IU basketball players experience unusual anonymity

Basketball players tend to stand out on campus.

They’re much taller than the average student, and they’re typically decked from head-to-toe in brand-new IU apparel.

This time last year, you could overhear students bragging to one another about player sightings.

“Guess what? I saw E.J. coming out of Woodburn the other day!”

“Oh yeah? My friend’s best friend is lab partners with D.J. White!”

But what are students to do when they have no idea what their basketball team looks like?


    BLOG: For biographies of the new players, see the Basketblog.


With 11 incoming players on the men’s basketball team, the “Whoosiers” have for the most part roamed campus anonymously since classes began. The only two players IU fans have seen in cream and crimson before are senior Kyle Taber and sophomore walk-on Brett Finkelmeier.

As for the rest of the players, it’s been a little bizarre.

“It has been odd thus far,” junior Devan Dumes said Thursday. “People see us, but they kind of know who we are because of the height advantage (we) have on them. It has been weird.”

Dumes, a 6-foot-2 combo guard from Decatur Central in Indianapolis, played his freshman year at Eastern Michigan before transferring to Vincennes (Ind.) junior college his sophomore season. After averaging 8.1 points per game his first year, Dumes scored 16.9 points per game at Vincennes and hit a school-record 109 3-pointers.

Dumes said some people recognize him and the rest of the players because they are wearing basketball gear, but that hasn’t convinced everyone. Dumes said he overheard a comment the other day, “and they asked if IU had a JV team.”

While Dumes can walk to class back and forth without being interrupted, there are a few Hoosiers that students haven’t had much trouble spotting.

“They know who Tijan (Jobe) and Tom Pritchard are,” Dumes said of the 7-foot junior college transfer and 6-foot-8 freshman. “Can’t miss those two.”

With so many new players on this year’s team, the Hoosiers have been scrambling this summer to get to know one another on the fly.

“We go out to eat, we go to the movies, we bowl, just fun stuff, like what teenagers would do,” Dumes said. “Not to say we’re all teenagers, but stuff like that.”

When asked who were the best bowlers on the team, Dumes listed “Nick (Williams), myself, Matt Roth (and) Daniel Moore.”

As for who talks the best game, “Nick and Verdell (Jones) do all the talking when we bowl,” Dumes said. “But they’re not that good.”

As the fall season gets closer, IU players will spend less time on hardwood bowling alleys and more time on the hardwood of Branch McCracken Court. IU fans will get their first chance to see the 11 new players during Hoosier Hysteria on Oct. 17.

The Hoosiers will also play in their first exhibition game against Anderson on Nov. 7 at Assembly Hall and in their home season-opener on Nov. 15 against Northwestern State.

IU coach Tom Crean held the team’s first official practice last Wednesday, working the new players through basic drills, junior Jeremiah Rivers said. Rivers, who transferred from Georgetown this summer and will sit out this season per NCAA rules, thinks Crean’s intense coaching style will help the Hoosiers gel quickly.

“Going through all of this hard work and what Coach Crean will be putting us through will ultimately pay off,” he said.

Some have questioned whether a team with 11 new players can win right away, but Dumes thinks the Hoosiers have a chance.

“We’re taught to let people think what they think, but I wouldn’t be a basketball player if I didn’t think we could win now,” he said.