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(03/24/11 4:29am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Following IU coach Felisha Legette-Jack’s worst record in Bloomington, Athletic Director Fred Glass said the five-year coach will return next season. Jack’s current contract is good through June 30, 2013.“Absolutely Felisha will be back. I have a great deal of confidence in her, and we’re looking forward to having her back in a new season,” Glass said.Since arriving at IU, Jack has compiled a record of 81-75, with appearances to the WNIT in 2007, ’08 and ’09. She has never reached the NCAA Tournament with the Hoosiers.Despite the leadership of the seniors — Jack’s first recruiting class — the team struggled this past season, posting a 9-19 record, Jack’s worst at IU.Early injuries to the Hoosiers’ frontcourt reduced depth in the post and left IU without a strong inside presence throughout most of the season.“If Sasha’s (Chaplin) healthy we’re a different team. If Georgie (Jones) didn’t have knee surgery before the season starts we’re a different team,” Jack said. “So our hope is to get those guys healthy and really jump on the postseason right away.”At the conclusion of this season the Hoosiers ranked ninth in scoring, last in points allowed, 10th in rebounding margin, last in assist/turnover ratio and second in steals, according to Big Ten rankings.The Hoosiers lost four seniors at the end of the season, including leading scorer Jori Davis, who left Bloomington eighth on IU’s all-time scoring list.Jack has signed two guards to the incoming recruiting class with room to sign six more players.“I just believe in her,” Glass said of Jack. “You take the whole body of work — and of course that includes wins and losses — and we had more of the latter and less of the former than we wanted to this year, but I believe in her approach to the game.“I believe in her attitude. I believe in what she’s doing. So she’ll be back and so we’re real excited about it.”
(03/21/11 4:01am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Junior Derek Drouin’s jump of 7 feet 7.75 inches March 12 in College Station, Texas, did more than give the IU high jumper his third NCAA title.It gave him his second-straight indoor championship. It tied the Corunna, Ontario, native for the Canadian National Record. It broke his own school record and the all-time Big Ten record.IU coach Ron Helmer said Drouin’s performance at the NCAA Indoor Championships puts him in an elite group of athletes.“He won that national championship, then he jumps a bar that tied him for the all-time Canadian record,” Helmer said. “So I think if you look at those statistics, then he’s pretty incredible because that puts him in very, very, very select company. And the great thing that we encourage all of our athletes to get a handle on is being able to perform at those levels when it matters the most.”And the rest of the nation is taking notice.Tuesday, Drouin became the first Big Ten field athlete to ever be named National Field Athlete of the Year by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association. The next day, he became one of 10 male track and field athletes to be placed on The Bowerman award watch list.The Bowerman, which started in 2009, is given to the best overall male and female track and field athlete of the year. Drouin is the first male Big Ten athlete to be put on the award’s watch list.Helmer said Drouin is able to consistently keep his focus every year because he refuses to let the acknowledgments faze him.“You ask your athletes to stay on an even keel,” the four-year coach said. “They never get too down when things don’t go well, and they never get too up when things are going great. He’s not out there pumping his chest and going through a whole litany of ‘look at me’ actions — he takes everything in stride. If things aren’t going particularly well he just stays on task, he fixes it, sets the course straight and away he goes. “He’s a great competitor. He takes great pride in everything he is able to accomplish as a competitor, but he’s not so self-absorbed that it becomes more than what it is. He is very comfortable about what he celebrates, what he gets excited about so that the standard is always set high.”Drouin was one of 13 Hoosiers to earn All-America honors at the NCAA Championships. At Nationals, sophomore Andy Bayer and junior Andrew Poore placed third and seventh, respectively, in the 3000-meter race, while senior Faith Sherrill took fourth in the shot put.Despite the national implications of his jump, Drouin said he is glad to bring a title to Bloomington.“It’s always a big feat to win nationals,” he said. “I am really proud of it, and I am always happy to win a title for IU.”
(03/10/11 5:27am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Assembly Hall’s lights reflected off the glass encasing four crimson jerseys.Numbers 32, 10, 20 and 14 stood behind the seniors and beside their families.The scoreboard had long been turned off since the final buzzer sounded. It previously reflected a final score of Iowa: 93, Indiana: 79.But for the IU women’s basketball team’s seniors, the day was not about the final score capping off a 9-19 regular season.It was about four women — three of whom made up IU coach Felisha Legette-Jack’s first recruiting class — and their final game in Bloomington before going separate ways after college.From the moment guards Jori Davis, Andrea McGuirt and Whitney Lindsay stepped onto campus there were obvious regional differences. Davis, a native of Rochester, N.Y., came to IU after playing in Greece and England, while McGuirt came by way of Atlanta and Lindsay from Mansfield, Ohio.The trio of freshmen represented half of Legette-Jack’s first recruiting class and were the only ones from that inaugural year to stay at IU for all four years.“I just know that when we inherited this program the academics were in shambles and the character wasn’t as high as it needed to be,” Legette-Jack said after the Senior Day game Feb. 27. “And we went after six kids and three of them you roll the dice on and it didn’t work out. But the three that stayed and sustained have created such a foundation for all to be proud of.”As upperclassmen like Whitney Thomas, Kim Roberson and Jamie Braun led the Hoosiers to the Women’s National Invitation Tournament in 2008, Davis, Lindsay and McGuirt mainly watched from the sidelines. Combined, the trio started in 12 of 33 games.Following a second-straight WNIT appearance in their sophomore year, the three Hoosiers welcomed a fourth member to the class of 2011.Forward Hope Elam, who played her freshman year at St. Louis University and her sophomore year at Vincennes, transferred to IU for her junior year. Elam said there was an immediate connection thanks to her outgoing personality that matched the rest of the group.“I didn’t come in with them,” she said. “But when I did come in, I fell right in with the team and I took them on as my sisters, and they took me on as their sister pretty early.”On the court, though, the maturity of Legette-Jack’s first recruiting class was clear as they played into their upperclassman years.Lindsay went from dishing out 55 assists her first two seasons to 93 and 103 in her junior and senior years, respectively.Davis, who scored 142 points her freshman year and 378 in her sophomore year, finished her collegiate career with the eighth highest scoring total in IU history with 1,565 points. This came after back-to-back seasons with more than 500 points in her junior and senior years.McGuirt has progressively increased her point, rebound and steal total every year at IU. She said her time in Bloomington has taught her more than just basketball.