Indiana men’s basketball: Battle 4 Atlantis Preview

Basketball in The Bahamas.

Indiana men’s basketball is set to begin its premiere non-conference event in this year’s Battle 4 Atlantis, starting with a Wednesday morning matchup with Louisville.

Outside of the Cardinals, the Battle 4 Atlantis field also features Gonzaga, Arizona, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Providence, and Davidson. The full bracket is linked below:

As the schedule stands, Indiana does not have any non-conference opponents in the top 50 of KenPom’s current rankings, so getting a shot at either Gonzaga or Arizona is imperative for Indiana this week. Otherwise, the tournament resume will have to consist entirely of Big Ten wins.

I’m not going to lie, the full bracket is a little confusing to me, but I can say with confidence that a win against Louisville would likely give Indiana a shot at Gonzaga in the second round.

KenPom gives Indiana a 61% chance of victory against Louisville, predicting a 77-74 final. The key to this game will likely be how well Louisville shoots it from behind the arc/how well Indiana defends the perimeter, because the Cardinals like to chuck it.

More on that matchup here.

Assuming the favorites win both first round games, Indiana will find itself matched up with No. 3 Gonzaga, an undefeated team with wins over Baylor, Arizona State, and and San Diego State already this season.

While Gonzaga would likely enter a matchup with Indiana as heavy favorites, they could be a favorable matchup for this year’s Indiana team. The Bulldogs aren’t an elite shooting team and play primarily through a pair of forwards in Graham Ike and Braden Huff.

A win here would arguably be the best non-conference win of the Woodson era, but even a close loss would likely bode well for Indiana’s analytical profile. What cannot happen is a blowout loss followed by lackluster wins against the other mediocre teams in the bracket.

If Indiana can somehow find itself matched up with Arizona, a win would look okay right now, but stock in the Wildcats is falling after consecutive losses to Wisconsin and Duke. There’s plenty of time for Tommy Lloyd to right the ship, but there’s no guarantee a win against Arizona looks super good come Selection Sunday.

Outside of the individual games, the tournament format will force Mike Woodson to make some tough decisions regarding rotations and lineups.

Oumar Ballo is already logging a career-high in minutes per game, so he’ll probably need to see his usage tapered a bit for him to play on back to back days. This will mean more staggering of him and Reneau and more small ball lineups.

That said, small ball lineups can mean a lot of things with this Indiana team. While Kanaan Carlyle has struggled to find consistency, Bryson Tucker has seen a lot more minutes at the shooting guard spot alongside two other wings.

We’ve also seen a good amount of Trey Galloway and Myles Rice playing alongside each other, giving Indiana two initiators and distributors on the court at once.

We haven’t seen any of these lineups produce the higher volume of 3-point looks that we’d hoped for, but the quality of the looks has improved as well as the shooting percentage. How this changes as Indiana plays more small ball in this tournament format will be something to monitor.