IU looks to reassert itself on the road in Big Ten

Big Ten road games have not been kind to the IU men's basketball team.\nSince 1992 -- a year when the Hoosiers went 8-1 on the road en route to a conference title -- the Hoosiers are a combined 38-61 away from Assembly Hall.\nThe team continued its notorious struggle in conference road games this season, opening the 2007 campaign with a 74-67 loss at Ohio State on Jan. 2. \nLast season, IU went 2-6 on the road in conference -- all six losses came in their first six Big Ten road games of the season. One of those losses included a 71-68 loss to Penn State on Feb. 15, 2006. The Hoosiers may get little relief Saturday afternoon when they take on the Nittany Lions, who are 10-2 in the Bryce Jordan Center this season.\nSampson: Hoosiers becoming more 'familiar'\nAt the start of the season, IU coach Kelvin Sampson acknowledged the youth and inexperience on his squad. Now, with three Big Ten games under their belts, the Hoosiers stand at 11-4 overall and 2-1 in conference.\n"Familiarity is getting better. The kids are running a new offense and the emphasis is on different things," Sampson said after the Hoosiers' win against Purdue Wednesday night. "Like I always say, we aren't going to be a February team in December. All I ask our kids to do is compete. We are going to get better."\nSampson likened the team's situation with familiarity to one of his own.\n"My wife and I built a house in Norman and lived in it for 12 years," Sampson explained. "Then when we moved here I just wasn't familiar. You walk around and, 'Hey, this is a nice room.' I'd sit down and say, 'I don't know a lot about this room.' Then you go to another room and, 'Hey this is a nice room too.' ... That's probably a bad analogy, but it's a lot like that."\nPurdue coach impressed by young IU squad\nPurdue coach Matt Painter said after Purdue's loss Wednesday night that he found himself being a fan of the Hoosiers. The second-year coach said he was impressed with Sampson's ability to recruit players and to prepare the Hoosiers for competition.\n"He's assembled a lot of different guys in here," Painter said of the first-year IU coach. "Whether it's juco, it's a holdover that was injured, whether it's a kid from a prep school, an under-recruited kid like (Rod) Wilmont who's just tough as nails, you can go right down the list. You can go through (Errek) Suhr -- Joey Shaw was just amazing today, just amazing. He's going to be a very good player."\nPainter also acknowledged the way Sampson utilized his players Wednesday night, including freshman Xavier Keeling, and said Sampson is succeeding without the presence of marquee players on his squad.\n"(Sampson has) a lot of guys with not great names, but he's put them together and they're playing their asses off," Painter said of the Hoosiers. "I wish I didn't have to coach against them. I wish I could just watch, because when watching film, you see those guys playing hard and being quicker to the basketball"