Thanks to the economy, and the fact that IU has 20-something varsity sports, we couldn't fit all of our men's basketball coverage into Monday's paper. Here are a few things worth a read:
A look back on Matt Roth's night Freshman guard Matt Roth was the second-best shooter on the floor at Hoosier Hysteria. The best? His shooting competition teammate, former IU guard Todd Leary.
Shooting at an angle, Leary converted 3-pointer after 3-pointer in warm-ups and during the contest. But the thing that separated Leary the most from the rest of the competitors: he banked all of his shots in.
"I had heard rumors that he could do stuff like that, but I wanted to see it for myself," Roth said. "When he hit that one from the bench off the glass in warm-ups, I knew we were good to go."
Roth said he is going to wait till he gets Leary's experience before he tries to copy his technique.
On another note, Roth surprised at least one media member when he dunked, with relative ease, warming up in lay-up lines.
"I used to do some high-jumping back in my prime," Roth joked. "No, I was keeping that in for awhile but when I went up for that first-lay up it felt pretty good so I decided to (dunk) it."
Lavin compares Crean to Pitino I caught up with ESPN commentator Steve Lavin after Hoosier Hysteria. Lavin came and spoke at IU's campus last fall and is somewhat of a Hoosier historian. As an aspiring coach he came to Bloomington to watch Bobby Knight work practices.
On Friday, Lavin said he sees some parallels between what Crean is going through and what Rick Pitino inherited in 1989 at Kentucky.
That year was Pitino's first at Kentucky, and the Wildcats were on NCAA probation following a recruiting scandal. But Pitino turned Kentucky around quickly, restoring the program's proud tradition. Lavin said that Crean's first year could very well be a lot like Pitino's.
"All of those players in Pitino's first year went down in Kentucky lore and are loved by the fans," Lavin said.
New players hope to gel quickly Fans and readers weren't the only ones who had mixed reviews about IU's first official scrimmage Friday.
"We have a little chemistry," junior guard Devan Dumes said. "We didn't have a lot, but it was enough. Nobody is going to be perfect on their first day of practice."
The Hoosiers have eight players who played high school basketball last season, meaning the team is still going through some adjustments to the college game.
Freshman guard Verdell Jones said the team isn't used to playing with the "speed and the big floor" the college game possesses.
"Our conditioning is a little bit of a problem," Jones said. "On the opposite end, we played with a lot of energy ... we did pretty well for our first time out here"
