of the other 2 saw UW rebound to play at or above expectations. I’m inclined to think that Sprinkle will be able to get a bounce back performance returning home with Indiana making their first and only West coast road trip of the season. But I’ll acknowledge that it also wouldn’t surprise me to see Washington let this get away from them particularly if they start out slowly.

Prediction

Washington Huskies– 76, Iowa Hawkeyes- 72