For the first time this fall, IU Coach Archie Miller and company welcome an opposing team to Bloomington. Those lucky visitors are the University of Southern Indiana Screaming Eagles.
Outside Hoosier Hysteria and a secret scrimmage victory against 2017 Final Four participants Loyola University Chicago last Sunday, this will be the first "competitive” contest IU will play this season.
“They were ready to go on Sunday when we scrimmaged," Miller said. "Which sometimes in a closed scrimmage, you don't get that intensity because there's no people there. But I thought we did a pretty good job of just having a pretty good mindset.”
Since 2004-2005, IU is 25-0 against non-Division I teams. That won’t change Thursday.
But, Southern Indiana senior guard Alex Stein will pose a defensive test for IU’s backcourt.
Named an honorable mention All-American by Division II bulletin in 2017, Stein has the size at 6-foot-3, 190 pounds and scoring prowess, with 17.5 points per game last season, to put IU’s smaller defenders on their heels.
Sophomore forward Emmanuel Little and junior Kobe Caldwell are two other names to watch for the Screaming Eagles. Little is fresh off a season where he averaged 9.1 points and 6.9 rebounds per game, while Caldwell is a junior transfer from Utah who is immediately eligible.
Southern Indiana will have issues rebounding, though. IU’s frontcourt of senior Juwan Morgan, freshman Race Thompson, graduate Evan Fitzner and sophomore Justin Smith should find themselves stronger the smaller-bodied Screaming Eagles.
As for the main attraction, it will be the first public, live game action for freshman Romeo Langford. At 6-foot-6 and 215 pounds, Langford is a physical specimen for a shooting guard. With athleticism and a scoring prowess, expect him to light up the scoreboard.
In the scrimmage, Langford tallied 19 points, 10 rebounds and two assists. We should see more of the same Thursday.
“He's probably been as highly publicized, or at least as watched and as hyped from a ninth or 10th grader as there probably has been a guy,” Miller said. “So I think just in terms of in his experience, he's used to a lot of eyes on him. He's used to media attention. He's used to, so to speak, hype."
With as many as 14 players who could factor into the rotation, the USI matchup is a chance for Miller’s bunch to get some much-needed cohesion heading into a nonconference schedule that does them no favors.
IU should win comfortably, but this game is more about pieces.
Following Thursday, we’ll have a legitimate idea of how Miller's team will look in the early going of 2018.
“For us, we always have that all-hands-on-deck mentality, and it doesn't really matter,” Miller said. “We've got to work to get the job done.”
