Game Preview: Indiana vs. Florida Gulf Coast - notes, storylines, TV
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – The first regular season game of Indiana basketball's season is here. The Hoosiers (0-0, 0-0) open the 124th year of men's college basketball on Tuesday night versus Atlantic Sun foe Florida Gulf Coast (0-0, 0-0) inside Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.
Indiana is entering the third season under head coach Mike Woodson, looking to build off of back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances at the first two chances of asking. Indiana swept through both of their exhibitions, pulling away from a sluggish first half against UIndy to a 22-point victory and throttling Marian by 33 points last week.
Now, the games begin to count. Preview the Hoosiers' first matchup of the year with everything you need to know about the visiting Eagles.
Opponent Profile
Head Coach: Pat Chambers
13th Season, 2nd at FGCU
Career Record: 207-193, 17-15 at FGCU
Chambers' second season at the helm of the Eagles' program starts in Bloomington, facing an Indiana program that he's had trouble against in the past. During the nine years Chambers spent as the head coach of Penn State, the Nittany Lions won just three of the 15 meetings between the two programs.
"We are excited to begin next season against one of the premier programs in college basketball. Playing in Bloomington and at Assembly Hall will be a great experience for our team!" Chambers said in a release back in May. "We look forward to the challenge and opportunity vs an extremely talented Hoosiers team."
Chambers' career as a head coach also includes a stop at Boston College, where he spent two seasons prior to his move to State College.
Last Season
Last season in Fort Myers, the Eagles put together a 17-15 record which included a 10-3 non-conference slate – the best mark in program history. However, the 7-11 play in the Atlantic Sun landed the Eagles as a 10-seed in the ASUN tournament, where they lost in the first round to Queens.
According to KenPom, Florida Gulf Coast finished last season with the 175th-best offense and 196th-ranked defense. Overall, the Eagles were the 185th-ranked team in the country.
Offensively, the factor that stands out about the Eagles is how they found their points on the outside, scoring 38.3 percent of their points from the perimeter. Only 12 teams across all of college basketball found a higher percentage of their points from three-point range. Last season, the Eagles took 832 attempts from distance, converting on 35.5% of their attempts.
This Season
The Eagles come into the season as KenPom's 148th-best team in the country. In the Atlantic Sun preseason poll, the coaches around the conference selected Florida Gulf Coast to finish second behind league favorite Eastern Kentucky, and the media tabbed a fourth place finish upon Chambers' Eagles.
Returning their top four scorers from a season ago and 11 players overall, FGCU will not be any sort of contest Indiana can sleepwalk through. Here's the players to get familiar with ahead of the matchup:
– Purdue transfer and fifth-year senior guard Isaiah Thompson earned third-team All-Conference honors last season for his efforts in his first season in Fort Myers. This year, there's eyes on Thompson again as he was selected to the Preseason All-ASUN team ahead of the campaign. Shooting splits of 38.3/37.6/86.0 suggest that Thompson isn't afraid to hunt his shot, scoring 14.9 points per game last season, but his issue comes in efficiency. Last season, the lead guard took 25.4 percent of the FGCU shots when he was on the floor. The majority of them, as the team's overall offensive philosophy suggests, came from the outside – taking 218 threes out of 371 attempts from the field. For Thompson to take the next step this season, he'll need to be more consistent with his makes from the field.
*As of Tuesday morning, Thompson is a game-time decision for the contest – dealing with an upper body injury – per Jon Rothstein.*
– Redshirt senior guard Chase Johnston, who's on his third different team in college, makes up the other half of the starting FGCU backcourt – likely ascending into the role after the graduation of Caleb Cotto following the conclusion of last season. In 25.8 minutes per game during his first season in Fort Myers, Johnston was the primary ball-handler and scorer off the bench – scoring 12.7 points/game and also finding a majority of his buckets from beyond the arc (78-209 on threes last season). Johnston is more of a shooter than Thompson, as Johnson only got to the line for 41 free throws in 31 games last season. His 12.4 free throw rate was the lowest amongst qualified players on last year's team.
