Kelvin Sampson and crew opened up a practice for fans to watch today and here are some observations:
Assistant coach Rob Senderoff, the man cited for making most of the impermissible phone calls on Sampson's staff, was absent. J.D. Campbell, director of athletic media relations, said he was gone because he had personal matters to take care of.
A.J. Ratliff was gone for the same reason.
Kyle Taber was wearing a cast on his left wrist, but is listed as day-to-day.
Sampson entered the practice, attended by about 1,000 to 2,000 fans, with a warm reception from IU faithful. The team came out and right away were split into separate groups. The post men worked on give-and-go sequences and the ballhandlers worked on jump shots.
The team then took some time to stretch out.
After warming up, Sampson had the guys run the four-pass drill, where three players run the length of the court without dribbling -- making only four passes and then finishing it off with a layup.
Next, the post players took some time to work on rebounding by posting eachother up. After grabbing the ball of the glass, they dished it out to the guards who tried to make a play on the other end of the court.
After a few more drills, including some work on the Hoosiers' inbounds plays, the team separated into two squads and scrimmaged. The presumed starters, D.J. White, Eric Gordon, Lance Stemler, Jamarcus Ellis and Armon Bassett, wore red jerseys and the rest of the team wore whites.
The red team scored 26 to the whites' 14 with those lineups. Jordan Crawford was clearly the best player for the white team and tried to create as much offense as possible. Brett Finkelmeier guarded Gordon and kept the McDonalds All-American in check. With Finkelmeier on offense, he had Gordon beat after running a screen. Gordon recovered well and jumped over the walk-on to swat away a shot.
White and Bassett joined the white squad in exchange for Deandre Thomas and Jordan Crawford. Immediately, the white team improved. After the lineup changes, the white team had a two point advantage over the red team for the remainder of play.
Highlights: Armon Bassett's stealing of an inbounds pass. After his team scored a bucket, Bassett grabbed a Lance Stemler inbounds pass and went straight to the basket with it. He scored and was fouled by Stemler in the process. Bassett looked pretty solid today.
Another highlight: Eric Gordon had the ball and slashed toward the basket. Instead of finishing off the play himself, he passed the ball -- not behind his back, but behind his head -- to Crawford who scored with a two-handed dunk.
After the scrimmage, Sampson addressed the crowd and thanked them for coming out.
"We've got a long way to go," he said. "But we'll get there. I promise."
He remined fans about the exhibition games, which begin next Sunday, and later invited fans to come onto the court for photos and autographs.