“I think we’ve just grown into women,” she said. “When we came here as freshmen, we were just wide-eyed and new and just taking everything in. Now it’s kind of like we’re ready for the real world where we’ve been exposed to so many different things and we’re just ready to go out there and be leaders in society.”Following school, each young lady has different ideas of what they would like to do.Legette-Jack said although each of her players has different aspirations for the future, she thinks each will excel.“Jori should play pro somewhere. I think that she has a lot of basketball to play,” Legette-Jack said. “Little Whitney wants to go to graduate school or play overseas. Andrea McGuirt is just going to be making more money than I’d ever dreamt of. I hope I haven’t yelled at her too much. Hope wants to be a commentator and maybe play overseas.”For now though, the programs’ departing captains said they will miss the close-knit relationship that they have formed with each other.“Whitney and (An)’Drea from the start, from freshman year, we had to come together and find our way around campus and just by doing things like that we became close,” Davis said. “Obviously, the college life, going out with each other, we always had each other’s back. We never went anywhere without each other and I think over time it was just expected, ‘If you’re going somewhere, let me know.’ “And then Hope came along and we showed her, ‘This is how it is,’ and she fit in with our personalities automatically. So I think it’s just something that we’ve been blessed with.”Elam said her last season with the Hoosiers has been a memorable one, but she is ready to move on.“I think it’s bittersweet for all of us,” she said. “The bitter side is that we won’t have this camaraderie that we’re used to and playing in front of all these fans and having our teammates and our coaches. “But I think the sweet side of it is that we’re moving on to another part of our life, whether it’s basketball or not, we’re all moving on to a new chapter.”As Legette-Jack sat between Lindsay and Davis following their final home game against Iowa, she said the culmination of her seniors’ final season could not be found on a box score.“The basketball went up, down and all around, but if you’re going to be just a great basketball player and not have the other attributes, the ball stops bouncing eventually,” Legette-Jack said. “No one is going to remember this record. What they’re going to remember is Jori Davis, Hope Elam, Andrea McGuirt and Whitney Lindsay, the character and what they left us with – the ability to want to be better people.”
(03/04/11 5:37am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>INDIANAPOLIS — The stage was set for an upset.The 10th-seeded Hoosiers were facing seventh-seeded archrival Purdue.IU coach Felisha Legette-Jack’s first recruiting class was fighting to keep its season alive.But this script did not conclude with an ideal ending for the Hoosiers, who fell Thursday to the Boilermakers 66-62 in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament at Conseco Fieldhouse.“This is one shot,” senior guard Whitney Lindsay said. “This is March. I mean, I think that was like the biggest motivation for me was the fact that it’s March. And you win or you go home.”The Hoosiers knew they had to play like there was no tomorrow, but they still succumbed to a flaw that has plagued them all season — finishing the game.In a game that saw 16 lead changes, eight ties and a lead no larger than eight points, IU’s season was ultimately decided in the closing minutes.After amassing its largest lead of the game of eight points with 10:06 remaining, the Hoosier offense stalled, and Purdue was able to climb back into the game. IU scored its final field goal of the game at the 5:28 mark of the second half and watched as the Boilermakers went on a 10-2 run to win the game.Senior guard Jori Davis picked up her fourth foul with 12:27 left in the game and was forced to sub out. She said IU had the opportunity to win the game but failed to take advantage.“I told everybody, I think I was on the bench at that time, it was the fourth quarter,” she said. “It was the fourth quarter, 10 minutes to go and we were up by eight. And we had them in our hands right there. We just had to continue to push. And it was our last little bit of the quarter where we kind of lost it.”The leading scorer throughout the year for the Hoosiers, Davis, had to rely on her teammates to step up offensively while she was on the bench. IU was able to hold the Boilermakers without Davis for nearly four minutes before Purdue came to within a point and Legette-Jack was forced to call a timeout.“I definitely felt the momentum was going in the right direction on our side,” Lindsay said of IU’s late eight-point lead. “And when Jori had to sit for a little bit, my goal — like my job — was I focused mostly on keeping that pressure on Purdue and attacking and keeping the energy and keeping the five of us focused and having Jori’s back.”Lindsay played all 40 minutes, scoring 12 points and grabbing six rebounds.However, the Boilermakers never went away. When IU would drain a momentum-changing three-pointer, there was an answer at the other end of the floor.And in the last 20 seconds of the game, it was junior guard Brittany Rayburn sealing it for Purdue.When it came time for IU to intentionally foul, the last person the Hoosiers wanted to see on the free-throw line was Rayburn, who leads Purdue in free-throw percentage, shooting 88 percent entering Thursday.However, she was able to make sets of free-throws at 20 and 12 seconds to put the game out of reach for the Hoosiers.“We tried to prevent her from getting the ball, and they called the foul,” Legette-Jack said. “It’s unfortunate. She’s a great free-throw shooter and lights out. This is a kid that stayed in her backyard and learned her craft well.”Rayburn, who led all scorers with 23 points and went 12-for-12 from the foul line, said the final Purdue inbound was designed to get her the ball.“Coach set up a play where we had a double screen for me to go get the ball, and our screeners did an amazing job,” Rayburn said. “They switched off on the first screen, and so Alex nailed the second person that switched off, and they switched off again, and it was just a matter of getting open. They did an awesome job of getting me open.”On paper, IU improved in areas in which it has struggled this year.The Hoosiers outrebounded Purdue 40-30. They showed they can play without Davis, who still led her team with 21 points.But, ultimately, this was not enough to upset a Purdue team which has now beaten the Hoosiers three times this season.“Everybody knows that it’s survive and advance or you do go home,” Purdue coach Sharon Versyp said. “And we know playing our archrival Indiana, with them having four seniors, they obviously didn’t want their season to end, and it’s always tough to beat a team three times. But I thought at the very end our defense is what prevailed. We were able to hit some key shots down low by Drey (Mingo) and free throws by Brittany (Rayburn) to obviously clinch the win.”Legette-Jack said although this game closed a chapter on this year’s seniors, it showed the fight in her team.“Unfortunately we fell short,” she said. “But the fact that we kept standing back up makes me proud.”
