Hoosiers turn in a team win

In front of a late-arriving Assembly Hall crowd Tuesday night, IU played its best 40 minutes of team basketball this season.\nD.J. White carried the Hoosier offense early. Eric Gordon shut the door on the Yellow Jackets late. And Jamarcus Ellis, Lance Stemler and Mike White did everything else in between in IU’s 83-79 win. After an embarrassing loss to Xavier, IU finally started to look like the special team everyone expects it to become.\nMuch of that had to do with the hard-nosed play of Ellis and White, who made his first appearance this season. IU coach Kelvin Sampson thought about redshirting the Louisiana native earlier this year, but that idea bit the dust on the plane ride back to Bloomington, as Sampson churned the Xavier game through his noggin. White added another physical presence against an athletic Georgia Tech team and displayed a knack for grabbing rebounds on the offensive end. Last night, he grabbed four.\n“He was a huge spark off the bench, which is something we needed after the Xavier game,” said Stemler, who started some fireworks of his own in the second half with two timely 3-pointers. \nWith the announcement that Jordan Crawford was suspended because of an unspecified violation of team rules and with Brandon McGee out due to illness, Ellis picked up the slack at the perilously thin guard position, driving to the basket and picking up some key baskets for the Hoosiers midway through the second half. Heeding the words of Sampson in the huddle, Ellis continuously got to the rim.\n“I was in attack mode,” Ellis said. “My job on this team is to make other teammates better. Tonight with Jordan Crawford on the bench, I had to pick up the slack.”\nOf course, Gordon got to the free-throw line with ease and threw down another gargantuan dunk with five minutes left in the first half to bring the crowd to its feet and help spark a 10-0 Hoosier run. \nSix games into the season, Gordon still racked up the points with alarming deception. He reached the free-throw line 10 times, while the Hoosiers shot a season-high 38 free throws in the game.\nWhite recorded his second double-double of the season and continues to be the emotional motor of this team.\n“D.J. comes to play against good teams,” Sampson said. “He’s a senior, and he has a lot of pride.”\nAfterward, Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt critiqued his team, saying, “Kids want to play, but they don’t understand the responsibility that comes with playing. With today’s players, it’s all about ‘me.’”\nIU played as the antithesis of Hewitt’s assessment, making the extra pass and looking nothing like the team that got walked all over a few days earlier. With a depleted lineup, IU showed more heart than it has all season.\n“Maybe if the Xavier thing hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t have progressed so quickly,” Sampson said.\nMaybe this team could be something special after all.