Bisons stampede Hoosiers in final pre-conference tune-up

Before Sunday’s game, most Hoosier fans likely couldn’t tell you where Lipscomb even was.

But the team’s 74-69 upset victory against IU might have put them on the map.

The school from Nashville, Tenn., was down by as many as 21 points in the first half before the Hoosiers (5-7) stumbled, tumbled and crumbled down the stretch.

When the Hoosiers led 39-18 with six minutes left in the first half, IU coach Tom Crean’s team seemed poised to enter the Big Ten season with a .500 record.

But then the Bisons broke out into a stampede, trampling the Hoosiers on their way to a 29-5 run to close the first half and open the second. Five minutes into the second period, Lipscomb tied the game at 50.

The teams battled and exchanged the lead back and forth the rest of the game. But the Hoosiers went cold from the field – 36.0 percent in the second half – and lost the swagger they played with in the first.

Meanwhile, the Bisons were just finding theirs.

Lipscomb center Adnan Hodzic scored eight of his team’s final 12 points to lift his team to victory. The North Central (Indianapolis) graduate finished with a game-high 19 points.

At a stout 6-foot-9 and 245 pounds, Hodzic overpowered freshman forward Tom Pritchard at times, forcing the big man into foul trouble in the first half. In the closing minutes, Hodzic crashed the boards relentlessly, scoring three baskets and converting both of his late free-throw attempts.

“(This was) just a dogfight between two teams, no team gave up, it was fun,” Hodzic said after the game.

Prior to Sunday, the Bisons had struggled through their first 10 games, losing to schools like Samford, Tennessee Tech and Elon.

It seemed like the Hoosiers were set to add themselves to the list midway through the first, before Lipscomb staged their comeback.

“When you’re that far down, you have to expand so much energy to come back,” Lipscomb coach Scott Sanderson said. “We had 27 minutes to come back from the middle part of the game. It was a great character win for our program, team and our university.”

For the Hoosiers, the game also has an affect on the team and the University. After the game, Crean said the single most disappointing thing about Sunday’s loss was not sending IU athletics director Rick Greenspan out with a win.

Greenspan, who resigned months ago but will officially leave office at the turn of the year, spoke with the team after the game.

“I knew this was going to obviously be the last game of his tenure,” Crean said. “We wanted to send him off the right way, but we weren’t able to do that. He left our team with some incredible words.”

Outside of Greenspan’s tainted departure, Crean said the most disappointing thing about Sunday’s loss was his team’s rebounding.

The Hoosiers allowed Lipscomb to shoot 50.9 percent from the field for the game and were out-rebounded 35-25. A statistic Crean said, “You could hang your hat on.”

The Hoosiers turned the ball over only 13 times, but failed to close out the Bisons when they had a chance.

“We got to keep our foot on their necks,” freshman guard Verdell Jones said. “We have to keep them down.”

Instead, the Hoosiers were outscored 40-25 in the second half.

Junior guard Devan Dumes led IU in scoring with 18. Jones finished with 13 and Pritchard chipped in with 12.

The Hoosiers resume action on Jan. 3 when they open the Big Ten season at Iowa. Tip-off is scheduled for 4:30 p.m.