Sheehey's return not enough as IU falls at home

He has brought instant offense all season long off the bench and after missing five straight games with an ankle injury, sophomore guard Will Sheehey looked like his old self on Thursday evening.

Playing for the first time in five games, Sheehey had 12 points and six rebounds in 15 minutes against Minnesota but his contributions weren’t enough as IU (15-2, 3-2) fell to the Golden Gophers (13-5, 1-4) 77-74 at Assembly Hall.

“I just had to get (the ankle) warmed up and what not, but it wasn’t enough tonight,” Sheehey said.

The first action of 2012 for Sheehey came at the 13:11 mark of the first half when he entered the game to a standing ovation from the home faithful and chants of ‘Will Shee-hey’ from the student section.

The sophomore wasted no time providing his spark as he rebounded a missed Austin Hollins 3-pointer and then had a layup on the other end on his first two possessions of the game.

Sheehey would add a pair of free throws before checking out of the game after three minutes of play.

The Stuart, Fla., native re-entered the game at the 4:29 mark of the first half and with IU down 29-28, Sheehey scored the Hoosiers next four points while adding two more rebounds.

The energy brought by Sheehey in just six minutes of action in the first half led to him starting the second half and once again he wasted no time making an impression.

The halftime message was rebounding and trying to create more deflections defensively, as Sheehey and freshman Remy Abell started the second half for juniors Jordan Hulls and Christian Watford.

“Like Jordan said earlier, we need to bring more energy off the bench so that’s what we try to do,” Sheehey said.

The Gophers ran off the first six points of the second half before Sheehey had a pair of rebound putbacks that forced Minnesota Coach Tubby Smith to take a timeout.

Sheehey did not return to the lineup until the eight-minute mark of the second half and played sparingly down the stretch, as IU was subbing offense for defense in its comeback attempt.

The Hoosiers had been without the services of Sheehey since he injured his ankle in practice before the University of Maryland, Baltimore County game on Dec. 22.

Coming into Thursday night’s game against the Gophers, Sheehey was second in the Big Ten among all non-starters with averaging 10.7 points. He has now scored in double figures in eight of 12 games played this season.

“Tonight’s the first time he’s gone up and down (the court) since he got hurt,” Crean said. “We haven’t had him go up and down in any kind of live contact situation in practice so I’m proud of what he did.”

What we’ve got to do now is as (Sheehey) gets back, it’s got to increase the competition inside of practice, for minutes."