– Junior forward Zach Anderson is the next piece to this veteran, experienced roster to return this season. Anderson started in 25 of 29 games last season and was the leading rebounder for the Eagles despite his listed height of 6-foot-7. Anderson was an efficient 11.7 point-per-game scorer last season, doing so on 47.9/37.3/72.7 shooting splits. The Florida native is a versatile wing who can get downhill and defend multiple positions on the perimeter as well.
– Redshirt junior center Andre Weir is the plug in the middle of the lane for the Eagles. While only playing in 44.8 percent of the minutes last season and just 19.2 minutes per game, Weir was effective in the middle, scoring 9.2 points and hauling in 6.0 rebounds a game. His 5.4 fouls/40 minutes are an area of concern, but he's a solid rebounder despite his lower totals, which stem from his smaller share of minutes on the floor last season. Last season, his 13.6 offensive rebound percentage was 43rd-best among all qualified rebounders. The main rim protector returning from last season, Weir blocked 25 shots in 29 games last season.
Storylines To Monitor
Can Indiana avoid early season antics?
Indiana, and the rest of the country, saw first hand what can happen if a team isn't able to put away a lesser team early on Monday night as James Madison, who came into the evening as the No. 136 team on KenPom, defeated AP preseason No. 4 Michigan State on the road in overtime. The Florida Gulf Coast team coming into Assembly Hall, from a roster experience standpoint, is the opposite of Indiana's – a cohesive unit that's bound to take a leap this year in Chambers' second season.
FGCU is the highest-rated team Indiana has opened the season with since 2017-2018, a game the Hoosiers lost 90-69 to then 138th-ranked Indiana State at home – the first game of the Archie Miller in Bloomington.
Indiana will be the better team on paper on both sides of the floor, but not by as considerable a margin as the gap between the Hoosiers and other season-opening opponents has been in years past. IU must come out with intent and intensity in the season's first true contest.
"Florida Gulf Coast is a good basketball team," Indiana head coach Mike Woodson said on Monday. "So we've got to come ready to compete and put in a 40-minute ball game."
Defensively limit the perimeter threat.
The numbers don't lie in suggesting how the Eagles will want to attack the Hoosiers: early and often from beyond the arc. It's generally a recipe for how upsets of this caliber would be sprung – shooting well from distance and playing sound defensively, at least enough to disrupt the rhythm of their opponent. Indiana's length and athleticism all over the floor will force a lot of teams to adjust and shoot from outside this season given the ability to crash on the inside, but there aren't many more teams that will be comfortable with that approach than FGCU.
Marian scored 27 of their 35 first half points from distance in the final exhibition before a halftime adjustment and some missed shots aided the Hoosiers in pacing the Knights in the finale to their preseason slate. Indiana will likely face a similar style of attack on Tuesday.
It's not the only point of emphasis Woodson has been hammering home in practice, either.
"We are not really familiar yet with our defensive rotations the backside of our defense," Woodson said. "That is something that we've got to get better. And we've got to rebound the ball better."
It's a solid chance for the Hoosiers to come out against a quality opponent and get off on the right foot this season. Indiana would do well to take advantage of it.
Quick Hitters
Who?: Indiana (0-0, 0-0 in Big Ten play) vs. UIndy (0-0, 0-0 in the Great Lakes Valley play)
Series History: Indiana leads, 1-0. (Last Meeting: IU 88, FGCU 60 on 11/12/10)
When?: Tuesday, November 7, 6:30 p.m. ET
Where?: Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, Bloomington, Indiana
TV: Big Ten Network: Mattt Shumacker (play-by-play), Robbie Hummel (color)
Radio: IU Radio Network, Don Fischer (play-by-play), Errek Suhr (analyst), John Herrick
Vegas: Indiana -12.5, o/u 143.5
KenPom: Indiana 79-67, 86% chance of victory
–––––
Like this content? Join the conversation on TheHoosier.com's premium message boards and subscribe today!
– Follow TheHoosier on Twitter and Facebook!
– Subscribe to TheHoosier on YouTube for more content
– TheHoosier's Premium Football Board and Premium Hoops Board