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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

sports men's basketball

Hoosiers to take on Wildcats, hype tonight

Bring in one of the top recruiting classes in the nation. Check.

Take the top ranking in every important national preseason poll, along with every preseason national player of the year award. Check.

Sell out Assembly Hall for Hoosier Hysteria. Check.

But tonight, the IU men’s basketball team will have its first chance to back the hype, in an exhibition game against Indiana Wesleyan, that has surrounded Bloomington and the IU campus since the Hoosiers made it to the Sweet 16 last season for the first time since 2002.

Junior guard Victor Oladipo said that after the excitement surrounding this freshman class and the rest of the team, he’s looking forward to seeing his new teammates in their first game as Indiana Hoosiers.

“You just tell them they’re going to have a little nerves at first — it might be a shock to them at first — but at the end of the day, you’re still just playing basketball, doing what they love to do,” Oladipo said. “It’s an honor and a privilege to play in front of all those fans on that court and to put on those candy stripes, to play for their school, and they know that.”

Freshman guard Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell, though, was particularly touted as an impact player who could lift the Hoosiers to the next level after he committed to IU as a junior at Park Tudor High School.

After Oladipo practiced with his fellow guard for a month and had to guard him during practices and scrimmages, he said he thinks

Ferrell is ready to play in front of the sold-out Assembly Hall crowd tonight.

“Now he’s ready to put on the candy stripes, take them off and see how he does when the lights are on,” Oladipo said.

But tonight’s game will be more than just a showcase of the freshman class IU Coach Tom Crean was able to attract during the past few years. The Wildcats come to Bloomington as the No. 4 ranked team in Division II of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics.

Although it doesn’t pose an NCAA Division I threat on paper, IU Associate Head Coach Steve McClain said Indiana Wesleyan plays at a pace very similar to the Hoosiers and carry a lot of the same strengths that IU used to get to the Sweet 16 last season.

“They have a clear plan of how they want to play,” McClain said. “They take good shots. They share the basketball.
“You’re not playing a team that has just one or two good players. They have four returning starters that are juniors or seniors, so they have a good feel for their system and how they want to play.”

Earlier this week, the Wildcats defeated the NAIA’s No. 14 St. Xavier 91-74, and Ferrell said he thinks that’s all the proof his players need to come out and play a tough game — exhibition or not.

“Now we get a chance to go up against some other competition, so we’re not going to take this very lightly,” Ferrell said. “We’re going to go out there from the get-go and hit them in the mouth first before they hit us and go out and give it our all.”

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