(03/03/11 6:36pm)
Women's Big Ten Tournament: IU-Purdue
(02/25/11 4:01am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Not every story has a happy ending.For the IU women’s basketball team, Sunday’s 2 p.m. game against Iowa represents the chance to end a 9-18 season on a high note.It will be the Hoosiers’ final regular season game before they travel up to Indianapolis for the Big Ten Tournament on March 3.However, the Hawkeyes (20-7, 8-6) will give the four Hoosier seniors a challenge in their final game at Assembly Hall.Iowa began the season strong, posting an 12-1 record before beginning their conference schedule. The Hawkeyes are currently on a three-game winning streak.However, as of late, IU coach Felisha Legette-Jack’s squad has not shared the same success. After beating Illinois on Feb. 10 on the road, the Hoosiers have dropped their last three games.“I didn’t think we were in that big of a hole, but what I love to see is the character of someone else stepping up,” Legette-Jack said, following her team’s 65-57 loss at Wisconsin on Feb. 23. “We’re not a winning team right now, we’re a character team, and I think there is a place for us in the Big Ten.”Senior guard Jori Davis has asserted herself as the team’s top scorer, averaging just more than 19 points per game. However, following her team’s loss to Wisconsin, Legette-Jack said Davis’ supporting cast has to step up and create multiple threats for opposing defenses in order for the Hoosiers to win.The IU defense, which is allowing the most points per game in the Big Ten, must find a way to shut down an Iowa offense that scores the third-most points per game in the conference. Four of the Hawkeyes’ starters are averaging scoring in double figures.Legette-Jack said despite her team’s performance on paper, the 2010-11 Hoosiers have been some of her favorites. This year’s seniors represent her first recruiting class at IU.“They’ve been coming together so significantly,” she said. “Unfortunately, we don’t have the wins to back this up, but this is one of my favorite teams that I’ve coached since I’ve been at Indiana because they’re learning the big lessons and are going to succeed in life after this season because of all the adversity we’ve been through. “One thing that we never did was that we never fell apart. We came together and became one, and that’s where we are right now. We’re getting better, and I’m really excited about our chances in the Big Ten Tournament.”
(02/24/11 5:40am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Sometimes the final score doesn’t tell the whole story.The box score can’t measure the effort of a team playing the rest of its season while knowing that no off-season awaits it.The IU women’s basketball team’s 65-57 loss at Wisconsin on Wednesday will be recorded as its third-straight loss, but won’t show the story behind the numbers.The Badgers (15-12, 10-5) led for the first 25 minutes of the game, going up by as much as 14 points with 12:56 remaining in the first half.However, IU (9-18, 3-12) chipped away at the Wisconsin lead to tie the game at 35 with 14:46 left in the game off of an Aulani Sinclair layup.The Hoosiers were able to hold onto a slim advantage for nearly five minutes before Wisconsin was back on top with 9:08 to go in the game.IU coach Felisha Legette-Jack’s squad would come to within one point with nearly four minutes left before the Badgers pulled away for the win.Wisconsin senior forward Lin Zastrow led all players in points and assists. She would finish the game with 21 points, five assists and six rebounds. Wisconsin coach Lisa Stone said she expects this from her senior leader.“When we needed Lin, she came in and she was ready. She responded,” Stone said.For the Hoosiers, seniors Jori Davis and Hope Elam were the scoring leaders, chipping in 17 and 16 points, respectively. Although IU shot 31 percent from three-point range, Elam was the hot-shooter, making 5-of-10 from the field and 3-of-4 three-pointers.However, strong defense and free-throw shooting from the Badgers — they shot 18-of-22 from the line — was too much for IU on the road.“All we could do is fight,” Legette-Jack said. “We can’t look at things happening, we can’t look at it like somebody grabbed our arm or things going bad for us. All we can do is fight because at the end of the day it’s not about the score, it’s about building your character when you’re on the floor and that’s what we talk about.”
