IU ready for improved guards

In the teams’ first meeting of the season in University Park, Pa., the IU men’s basketball team kept Penn State to its second-lowest scoring total of the season, pulling off a 74-51 victory. All the while, the Hoosiers limited the team’s two active leading scorers, guards D.J. Newbill and Jermaine Marshall, to a combined 19 points.

Since that evening more than two weeks ago, the duo has caught fire, each posting one game with at least 27 points as the Nittany Lions continue to search for their first conference win of the season.

IU Assistant Coach Kenny Johnson said the Hoosiers were proud of stopping Newbill and Marshall the first time around, but in the last four games, the pair have looked even more aggressive.

Johnson said they may be more difficult to stop tonight in Assembly Hall as the teams play their second matchup of the season.

“Each game has a different flow to it,” he said. “They’ve had better games. Over the course of the season, sometimes one of them has a really big game while the other one is more of a facilitator.

“I think they’re coming in now with more of an aggressive approach. I think they recognize now that for their team to be successful as they want to be, they’re going to have to be aggressive.”

Both players have combined to average more than 30 points since the start of Big Ten play. In conference games, Marshall averages 16.3 points per game and Newbill 14.5.

For the season, the two are now the second-leading scoring tandem in the conference with a combined 30.5 points per game, behind only Michigan’s Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway Jr., who sit at 34.4.

In the first game against IU, though, Johnson said freshman guard Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell was a key factor in holding both players to less-than-average outings.

“Yogi is a very good defensive player,” Johnson said. “He has an ability to pick up and understand what our philosophy is on defense and his ability to dive into the scouting report and hopefully take away his opponents strengths or limit them.

“He shows maturity beyond his years in his willingness to take on, certain nights, the best player, honestly, on the team and really trying to dive in and take him away or limit him.”

Junior guard Victor Oladipo said his younger counterpart has been key in stopping some of the best scorers the Hoosiers have faced this season.

But he also said that just as Ferrell has gotten more used to the flow and speed of the Big Ten game since the second conference game of his career against Penn State, both Nittany Lion guards have improved, as well.

Holding both guards to mediocre games once again, even in Assembly Hall, will prove a tough task, he said.

“They’re just staying with the attack,” Oladipo said. “They understand they have to have great games for their team to win. They’re to go out there to do whatever it takes to win, whether they score 30 or make big stops.

“They’ll do whatever it takes.”