Column: The heart to topple giants

Daniel Moore obviously doesn’t get it.

He’s the shortest man playing for the Hoosiers, not even measuring 6 feet tall. At 175 pounds, he is the lightest scholarship player on the team.

Boston University, home of the Terriers, was the only Division I program that offered him a scholarship as he left Carmel High School.

His style of play is about as sexy as an offensive line’s attempt at a swimsuit calendar. Moore prides himself on “being a pest on defense” and has never averaged more than 2.5 points per game in a season.

Moore, a senior guard, clearly does not fit the mold of a prime-time, highlight reel Big Ten basketball player.

Why didn’t he just quit while he had the chance?

It’s because Moore continues to persist with a heart as big as a seven-footer.

“I wasn’t the best player on my high-school team,” Moore admits. “There have always been guys that are better than me. My dad has always told me, ‘If you don’t play hard, and you don’t work hard, you’re just a short white guy that’s kind of fast.’ It’s true.

“I’ve kind of carried that motto throughout my life and especially in basketball. If I don’t work hard, I am just an average guy who probably belongs in court three at the HPER.”

Ever since high school, Moore has had to let his play disprove the assumptions that come with his build.

Moore’s head basketball coach at Carmel, Mark Galloway, admits he underestimated Moore before the then-freshman picked up a basketball.

“I didn’t think he was a basketball player,” said Galloway, who said he will be at Senior Night on Sunday. “I thought he was a soccer player or a wrestler.”

True, Moore did earn first-team All-State in soccer.

But during four years as Carmel’s point guard, he also collected Indiana All-Star, All-North Player of the Year, first-team All-State, first-team Academic All-State and Hamilton County Player of the Year honors.

From the beginning, this Indiana kid accepted the role of David versus Goliath.

“We did not hesitate to put him on Eric Gordon or Marquis Teague,” Galloway said. “We’d challenge him, and he would definitely want to guard those guys. He wanted to guard the best guys on the other team. He’s always had that toughness.

“Even if the guard was like Gordon, bigger and more athletic, he would front him in the post. He wouldn’t let him catch the ball. He would take charges. It wasn’t surprising to see him get knocked down in the game and get right back up and want to come right back at the guy. He did not back down from anyone.”

Moore, who walked on at IU, said this mentality has carried over into practices in college.

“I do try to push guys in practice,” he said. “I’m not afraid to stick my nose in there, and I don’t care if you’re an All-American or whatever coming out of high school.

We’re all on the same team, and if you’re on the other team, I’m going to try to win. I don’t care.”

For Moore and these five seniors, the heart has always been there, but the wins have not.

That will and desire flowed through the Hoosiers during their first season in 2008, when seven of their 25 losses were by six points or fewer.

It was also there Dec. 10, 2011, when junior forward Christian Watford caused the fastest unintentional fire drill in Assembly Hall’s history.

“We played as hard as we could freshman year and did all we could,” Moore said. “We could play our best game and still come up short sometimes.

"It was frustrating, but hard work is definitely something that has been established throughout the four years here, but probably most because of how things were our freshman year.”

Moore is now merely a blip on the radar.

His playing time has decreased to an average of 5.3 minutes per game this season, compared to 17.2 in his freshman year, because of the talent that has since come to Bloomington.

That’s Moore on paper. Off the stat sheet, he is a testament to the human spirit.

Here is a man who wasn’t even taken for a basketball player when he arrived at Carmel, came to Bloomington as a walk-on and earned a scholarship just prior to his senior season.

Every Hoosier should have a little Daniel Moore in them.

No, not necessarily the attributes of a 5-foot-10-inch soccer player who’s “kind of fast” — but rather the toughness, grit, positive attitude and heart that takes a kid who dreams of playing IU basketball onto the bench with his own candy stripes and
scholarship.

“I think when you are that ‘small white kid,’ you’ve got to have that confidence,” Galloway said. “I’ve got a fourth-grader, and he loves Daniel. He’s been watching Daniel ever since he was born, and he knows Daniel Moore is going to compete and fight. He loves that.”

Galloway knows it’s cliché, but Moore’s high-school coach can’t think of any way to explain how the scrappy point guard has come this far.

“His heart. He plays with his heart,” Galloway said. “I don’t think that there is any challenge that is too big for him. I think he believed that Indiana could get back there, and I think he believed he could be a part of that.”