(02/22/11 5:23am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The ball is tipped, and Kurt Pangborn sees a orange blur thrown into the air.It’s the same orange blur he has been watching his entire life, whether it was sitting inches away from the television set watching IU basketball, witnessing Zach Hahn drain a jumper for New Castle in the 2006 3A state championship game or helping rebound at an IU women’s basketball practice.Pangborn, a student manager for the IU women’s basketball team, said he has always loved basketball despite being legally blind in both his eyes.He was born with primary congenital glaucoma and bell’s palsy on his right eye, disorders that have caused his sight to worsen with age. He said now his vision is at 20-450 in the left eye and 20-300 in the right. Both are worse than the 20-200 considered to be legally blind. Pangborn said he is almost totally blind in the left eye, only being able to see light and motion. In his right eye, he said he has more stable sight but has lost his peripheral vision and can only see a certain area in front of him.He has had 37 different eye surgeries to try and “salvage” what vision he has left.After being diagnosed the day after his birth, Pangborn’s mother, Rosie Dellinger, said he was sent to Riley Children’s Hospital to have what she thought would be the first of only a couple of eye surgeries.“I left him that night and it was horrible,” Dellinger said. “You’re expecting a baby and you think you’re going to be able to take him home and enjoy it, and that’s not at all what happened.”Pangborn’s vision was already so impaired since birth that the expected “couple” of surgeries could not save his vision.A FUZZY FUTUREThis is where Kurt Pangborn’s life could have stayed dormant, a point at which he could have lowered his head and accepted his disability as the means to a life without goals or aspirations. But that just wouldn’t be him.“There’s going to be barriers in your life, but why make them barriers? Why not make them hurdles that you can jump and rise above?” he said.Early on, Dellinger was determined to raise a son that believed just that.“I would always say to him, ‘Kurt, just because you’re legally blind does not mean you can’t be normal. I don’t want you lying around the house and living off of the government for the rest of your life. You can be just as good as anybody else. You can be the president if you want to be. It may take you longer, it may be twice as hard, but you can do it.’ And I think he really took that to heart.”This determination to succeed was applied to sports. Growing up, Pangborn said he loved watching IU basketball and was raised in a household of big Hoosier fans. However, Dellinger said playing and watching quickly became two very different things.“There was something about basketball. He wanted to play it because he would constantly tell the doctors, ‘I want to play, I want to play.’ And they would tell him no,” she said. “And I think to him it was like, if I can’t play and be actually in the game, I want to find something to where I don’t care if it’s on the sidelines. I want to be a part of the game.”Pangborn got his chance to be put in the game late in his tenure at Union Elementary School.“I was always directed not to play sports,” Pangborn said. “When I was young they let me play tee-ball, but once I got to a certain level of competition, for health reasons, they said that it wasn’t a good idea because of the scar tissue and molteno tubes. So any kind of contact to the head could cause me to lose all vision.”Although Pangborn does not see his three-year stint in the tee-ball league as significant, his mother said that was when she saw the potential in him.“He got up to where they used the pitching machine and it was amazing to watch,” Dellinger said. “His eyesight had grown worse gradually, but he was getting to the point where he was hitting home runs. And I asked him how he was hitting those and he said, ‘Mom, the pitching machine sounds different and I know my timing when to hit it.’”Pangborn said as his sight gradually worsens, his other senses grow stronger. He said he is able to especially use his hearing to help during basketball practices.“There’s so many tools you can use to learn the game. It doesn’t have to simply be getting in the game, playing those years and getting all that experience,” Pangborn said.His first experience as a basketball manager came in fifth grade when he traveled with his elementary school’s team and assisted them.However, Pangborn said his career really took off while at New Castle High School, where his friend Hahn, a basketball player, told coach Steve Bennett to give Pangborn a shot at being student manager.“Coach Steve Bennett has one of the highest winning percentages in the state,” Pangborn said. “So for me it was a great place to build a foundation of basketball, how it should be done, and I learned an awful lot there.“There was some involvement within high school basketball where I actually had the opportunity to get on and play a little bit with them. So that was really neat because I never had that opportunity in my younger years to actually get out and play.”New Castle went on to win the Class 3A Indiana State Championship his junior year. Dellinger said that remains one of the highlights of Pangborn’s life.“When they won, it was as if he had won. He was part of the team.”COMING INTO FOCUSAfter graduating high school with an ignited passion for basketball, Pangborn attended Vincennes University, where he resumed his duties as student manager. But he said women’s basketball coach Harry Meeks was understandably hesitant.“I went in, told him (Meeks) my story and he said, ‘Well, we’d like you to help.’ But it’s funny because you can always see that little bit of hesitation,” Pangborn said. “It’s like, ‘Oh no, I’m going to work with this guy who’s visually impaired. I want to help him but what is he going to do?’ So at every level there’s that little bit of hesitation: What do I do? What do I say? What don’t I do?”At Vincennes, though, Pangborn excelled.In addition to his usual duties managing the uniforms and equipment, Pangborn supervised and created individual workouts for the players.This year, Vincennes is ranked second in the National Junior College Athletic Association. Pangborn said the coach there still uses a black book he used to keep track of all the systems for shooting drills and workouts. To Pangborn, unlocking a player’s potential at Vincennes was a welcome challenge.“It’s kind of like a puzzle where all the pieces start coming together, where we all formed a system off of the input that I had,” Pangborn said.One day after a game, Pangborn was asked to see Meeks on the court to meet someone. That someone was IU women’s basketball coach Felisha Legette-Jack.She was on a recruiting trip scouting now IU senior Hope Elam.However, she learned that Pangborn was finishing his second year at Vincencess, earning his associate’s degree in sports management and marketing.She offered him a position as her team’s student manager, knowing that he would be attending IU in the fall. He gladly accepted, relishing the opportunity to work for the school he had watched in his childhood.In 2009, Pangborn resumed his role as student manager, but this time, for the Hoosiers.In addition to the responsibilities he carried at New Castle and Vincennes, Pangborn has become a member of the IU women’s basketball family off the court.He frequently hosts players at his home, cooking dinner as they watch game film.“A lot has to do with not necessarily what you have on paper, but more of being that support system for a player and talking with them and working with them through things,” Pangborn said of being a student manager.“I consider him to be pretty much my brother,” fellow student manager Britanny Hollingsworth said. “He’s important to this team and he’s important to me as well.”Sophomore Aulani Sinclair, who arrived in Bloomington the same year as Pangborn, agreed.“He’s just a genuine, great person. He’ll do anything for us on the court or off the court.”CYRSTAL CLEARPangborn will be earning his bachelor’s in recreational sports management from IU this year and said he plans to head to graduate school. He does not know where he will end up, but he knows he wants it to be somewhere offering him a position as a graduate assistant and he prefers to stay in Indiana.Ultimately, he wants to become a collegiate athletic director.“I’m amazed but I’m not surprised,” his mother said of where Pangborn has gone in his life.“So many people that have a disability or are visually impaired, unfortunately don’t make it out of high school. So to be able to take that next step into college and work in college athletics is such a blessing to me,” Pangborn said. “I can’t explain every day there’s a sense when I get up that I really am doing something and making a difference when there’s people like me that could be sitting at home saying, ‘What am I going to do the rest of my life?’“There’s days that are worse than others when you think, ‘Am I doing the right thing?’ But the absolute thing that I always think of is my faith, and I’ve come so far, so why would you want to quit? Why should I fear tomorrow when I don’t know what’s out there? But if I just simply try and give it my all, then nothing but good can come out of it.”Legette-Jack put it simply: “We just need more people like him in this world. He’s a good man and I’m going to miss him.”
