The injury to OG Anunoby could doom Indiana’s season

Indiana Hoosiers star OG Anunoby will miss the remainder of the season with a knee injury. What does that mean for the Hoosiers’ season?

Indiana’s OG Anunoby went down with a knee injury on Wednesday, and per Adrian Wojnarowski, will miss the rest of the season after undergoing knee surgery. Considering how much of a roller coaster ride the Hoosiers’ season has been thus far, losing a player of that caliber for the rest of the season is going to be a big blow going forward.

With the news that Anunoby will be out for the season, Tom Crean can start to prepare and build towards the postseason knowing he won’t have one of his most reliable players available. So what exactly does this injury mean for Indiana going forward?

Indiana has already had a very up-and-down season. While they have some excellent wins against the likes of Kansas and North Carolina, several of their losses have come to weaker squads like Fort Wayne or Nebraska. While I have previously detailed what makes them such a volatile team, how exactly does the loss of Anunoby affect that?

Since the three-point shot is such a large part of their arsenal, the Hoosiers are prone to large fluctuations in production based on whether or not the shots are falling. The absence of Anunoby, one of the worst long-distance shooters on the team at just over 31% for the year, may actually help Indiana in that area. In their six losses this year, Anunoby has shot just 3-15 (20%) from beyond the arc. In wins, that goes up to 11-30 (36.6%).

Anunoby isn’t big on creating those shots he gets for himself, either. He spends a lot of his time on offense camped around the three-point arc, so every single one of his made threes this season has been assisted per Hoop-Math. Additionally, of all the guards and wings on the team that see significant minutes ( over 50 percent of those available), he has the highest percentage of his two-point jumpers and shots around the rim assisted. That kind of production can be replaced much more easily than that of a go-to scorer who is constantly breaking down the defense and making plays for others.

While Anunoby is efficient (61.5% effective field goal percentage, third among Indiana’s rotation players), he often gets open looks because of the abilities of his teammates. Whether it’s Thomas Bryant on the block or James Blackmon on the perimeter, players defending Anunoby always have to be ready to help and are able to do so because of Anunoby’s weak outside shooting. When some of those minutes go to better shooters than Anunoby, getting those kinds of open shots will be a boon and really open up their offense for the star players to go to work.

Many of Anunoby’s minutes will likely go to 6-foot- reserve Juwan Morgan. Morgan is one of the guys ahead of Anunoby with a 63.4 eFG%, though like Anunoby, he is an abysmal outside shooter. He has shot just 23.5% from three on less than one attempt per game. There is hope for Morgan, though, as he shot well from deep last season, albeit on a very small amount of attempts (5-of-11 overall). What Morgan does do well, however, is getting to the rim. According to Hoop-Math, just over 63% of his shots have come at the rim and he has shot an unbelievable 80% on those shots (36-of-45). Morgan also has an offensive rebounding percentage several points higher than Anunoby, and when paired with guys like Bryant or De’Ron Davis, the Hoosiers will start to see even more extra possessions than before.

Playing in more good lineups, especially alongside the starters, will only help Morgan’s efficiency. Per Synergy Sports, 15.9 percent of his possessions come as a cutter and he converts at a ridiculous 1.556 points per possession, good for the 96th percentile nationally. When the Hoosiers dump it down to Bryant on the block or let Blackmon slash from the outside, Morgan’s defender will turn his head and create even more lanes for him to fill. When Morgan does decide to fire away from the outside, he should get more open looks that will help his percentages. According to Synergy, almost 73 percent of his catch and shoot attempts have been guarded and he shoots a miserable 12.5 percent on those shots compared to 33.3 percent on those that are uncontested.

Because Anunoby is not a much better shooter than Morgan (he shoots the same 33.3 percent on unguarded catch and shoot jumpers), the switch won’t hurt Indiana’s spacing a lot and could actually increase their offensive productivity. Taking less shots from the outside (13 percent less of Morgan’s shots are threes than Anunoby’s) and getting more high-percentage looks at the rim should help to temper some of the volatility Indiana has seen early this season, at least on the offensive end.

Where losing Anunoby for the season will hurt the Hoosiers the most is on the defensive end. He is ranked the #10 prospect overall for the 2017 NBA Draft by DraftExpress and the top sophomore. Because of the offensive deficiencies discussed earlier, those projections come from the expectation that he will be a top-notch defender at the next level. Anunoby is listed at 6-foot-8 and 215 pounds, a good size for a wing, but where he really stands out are his arms. He has a ridiculous 7-foot-6 wingspan that allows him to cover a huge amount of ground and guard players much bigger than he is, drawing him comparisons to reigning back-to-back NBA Defensive Player of the Year Kawhi Leonard.

Anunoby’s atypical measurements allow him to switch and guard just about any player on the floor. His combination of speed and length allow him to stay in front of even lightning-quick guards and because of his reach can hold his own down low with behemoths bigger than he is. That kind of versatility is impossible to replace, and could seriously damage a defense that has been porous at times this year. While Indiana has the 13th-ranked offense, per Kenpom, their defense is down at 87th and losing their best player on that end of the floor could tank their season.

Anunoby ranks in the top 225 nationally in both block and steal percentage, according to Kenpom, and his go-go gadget arms are the reason why. Losing that production will be big for an Indiana team that already struggles to create turnovers and allows opponents to shoot 52.4 percent at the rim. Still having to face five offenses in the top 25 of Kenpom’s adjusted offensive efficiency rankings, not having Anunoby could cause the Hoosiers to drop a few more games than they otherwise would. Dropping down a few seeds in both the Big Ten and NCAA Tournaments doesn’t seem like a lot, but having to face elite teams earlier on could mean an earlier exit for Indiana.

While Tom Crean and company will still make the NCAA Tournament barring a disaster, Anunoby being gone could torpedo their title dreams. In tournament play where one game decides everything, one hot streak from the opponent could do you in. That often means doing everything you can to lock down the opposition’s best player, and Anunoby was a one-man wrecking crew in that department. In last season’s tournament, Indiana, a No. 5 seed, drew 4th-seeded Kentucky in the Round of 32. Then still a relative unknown, Anunoby almost singlehandedly shut down future lottery pick Jamal Murray, who shot 7-of-18 including just 1-of-9 from three. If Indiana faces a guy like Malik Monk or Dillon Brooks in the postseason this year, not having their stopper could cost them their season.

While Anunoby isn’t a star or offensive game-changer like Thomas Bryant or James Blackmon, his versatility on defense might be the most important part of Indiana’s game. With much of the winter still to go, losing a major contributor and thereby shortening their rotation will hurt them as well. Indiana still projects to be one of the best teams in the Big Ten even without Anunoby, but his injury might be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel’s back of their title hopes.

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To make up for what they will lose defensively, Tom Crean is going to have to find a way to steady his team’s offense. Bouts of inconsistency like they have faced already this year would surely do them in, so to be a contender from here on out, the Hoosiers will have to be an offensive juggernaut even more than they’ve been so far. With the likes of Bryant, Blackmon, Robert Johnson, and Josh Newkirk still on the roster, that’s not entirely out of the question for the team in Bloomington.