As Ryan previously noted, IU coach Kelvin Sampson talked plenty of baseball during his press conference Thursday afternoon. But he definitely still had basketball on his mind. The first-year Hoosier coach seemed very pleased overall with the effort of the team so far in practice, but said he realizes they have a long way to go to be able to compete. He kept a serious tone for most of the interview, but shared some pretty humorous analogies about several players on his team:
On senior guard Earl Calloway:
He has to learn to play at variable speeds. Right now if Earl took my child to school, he'd get a speeding ticket. He has a hard time playing in the school zone. Then sometimes you've gotta play in the residential area. It's 35 mph there, right? So he's gotta learn to play at 20, at 35, at 55 - right now he'd be perfect for the autobahn. You've gotta learn how to run your team ... He's learning how to run the team.
On freshmen Xavier Keeling and Armon Bassett:
Right now those kids don't know whether they're on foot or horseback. If it's a west wind then they're headed west. If the wind shifts and they're headed east, then that's where they go. But they're better today than they were Saturday. They've got a long way to go. Freshmen are freshmen though. Freshmen get better.
On sophomore forward/center Ben Allen:
He's trying. Ben is .... you know how you take a piece of metal that has a magnet on it and then you have people reach into a bunch of paperclips and pick up a paperclip? Well, Ben's natural magnet is to go to the three-point line. That's just the way he's always played. That's not a criticism, it's an observation. That's just where Ben's natural. I like the fact that I have a post guy that can shoot threes and can shoot away from the basket. There's nothing wrong with that.
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