(02/17/11 4:55am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The fight. The heart. The effort.They were all there for the Hoosiers at the Wednesday game against Michigan, but it wasn’t enough, as IU fell on the road 88-76.The Wolverines (15-10, 8-5) were able to expand on a 15-point halftime lead to go up 64-46 with 11:22 remaining in the second half.However, the Hoosiers (9-17, 3-11) refused to quit, going on a 17-to-1 run in just more than four minutes to draw to within two points of Michigan with 7:10 left to play.The Hoosiers’ late run was fueled by senior guard Jori Davis, who scored 18 points in the second half. She finished the game with 27 points, six rebounds and three assists.But Michigan had sharpshooters of its own.A three-point basket by sophomore Kate Thompson with 6:54 left in the game quelled the IU run and sparked a Wolverine squad that never surrendered its lead.Three-point field goals and foul shooting became the main sources of offense for the Wolverines, with IU outscoring Michigan 30-18 in the paint.Michigan shot 13-of-26 from beyond the arc and 27-of-32 from the free throw line, which accounted for 66 of its 88 points.“Making shots is a big part of the game,” Michigan coach Ken Borseth said. “We had open shots and we made them.”The IU guards continued to excel, with senior Whitney Lindsay and junior Alisha Goodwin chipping in 10 points apiece.However, a high-powered Michigan offense had five players score in double figures, led by junior Carmen Reynolds, who connected on 5-of-7 three-point shots to finish with 19 points. Off the bench, Thompson contributed 18 points, shooting 4-of-5 from long range.“We were able to pretty much, as a team, get whatever shot we wanted,” Reynolds said. “We were really good at passing it around the perimeter, passing it in and out. Everyone was getting shots, everything was open, it felt like.”IU coach Felisha Legette-Jack said the team’s late surge was not enough to compensate for defensive miscues.“The surge to get back into the game was great, but we dug ourselves into a hole,” Legette-Jack said in a statement provided by IUHoosiers.com. “We knew what they were going to do. They are a very good three-point shooting team and our defense was just not there. Jori Davis was just fantastic. She gave us her all on defense and offense tonight. She is a special player for this program. We just need others to follow her lead.”
(02/13/11 7:53pm)
The IU women’s basketball team surrenders a 11-point halftime lead to lose 80-77 to No.23 Penn State at Assembly Hall. The Hoosiers were outscored 48-34 in the second half and failed to hold onto a slim lead with under two minutes remaining, falling to the second-best team in the Big Ten.
(02/10/11 4:15am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU women’s basketball team is in quicksand and in need of a helping hand to drag it out.The Hoosiers are hoping that an 8 p.m. game at Illinois today will pull them out of a nine-game losing hole.Although the Illini took the first meeting against IU (2-9, 8-15) on Jan. 13, Illinois (2-9, 7-17) now stands in last place in the Big Ten and is in the midst of a seven-game losing streak. Its last victory was the meeting with IU in Bloomington.To procure their first victory since Jan. 2, the Hoosiers will need to get a strong scoring effort from senior guard Jori Davis while containing the inside game of Illinois sophomore forward Karisma Penn.Penn has been the leading scorer and rebounder for the Illini in six of the last seven games. Against Michigan on Feb. 6, Penn posted her 15th double-double of the season, leading the Illini with 23 points and 11 rebounds. Her 15 double-doubles leads the Big Ten and is fourth in the nation.“She’s tremendous, she’s unbelievable, she is clearly one of the best five players in our conference and she’s only a sophomore,” IU coach Felisha Legette-Jack said of Penn. “Some people you just can’t really stop and she might be one of them. We’re going to try to keep her on her heels, but honestly, she gets it. We’re gonna try to keep her guessing, but at the end of the day, she’s going to get a double-double. So we got to stop the other four (players).”For the Hoosiers, Davis is on the doorstep of a career milestone. She is nine points away from 10th place on the IU all-time scorers list. If the Big Ten’s third-leading scorer can meet her 18.3 points per game average, Davis will not only help her team but also solidify her place in school history.Senior guard Whitney Lindsay said the key for the Hoosiers will be creating offense from their defense.“We got to pick up the defensive intensity. This game is going to be a big game for us defensively, and we’re hoping to get our offense from our defensive stops and our transition game,” she said.Legette-Jack said she still has faith in her team as it progresses with each practice.“I think that we’ve had a lot more hunger the last couple practices, and a lot more people have stepped up,” she said. “I’m just excited about the way we look right now, which might seem like a weird thing to say when you’re on a nine-game skid, but our kids are getting better. They really are.”
