IU hosts Gophers in last home game

It’s taken three games, two weeks and one horrific loss, but Lance Stemler thinks the IU men’s basketball team is ready to accept IU interim coach Dan Dakich as its leader.\n“We really are starting to see coach Dakich as the head coach now,” said Stemler, a senior forward. “I guess there was a little bit of transition from going from assistant to head coach.”\nIt couldn’t have come sooner for the Hoosiers. After their worst loss in four years, IU begins its last week of regular season play when it hosts Minnesota tonight.\nIt will be the last game IU’s four seniors – D.J. White, Mike White, Adam Ahlfeld and Stemler – will ever play in Assembly Hall. Following tradition, each senior will give a postgame speech on Branch McCracken Court. \nDakich will also speak to fans following the game. Since the interim head coach took over on Feb. 22 for former coach Kelvin Sampson, the No. 18 Hoosiers are 2-1.\nAfter IU’s 103-74 loss to Michigan State on Sunday, Stemler said the team is ready to rally around Dakich. But it hasn’t been easy. \n“An assistant coach’s role is definitely different than a head coach’s role,” Stemler said. “The assistant coaches are more like your friends and your support when the head coach is telling you what’s on his mind. To make that transition to go from assistant coach, your friend, to head coach, you look at them in a whole different light. I think there’s a little bit of transition there, but I think we’ll be fine.” \nThe next step in that process comes against the Golden Gophers tonight – a team the Hoosiers barely beat in Minneapolis in January. Stemler knocked down a late 3-pointer to help the Hoosiers escape “The Barn” with a 65-60 win. \nTonight will be the first time Minnesota coach Tubby Smith has led a team into Assembly Hall. Though he coached rival Kentucky, the two teams played most of their games during Smith’s tenure at a neutral location. \nStill, it isn’t the same game Smith imagined just a few months ago. He and Sampson are close friends, and Smith admitted it was difficult to watch Sampson’s last few days as the Hoosiers’ leader. \n“It’s a tough situation,” Smith said during the weekly Big Ten teleconference. “In this business, you respect your peers and your colleagues for what they’ve been able to achieve and what they’ve been able to accomplish. I know from coaching at Kentucky and other major programs, I know the intensity and the scrutiny that goes with this job at college basketball at this level.”\nThe Gophers are coming off a big home win against Ohio State and are hoping to improve their seeding for the Big Ten Tournament.\n“It will be a different environment because Kelvin and I are good friends,” he said, “and certainly we want to wish him the best, but we have a job to do and hopefully we can go there with the right attitude.”\nDakich said he stayed up watching film on Minnesota until 4 a.m. Monday morning in preparation for this game. \n“I feel that the game up there was as tough a game as we’ve had all year and quite frankly, we may have gotten lucky to win it,” Dakich said during the teleconference. “They’re playing as tough as any team in the league.”