Hoosier Hysteria kicks off Crean era Friday

Montages, surf boards, hula hoops and yes, even a little basketball were all part of Hoosier Hysteria in Assembly Hall on Friday night.

Roughly 8,500 fans came to greet their brand new team – 12 players donned the Cream and Crimson for the first time in front of a crowd Friday – as well as pay tribute to Hoosier basketball legends of the past seven decades.

Junior Devan Dumes and freshman Verdell Jones led the red team over the white in the actual scrimmage, although that came secondary to the other festivities that simultaneously paid homage to former IU greats and introduced a new group of potential ones to the IU faithful.

Before the team took the court, montages for the 1976, 1981 and 1987 National Championship teams rolled on the dangling scoreboard over center court.

In attendance were several past Hoosiers, going as far back as John Wallace, a 1946 graduate, to as recent as Adam Ahlfeld, from the class of 2008. IU coach Tom Crean, also in his inaugural year in Bloomington, enthusiastically credited the fans in attendance for their warm ovation of the former players.

“I was able to step out and probably see 80 percent of the guys get introduced, and the crowd was awesome,” Crean said. “That was a meaningful thing. That puts it in perspective for me a little bit."

For the group of players that will be taking the court this season, Hoosier Hysteria was a chance to make a splash with the fans for the first time.

Before the scrimmage, a shooting contest took place, teaming six current players with a former legend of their choice as a teammate. In the championship round, freshman sharpshooter Matt Roth and Todd Leary emerged victorious over senior Kyle Taber and Ahlfeld.

The team also worked on dribbling, shooting and lay up drills before finally competing in a scrimmage.

Things were personal as well for some Hoosiers on Friday evening.

The coaches were all introduced with their families.

Dumes had a large contingent of family cheering him on. IU is the third college the junior transfer will play for, but Dumes said the first practice with IU had a different feeling than his first practices with Eastern Michigan and Vincennes.

“I had more fun,” Dumes said. “I feel like I’m learning a lot; it was tremendous fun.”

Jones, who along with Dumes participated in the shooting contest as well as being a member of the winning scrimmage team, said he felt the fans came into Hoosier Hysteria without a lot of knowledge of what type of team this year’s squad will look like.

“I think they were unsure of what they were going to see today, but I thought we gave them a pretty good show,” Jones said. “They don’t know us, they don’t know what we can do, so we got to go out and show them.”

Assistant coach Bennie Seltzer, who coached the winning team during the scrimmage, said Hoosier Hysteria was important for the fans to see, because even if fans could recognize a player, they now were able to see what type of basketball player they were.

“Because we’re so new, no one really knows who our guys are,” Seltzer said. “But this is the first chance that everybody got a chance to kind of put the name with the face and watch those guys for the first time. I think it went well.”