(02/07/11 2:18am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU women’s team has had other losses this year — 15, to be exact.But this one was different.“This may be the first game that we played where I felt like our kids didn’t have the desire to represent Indiana, and that was very disappointing,” IU coach Felisha Legette-Jack said. Her team fell Sunday to Wisconsin 75-49 at Assembly Hall, giving the Hoosiers their ninth-straight loss.The 26-point margin is the biggest point difference of the year — and the outcome of this game was apparent early.The Hoosiers’ (8-15, 2-9) last lead of the game came with 9:54 left in the first half with the score 17-16.However, the Badgers (13-10, 8-3) closed out the half shooting 8-of-12 from three-point range to give them a 14-point lead heading into halftime. This consistent outside shooting killed momentum for the Hoosiers, as they saw the energy from big plays squashed by a Badger 3-pointer on the other end of the floor.Wisconsin coach Lisa Stone said a balanced attack was the key to her team’s lopsided victory.“You make eight threes in the first half, you want to make sure that you go inside in the second half to balance it out, and our team did a good job of that,” she said.In the second half, IU limited the Badgers to 1-for-7 from beyond the arc but allowed Wisconsin to shoot 45.8 percent.IU then watched as the Wisconsin lead grew to as much as 28 with 8:45 left.“It was seesaw midway through the first half, and then we caught fire,” Stone said. “But being up at half, there’s still another half to play and you want to make sure you don’t let them get confidence to get momentum.”Wisconsin’s numbers prior to the game came as advertised.Senior guard Alyssa Karel, Wisconsin’s top scorer, led all players with 21 points.“Karel is a special kid,” coach Legette-Jack said. “She’s playing like a senior and getting a pick set by a senior who knows her well and the person who’s passing the ball to them is a senior.”IU senior guard Jori Davis led the Hoosiers with 14 points while junior guard Alisha Goodwin added 12 off the bench.Karel said while IU continued to fight to get back into the game, Wisconsin remained poised to finish strong.“I think that’s actually been a struggle for us this entire Big Ten season — getting a lead and getting teams back in it,” she said. “So we just made ourselves conscious of that.”Legette-Jack said she will remain steadfast in her approach to the game and emphasize to her team the importance of fundamentals.“It’s not like they’re bigger, stronger, faster. We’re missing free throws, we’re missing layups, we’re missing putbacks,” she said. “The system works. The players got to make the system work now and have to be held accountable, and they understand that.”
(02/06/11 6:45pm)
Pregame
(02/04/11 4:42am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU coach Felisha Legette-Jack and senior guard Jori Davis sat down at
the post-game press conference with red eyes, glazed-over and welled up.
They had just suffered their eighth-straight loss — the longest losing streak of Coach Legette-Jack’s tenure.
“We’re supposed to endure this and figure it all out and get better and be bigger for this,” Legette-Jack said.
Her team’s 65-59 loss to Minnesota on Thursday at Assembly Hall now drops the Hoosiers to last in the Big Ten standings.
The Hoosiers (8-14, 2-8) headed into the first half with a three-point advantage, but
struggled to hold it for the remaining 20 minutes.
IU traded the lead with Minnesota (11-12, 3-7) nine times, as neither team was able to build a margin larger than nine.
Thanks to 17 second-half points from Davis, the Hoosiers enjoyed a 55-53 lead with 5:35 left to play.
However, Minnesota would close the game with a 10-4 run to seal the victory.
Coach Legette-Jack said her team must learn to close tight games.
“My hope is that we continue the growth in those 34 minutes, and stretch
those minutes to 36, and 37, and hopefully a 40-minute game,” she said.
Davis said she agreed that her team didn’t match the Gophers’ intensity in the final minutes.
“We kind of settled and was like ‘okay,’ but we need to keep pushing
forward,” Davis said. “While we were maintaining, they were coming a
little bit harder toward us.”
Mental errors cost the Hoosiers in the last 90 seconds of the game.
Senior guard Whitney Lindsay was called for a 5-second inbounds
violation at the 1:23 mark with the Hoosiers down by three, while Davis
dribbled the ball off her foot with five seconds left.
The turnover would lead to a Minnesota transition layup with a second left giving the Gophers their final points.
“Well we certainly weren’t 100 percent mentally focused when you make
those mistakes,” Legette-Jack said. “That five-second call is totally a
coach’s fault. We knew that she was struggling, and we didn’t make that
call fast enough, and I take full responsibility for that.”
Davis led all scorers with 22 points, while fellow seniors Hope Elam and Lindsay each chipped in 14.
However, it was not enough to stop a Minnesota inside game that outscored IU 26-8 in the paint.
The Hoosiers’ post-season aspirations now have all but vanished, given
that if they win the rest of their games, their record will stand at
14-14.
IU will look to break the eight-game skid when they play host to Wisconsin on Sunday.
(02/03/11 11:50pm)
Pregame
(01/31/11 5:33am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>This isn’t the season that IU head coach Felisha Legette-Jack had in mind for her senior class, the players that made up her first recruiting class when she arrived in Bloomington.Point guard Whitney Lindsay is injured, while fellow seniors Jori Davis and Hope Elam find themselves carrying a team that is now 8-13 on the season and 2-7 in the Big Ten.The Hoosiers continued to struggle Sunday as they lost 71-57 at Purdue, completing a series sweep for the Boilermakers this season. The defeat marks IU’s seventh straight loss.The senior duo of Elam and Davis led the Hoosiers, scoring 18 and 17 points, respectively. But their scoring effort was not enough, as the seven remaining Hoosiers scored a combined 22 points and could not seem to come up with defensive stops when it was needed.After three consecutive 3-pointers by Hope Elam, the Hoosiers cut the lead to 52-43 and forced Purdue to call a timeout with 8:11 remaining. However, back-to-back 3-pointers from guard Courtney Moses gave Purdue a run of its own, ultimately giving the Boilermakers their largest lead of the game at 20 points with 4:21 left.Four of Purdue’s starters scored in double figures, with Moses leading all scorers with 23 points on 5-of-8 shooting from beyond the arc. The Boilermakers felt comfortable from the perimeter all game, making 8-of-17 3-pointers, in a game in which they never trailed.Purdue coach Sharon Versyp said the absence of injured Lindsay was a big difference.“I think she’s the key to their defense,” Versyp said about the IU defense without Lindsay. “When you have a player that sets the tone, as a point guard, defensively, I think that hurts a little bit.”Legette-Jack agreed with Versyp.“She’s been our point guard, the head of the body,” Legette-Jack said. “It’s very difficult to play without your head. It’s unfortunate we’re having this kind of year her senior year, she’s a special player. The entourage we have because of injuries has really made it a challenge to showcase what she can do and what we can do as a team. Yes, Whitney Lindsay was really missed today.”Looking back on the season as a whole, Legette-Jack said despite not giving her seniors the ideal final year, her team has to continue with persistence.“It’s one of those years we’re just going to have to continue to show resiliency and not ask for anybody to feel sorry for us,” Legette-Jack said. “We’re just going to have to continue to fight and find our way and learn the lessons as we go on.”
