BLOOMINGTON — When Indiana basketball added a home game against Kansas State to its nonconference schedule in late June, it felt almost like an afterthought.
Surely, neutral-site games against Marquette and Louisville, plus the long-awaited renewal of the Kentucky series, would take more serious billing. The Wildcats looked like a noteworthy name on an otherwise forgettable nonconference home slate.
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It turns out they might provide our most important measure of this Hoosiers team before the new year.
“Wow,” IU coach Darian DeVries said Monday when asked for his thoughts on Kansas State. “That’s what I say about the way they’re playing offense right now.”
There was no disrespect in overlooking Kansas State, when it joined the schedule mid-summer. Kentucky, Marquette and Louisville each enjoy historical connections to Indiana, to one degree or another.
Louisville and IU, not quite rivals, still enjoy a mutual, regional contention. Indiana played Marquette on its way to the 1976 national title, before Marquette won the same tournament a year later. Kentucky is Kentucky.
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The Hoosiers have faced Kansas State 31 times, but not since a one-point win the opening round of the 1998 Maui Invitational. Last season, Jerome Tang’s team finished underwater both in the Big 12 and overall, the Wildcats’ postseason lasting only through a brief stay in their conference tournament.
Tang did not waste the offseason though, pulling together a new starting lineup via the transfer portal and, in Elias Rapique’s case, Germany.
It’s working so far. Players who last season played their trade with Memphis, Akron, Monmouth, UNC Wilmington and ALBA Berlin now anchor one of the most explosive attacks in America.
A top-40 offense nationally per KenPom, through six games Kansas State has yet to score fewer than 84 points in a single 40 minutes. Four times in those six, the Wildcats have scored 93 or more, and they’re one of the 10 most accurate 3-point shooting teams.
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Perhaps most telling for Indiana: Kansas State opened Monday No. 28 nationally in adjusted tempo, and No. 39 in Division I experience.
Tang’s team plays fast, shoots well and won’t be intimidated by the moment. We haven’t seen a proper stress test of Indiana’s defensive growth — or lack thereof — like the one coming Tuesday night.
“They’re getting out, and they’re getting out fast,” DeVries said. “In transition, and they put a lot of pressure on your defense to get organized and get put together in a hurry. They have a lot of guys that can shoot it.”
Of course, the turnabout is the Wildcats have needed that offense pretty consistently.
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They’re 88th nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency, per KenPom. They allowed 83 points to Tulsa in a game they nearly lost, and another 86 in a neutral-floor loss to Nebraska on Friday night.
But nothing has quite encapsulated the Kansas State experience, in this season’s first month, as a Nov. 13 home win against Cal.
The Wildcats led that game by 25 late in the first half, and scored a staggering 55 points in the opening 20 minutes. And they needed all 99 they eventually put up to hold off Cal’s late charge, the Bears scoring 37 points in the final 10 minutes of a 99-96 Kansas State win.
Everything was on display: Kansas State’s devastating offensive capacity, the Wildcats’ extreme tempo and their undeniable defensive weakness.
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What makes Tuesday night so important is not simply the quality of opponent — though as Marquette has slipped from the KenPom top 50, Kansas State has snuck quietly into it. Indiana will see better teams this season.
This one, though, tests something basic and important about Darian DeVries’ first Indiana team.
The Hoosiers want to run and shoot and make you chase and play their pace, until you’re eventually swept under by the weight of all that. But Kansas State won’t be bothered by that pace. The Wildcats can score at the same rate. Returns early in the season suggest that even if they go quiet offensively for any length of time, they can explode back into a game at a moment’s notice.
“I know going into the other night — I don’t know if it’s still true, I didn’t look at the updated stats — but they were the No. 1 3-point shooting team in the country, and they’re playing like it,” DeVries said. “They’re shooting with that type of confidence.
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“It will be a great test for us in not only transition but our half-court defense.”
If the game is played on Indiana’s floor and on Indiana’s terms, then Indiana needs to win it. Otherwise, what can we expect of the Hoosiers when those most fundamental factors aren’t in their favor?
For the neutral, and what figures to be a sizable Assembly Hall crowd with the holiday, it ought to be a fun game. And for IU, it should be revealing, one way or another.
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana basketball vs Kansas State preview, offense, stats, defense
