Rush The Court

Yogi Ferrell’s basketball career has been one of big expectations, beginning a decade ago when he was ranked as the best player in his class as a 4th grader. He’s been the starting point guard since arriving in Bloomington, when he debuted on a team that spent a good portion of the season as the top-ranked squad in the country and featured two future lottery picks in Cody Zeller and Victor Oladipo. As a sophomore he was asked to carry the offense on an underwhelming squad that finished 17-15 and didn’t sniff the postseason. Turnovers plagued the Hoosiers last season (21.8% of all possessions), and miscues off the floor are threatening to derail this season. Turmoil in the wake of two players involved in a serious accident and two others now suspended for failing a summer drug test have brought out the vultures. The Hoosier fan base is losing patience with Tom Crean, but criticism has a way of petering out when a team starts winning. Now as a junior, Ferrell’s role has become even more important on a team littered with underclassmen and under fire from various sources.

The Hoosiers owned the 33oth worst turnover percentage in the country last season, and it would be easy to blame their point guard for those numbers. But in reality, Ferrell possessed an 18.0 percent turnover rate on 25.0 percent usage. To put that into context, other lead guards around the conference, such as Derrick Walton, Keith Appling, Aaron Craft and Traveon Jackson, turned the ball over at a higher rate than Ferrell despite a lower usage rate. He also led the team in scoring (17.3 PPG) and assists (3.9 APG) last season. His shooting numbers weren’t great around the rim, but he drilled 40.0 percent of his shots from behind the arc and converted 82.4 percent from the foul line. One could reasonably argue that he should have done a better job getting another lottery pick, Noah Vonleh, involved in the offense, but there were also times when the big man simply wasn’t assertive enough or in foul trouble. With shooters on the wing this year like freshmen James Blackmon Jr. and Robert Johnson, Ferrell shouldn’t have to feel like he has to score quite so much. The Hoosiers appear to be thin in the post on the defensive end, so Ferrell and the wings like Stanford Robinson and Troy Williams will have to fly around the perimeter to hassle opposing ball-handlers. This team should strive to play up-tempo on both ends of the court to counteract its relative lack of size in the pivot.

Ferrell also has another extremely important task that goes beyond his performance on the court. This team is screaming out for leadership right now. I’m not here to jump on a soapbox to preach about how to avoid making stupid decisions in college because I was the king of making of stupid decisions in college. But if these players care about the Indiana Basketball brand and their embattled head coach, someone needs to step in and say enough is enough. Ferrell himself was cited for underage consumption of alcohol and having a fake ID last spring, and the external view of the program is as if the players don’t really care. The junior has seen a lot in his time in Bloomington, but it’s time for him to emulate the work ethic and leadership of Oladipo and Zeller in order to right the ship. The easiest motivational tactic in sports is one where nobody believes in the team, and the Hoosiers have that in spades right now. As the team’s best player, he is in a strong position to galvanize the locker room into playing high-level basketball. How he handles having the program in his hands this year will ultimately determine whether Indiana can save something out of what already seems like a lost season.