(01/24/11 3:50am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU women’s basketball team (8-12, 2-6) lost its sixth straight game Sunday, falling to Penn State (16-5, 5-2) 82-69.The Hoosiers were dominated in the rebounding battle, 61-36. PSU forwards Nikki Greene and Mia Nickson outrebounded IU’s rebounding total alone, pulling down 20 and 17 boards, respectively.IU played from behind for nearly the entire game. The Hoosier’s largest lead of the game was at the 17:05 mark of the first half with the score 6-2.One of the few bright spots for the Hoosiers was the scoring effort of junior forward Hope Elam. She shot 6-of-15 from the field and 5-of-10 from beyond the arc to finish with 21 points. However, Elam’s five 3-pointers were the only baskets from long range that the Hoosiers made. As a team, IU shot 26.3 percent from 3-point range.The Hoosiers’ defense limited the Lady Lions to a 35.1 field goal percentage, but ultimately, IU couldn’t contain Nickson.The Penn State sophomore forward recorded a double-double against IU, including 17 rebounds — 14 of which were offensive — and 25 points.According to an interview done after the game on www.gopsusports.com, Nickson said the Hoosiers’ rebounding woes came from leaving the paint open.“I think that they thought that our shooters were going to take control of the game, so when the shot went up they were really concerned with boxing out the shooter,” she said. “They left the paint wide open for Nikki (Greene) and me to go up and get the ball.”In that same interview, IU coach Legette-Jack said this loss represents another opportunity for her team to learn from its mistakes.“Our post players kind of went to sleep, but we’re a work in progress,” Legette-Jack said. “We’re never going to get used to losing or learning these lessons through defeats. We’re going to go back to the drawing board and try to figure out how we stop another Mia (Nickson) moving forward.”
(01/20/11 5:45am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>On Dec. 5 the Indiana women’s basketball team ended Nebraska’s 37 regular-season game winning streak in Assembly Hall, with 1,628 in attendance.When the IU men’s team played host to Penn State on Dec. 27, 14,952 people came to watch the Hoosiers as they lost by nine.Two teams sharing the same storied arena, school name and sport were separated by a difference of 13,324 fans.At IU and across the nation, the difference between men’s and women’s basketball is clear. The women’s brand of basketball lags behind in the ticket office and television ratings.IU women’s basketball head coach Felisha Legette-Jack understands her team’s role and accepts it.“We want you to understand who we are. We are a women’s basketball team, we play under the rim and it’s a beautiful game,” she said. “If you like the Bobby Knight system, you’re going to appreciate us because we’re not the high-flying, dunking team and neither were his teams.”But the fact still remains that at the beginning of each home game, 14 student athletes run onto Branch McCracken Court, look into the stands and see scattered pockets of fans, which rarely extend past the first few rows of the main level.Is this a level of normalcy felt only at IU, or are these attendance numbers uniform across the Big Ten?How the Hoosiers stack upLast season, IU ranked ninth in the Big Ten for average attendance at home women’s basketball games.Averaging 2,097 fans a game (12 percent of Assembly Hall’s 17,472 seat capacity), the Hoosier faithful were ahead of Illinois (1,819 fans per game) and Northwestern (973 fans per game). Topping the list was a familiar in-state rival, Purdue.In the 2009-10 season, the Boilermakers averaged 7,200 fans per game, good enough to fill 50.9 percent of Mackey Arena’s 14,123 seats. Rounding out the list of the Big Ten’s top three fan bases were Michigan State with 41.9 percent and Wisconsin, who filled 32.8 percent of the Kohl Center.Nationally last year, Purdue and the rest of the Big Ten held their own.The Boilermakers ranked fifth in the country, while six other Big Ten teams were ranked in the top 50. IU was not one of them.The Hoosiers’ attendance numbers do not compare favorably with schools from across the conference and country. But who’s to blame?Is it the women’s basketball program for not having been to the NCAA Tournament since 2002? The marketing department for not promoting the team enough?Or does blame rest solely on the IU/Bloomington community, who fail to consistently attend games?The answer is not so black-and-white. What’s winning got to do with it?On Feb. 10, 2009, ESPN.com columnist Pat Forde wrote a column entitled “Hoops schools vs. non-hoops schools.” In the column, Forde analyzed the steadily high attendance of traditional men’s basketball powers such as IU against those programs which didn’t enjoy such a rich history.Forde found that during that 2008-09 season, the Hoosier faithful continually packed Assembly Hall while Arizona State (not normally a basketball power) enjoyed a top-25 ranking, but failed to draw IU’s attendance numbers.To show a correlation (or lack thereof) between winning and attendance, Forde calculated the difference between attendance and winning percentage.While applying this formula to Big Ten women’s basketball in the context of this article, the difference will be named a “fan score.” The higher the fan score, the better it reflects on a school’s attendance.For example, last season, Purdue finished fifth in the Big Ten and had an overall record of 15-17. On average, their fans filled 50.9 percent of Mackey Arena and earned a 46.8 winning percentage.Their fan score of 4.1 reflects strong fan loyalty despite a non-winning percentage. However, Purdue Associate Sports Information Director Sara White said this number can be deceiving. “Last year was Purdue’s first losing season in 25 years. The history of success plays a big factor (in attendance),” White said.Elsewhere, Ohio State finished first in the Big Ten last season. However, their fan score of -63.7 is significantly worse than the Boilermakers. The Buckeyes were winning, but not many people were there to see it.IU’s fan score was not as low as Ohio State, but it would have been if Assembly Hall fit 19,500 patrons like Value City Arena in Columbus. Whereas the Boilermakers had a lot of fans but didn’t win a lot, and the Buckeyes won a lot but did not host many fans, the Hoosiers neither won nor drew fans.With a fan score of -34 last season, the Hoosiers won 46 percent of their games, but filled 12 percent of Assembly Hall on average.However, since Legette-Jack’s first season at the helm (2006-07) attendance has steadily grown when Assembly Hall was 8.1 percent full.IU Senior Assistant Athletic Director for Marketing Pat Kraft recognizes that winning will help attendance, but it does not have to be the sole factor.