Kirby and Dollinger woke up at the crack of 6 a.m. today, and are presently hurtling through the cool Midwestern morning toward Winston-Salem, N.C., where IU will take on Wake Forest tonight (in case you hadn't heard). It's a nine-hour drive, so be nice to them.
I, however, am braving through the perils of college life -- waking up before noon, not falling asleep in class, walking all the way from my place near Yogi's to campus, uphill both ways in the snow, etc.
Anyhoo, general wisdom is it's going to be a rough, rough, rough night for the Hoosiers down in ACC country against a tall, long, fast Wake Forest team with a point guard in Jeff Teague who's shooting the lights out right now (57 percent from behind the arc; p.s. Teague is in fact a Pike High grad, so there's that).
But in fairness, I think that expectation is explicably low for several obvious reasons. In games like this, Hoosier fans and wild-eyed pundits alike are looking for little things: How can Tom Pritchard handle a team that can swarm him with big men in the post? How does Nick Williams operate in the post against the likes of Al-Farouq Aminu?
How can the Hoosiers' young guards handle the Deacs' potent transition offense? What kinds of results will the Malik Story-point guard experiment yield in Story's first of three games in the next four against high-caliber point guards (Check Dolly's story on this in today's paper, he writes good)?
Perhaps most important, how does this team full of players who've never gone on the road to play college basketball handle one of the roughest environments east of the Mississippi?
By 11 o'clock tonight, this game will almost assuredly have finished a loss, and probably not a close one. But watching closely within said assumed loss should begin to really tell the story of the second half of this team's season.
If the Hoosiers show marked -- and I mean really noticeable -- improvement from their losses in Maui starting tonight and continuing through the New Year, then this season won't be a waste.
Perhaps IU's greatest opponent this season (cliche coming) will be the Hoosiers themselves. Losing is a powerful intoxicant, one that can turn even the heartiest of players subconsciously sour to pep talks and hustle (I played on two 0-10 football teams, trust me).
Anyway, back to topic. The title of this post asks for predictions for tonight, and I encourage you to offer them at your leisure. But I ask, if you are so inclined, to offer a different kind of prediction.
If we are assuming IU will lose tonight, then what do you think the biggest positive will be for the visitors? Will it be Pritchard's post play? Story's defense? Do you even agree that the Hoosiers are going to lose, or can they pull an upset?
Sound off below. I'm interested in seeing what y'all have to say.
