First impressions

 First impressions are very often the worst impressions. If they weren't you'd still be wearing that Homer Simpson Radioactive Green leisure suit about which you once thought this: "Man, I am stylin'."

Now, of course, you rightly consider it an unfortunate byproduct of the 1970s, aka The Decade When Style said "Man, I Ain't Down With This".

And so the wise person steps warily this morning when assessing the Mike Woodson model Indiana Hoosiers, who won their season opener over Eastern Michigan last night. The Blob, however, is not particularly wise, nor has any pretensions in that area -- which is why my very first first impression was this:

Gee. They still can't shoot.

And also: Gee. They still need to work on that killer instinct thing.

Oh, the Hoosiers took care of bidness, 68-62, but not before they futzed around enough to inject some unnecessary drama in the proceedings. Eastern Michigan built a ladder of 3-pointers and climbed out of a 20-point hole in the second half, closing from 48-28 to 59-58 with 2:46 to go before the Hoosiers found their dormant killer instinct and put the pesky MAC entree away.

It was an Archie Miller-esque stretch, to be distressingly honest. Also Archie Miller-esque was the Hoosiers' shooting, which played the Ironworkers Anthem on the rim just like always: 26-of-62 from everywhere (41.9 percent), and a familiar-looking 4-of-24 from the 3-point arc (16.7 percent).

However.

However, the Woodson Hoosiers are not the Miller Hoosiers, and that  you could  see too last night. They play a radically different, more aggressive offensive scheme, and, perhaps most significantly, they get in your shirt defensively. Woodson hasn't played for Bob Knight in 40 years, but once a Knight disciple, always a Knight disciple.

So, then. The final version of the first impression?

One, it's only November 10.

Two, it's only November 10.

Which is to say, the Woodson model Hoosiers are still very much an unfinished work, and they are going to better at everything as Woodson further molds them in his image. It's going to be fun to check back in with them in a month or two and see how much different they look than they did last night.

In other words: Stay tuned.