“We as a marketing staff and as a department do not concern ourselves with wins and losses. We have to continually keep people involved in all of our sports,” he said. “I’m not naive. When you win, crowds come. But that’s not always the case.. Yes, winning helps the whole process, but our fans that we get there — we average about 2,100 fans — they’re loyal.” The Marketing PushAs the fan score shows, winning plays a role in a program’s attendance numbers.But, as Kraft said, it should not be a detriment to a marketing department’s efforts to draw larger crowds.Realistically, programs across the Big Ten agree on what audience will attend women’s basketball game and who will not.Wisconsin Associate Director of Athletic Communications Diane Nordstrom said she thinks families are key.“One thing that we have done at Wisconsin, and it has worked very well, is gear our attendance towards families,” she said. “Making the event more family friendly by making the players available for autographs and kids being able to see the players close up.”White said she agrees that the same applies at Purdue.“College students make up a very small percentage of our crowd. It’s a lot of Purdue employees, a lot of retirees, it’s a lot of families with children. We’ve tried to reach out to the students more and more, but honestly it’s a tough sell to the student body in general because if they’re basketball fans, more than likely they’re going to go to the men’s games,” she said. “I’ve been involved with college women’s basketball for over 20 years and traditionally across the country, it’s your older folks and families with children that is your fan base for college women’s basketball.”Marketing representatives from IU, Wisconsin and Purdue all said they offer special ticket discount packages to draw families to games, promotions with youth basketball teams and a breast cancer awareness game.However, Purdue separated itself from other schools with the BOILERmaker NETwork.“The most important factor is the community support, but specifically, the BOILERmaker NETwork, which is the women’s basketball booster organization,” White said. “Their membership is close to 400 people. I know they have drives every year where they encourage members to not only buy season tickets, but to get at least one more person to buy season tickets.”According to its website, the BOILERmaker NETwork also holds receptions, buses to away games (similar to IU’s Win Wagon) and their own newsletter.Kraft said one of the main difficulties his department has is reaching out past the Bloomington community.“And that’s how a lot of our sports are grown: through the local community. When we played last night, that’s a hard game for folks in Indianapolis, Evansville, Fort Wayne or wherever to come to,” he said. “So a lot of our sports — volleyball, soccer, softball — are based out of the Bloomington community.”Embracing the faithfulNo matter what the numbers are, or how they stack up against the rest of the Big Ten, Legette-Jack and her team say they are just appreciative of the loyal fans who show up game after game.“We do have a lot of loyal fans, fans that come to every single game,” senior guard Whitney Lindsay said. “They inspire us. It does give you a sense of more people are believing in you and more people have your back, knowing you’re about to go into a tough battle.”Her coach agreed that it is a matter of quality over quantity.“It’d be really cool to have kids come to Indiana and play in front of our audience of 10,000 plus,” coach Legette-Jack said. “But, we’ll keep the 1,600 that want to be here.”
(01/14/11 5:54am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Former IU soccer players Will Bruin and Rich Balchan were selected 11th and 12th respectively in the MLS SuperDraft on Thursday in Baltimore, Md.Bruin, who left college in his junior year to pursue the MLS, was picked in the first round by the Houston Dynamo. Houston also had the 7th pick in the draft but traded up to acquire the standout Hoosier forward.Defender Rich Balchan heard his name called shortly after, picked by the Columbus Crew with the 12th pick. The Carmel, Ind., native was named first-team All-Big Ten in his senior season with the Hoosiers.
(01/14/11 5:43am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Illinois women’s basketball coach Jolette Law splits each game into four key blocks of time. “In this game,” she said. “It’s going to come down to the first five minutes of the first half, the last five minutes of the first half, and then after halftime, the same thing — the first five minutes and the last five minutes.”During IU’s 74-67 loss to the Illini on Thursday night, IU coach Felisha Legette-Jack’s team failed to execute in the last five minutes of the game.“We got to have a knockout punch,” coach Legette-Jack said. “We’re not knocking people out. We’re not seeing blood and going after it.”IU junior guard Alisha Goodwin shot 6-of-11 from the field to give her 14 points. She attributed her team’s late-game struggles to poor defense.“We just needed to get stops on defense,” Goodwin said. “And we didn’t do that, and that cost us the game.”Illinois (7-10, 2-2) led the Hoosiers (8-9, 2-3) by two heading into halftime and grabbed their largest lead with nine with 11:34 remaining in the game.Coach Legette-Jack’s squad then went on an 11-2 run at the 10:36 mark to ultimately tie the score at 50 with 8:09 left in the game.However, the Hoosiers’ run was not sustainable, as the Illini were able to outscore IU 11-to-3 in the final 2:52 of the game to pull out a victory.Illinois’ late run was sparked by freshman guard Amber Moore who hit a mid-range floater from the corner while surrounded by Hoosier defenders to give the Illini a six-point lead with under a minute remaining.“I don’t know why I did the floater, but I just felt like it was going in.” Moore said.Moore led all scorers with 27 points off 9-of-17 shooting and 7-of-12 from the three-point arc. Coach Legette-Jack said there wasn’t much stopping the sharpshooting guard.“[Moore] was hitting some unbelievable shots,” coach Legette-Jack said. “I can’t even get mad at the team. They were right there in her face.”While Moore was lighting up the scoreboard, the Hoosiers’ own leading scorer was having trouble getting her shots to fall. Senior guard Jori Davis, who leads the team in points on the season, scored three points in the first half and finished the game with 16 on 5-of-21 shooting.Coach Law said she made sure her team made Davis a priority. “At all times we had the whole team making sure we ID’d where number 32 was,” coach Law said.With the loss Thursday, the Hoosiers extend their losing streak to three games. Coach Legette-Jack said she believes her team needs to make some adjustments if they hope to reach postseason play.“This is a team that lost our swagger a little bit,” she said. “And we just got to get that back.”