Day 1 in Puerto Rico
We may not be in San Juan, but IU Athletics is. Check out an update on the Hoosiers from the Puerto Rico Tipoff:
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We may not be in San Juan, but IU Athletics is. Check out an update on the Hoosiers from the Puerto Rico Tipoff:
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>There was some good – more solid efforts from freshmen Christian Watford, Maurice Creek and Derek Elston, among others. There was bad – IU was outrebounded in the first half and wasn’t physical enough. And then there was definitely some ugly – 18 turnovers and a 16-of-30 showing from the free throw line.IU won, and that’s probably what matters most, but it wasn’t pretty. The Hoosiers are young, they aren’t extremely experienced and they are still looking for leaders to emerge in practice. But now that the season has begun, it’s time to hold them accountable. No more pats on the back, no moral victories and no excuses.“Excuses are a sign of weakness,” IU coach Tom Crean said after the game. IU’s record might be 2-0, but they’ll need a stronger, full 40-minute effort. Scoring 69 points got the job done versus USC Upstate, but it likely won’t beat Ole’ Miss, Maryland, Pittsburgh or Kentucky. It might earn them some victories in the Big Ten, but the effort tonight won’t net anywhere near 70 points versus most of their conference foes. It is early and they are still learning, but wins will not be easy to come by when they play three games in Puerto Rico later this week.“We’re getting to play some high level guys,” Crean said. The Hoosiers have started slow in both games, but have used late first half spurts to gain momentum going into halftime. On this night it was an 8-2 run in the final four minutes that sent them into the locker room up by seven. Like the Howard contest, the Hoosiers opened it up, going up by 18 points within the first seven minutes of the second half and extended it to 20 just past the midway point. Though the Spartans did not bring it within three possessions at any point in the second half after sophomore guard Verdell Jones’ half-opening layup, they did end the game on a 21-9 run. Crean and last year’s Hoosiers know all too well what happened a season ago when they failed to shut the door on the likes of Lipscomb and Michigan. “That’s a weakness that we had last year and something we definitely need to work on,” Jones said. “When we play better teams, they’ll come back and beat us. We just have to learn to close out games better.” Jones added that they cannot blame the late second half showing on youth. More than anything, this was a “great learning experience,” as Crean said. They didn’t play poorly, and there were indeed a number of positives. IU is just lucky that they are learning this early, because no team is going to take it easy on them. As Crean said, no one cares what type of numbers IU’s young stars put up in high school. Even Watford, who has been arguably the team’s best player through the two games, is not getting too much credit from Crean. “He’s not scratching the surface,” Crean said. “He is so talented, and he’s not even close to consistent yet. I’m not here to pat him on the back. We’re here to drive him, because that’s a special young man. He can get really good.”The lesson is not that IU was bad or did not deserve to win this game. In fact, they played hard – just not hard enough from open to close. There is a lot to expect from the Hoosiers in the next 29 games, and there is reason to believe the team will be a lot better this year. That’s why it only makes sense to demand the best from this team now and not wait until they really find themselves in trouble.
IU took down USC Upstate 69-61 in what turned out to be a closer game than it should have been. Christian Watford and Derek Elston continue to impress, as does Maurice Creek, while some of the others are working harder for their points and minutes.
IU hosts USC Upstate tonight at Assembly Hall at 8:30 p.m.
As the Big Ten has quietly posted an 11-1 record thus far in 2009-10 college basketball action -- Iowa, somewhat unsurprisingly, was the lone loser -- two negative Big Ten-related stories have found their way into the headlines.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>One game is in the books, and another will be after today. Then IU men’s basketball team will travel to Puerto Rico on Tuesday, where they will play three games in four days. At the end of the Puerto Rico Tip-off on Sunday, the Hoosiers will have played a total of five games in 10 days. For that reason, staying fresh will be critical for IU coach Tom Crean’s squad as they dive deeper into this grueling week. “We’ve got a game Monday, then we travel to Puerto Rico Tuesday,” freshman forward Christian Watford said after the team’s 83-60 win on Friday. “If people can come in and relieve others and we don’t really lose nothing, I feel like that’s what we need to do.” They’re off to a good start, as Crean used many combinations in Friday’s game, with no player seeing the floor for more than 26 minutes. In fact, all 12 scholarship players had entered the game by the 8:18 mark of the first half when senior center Tijan Jobe checked in for the first time. “I thought the game started to look like if we could really stay fresh, we could start to wear people down as the game went on,” Crean said after the game. And they did. Though IU went without a field goal for more than seven minutes at one point during the first half, they finished the half on a 23-9 run from that point on. IU remained fresh after halftime, as they came out of the locker room and outscored Howard 18-6 in the first six minutes of the second half. Crean wrote the word “pace” on the locker room board at halftime, he said, and he talked about how that word has taken on a new meaning this year. “We didn’t have numbers, we didn’t have a deep bench, we couldn’t play fast, so it was easy to pace yourself some. This year, that’s gone,” Crean said. “We’re going to play at a fast pace. To that, what I want them to understand is that it’s the quality of the minutes, not the quantity.” Several of the freshmen in particular exemplified that. Derek Elston played just 14 minutes, but he finished with 14 points on 6-of-7 shooting, three rebounds and zero turnovers.Jordan Hulls scored two points and dished out five assists without committing a turnover in his 17 minutes of game action. In 24 minutes, Watford recorded a double-double, scoring 14 points and pulling down 11 rebounds. The forward shot 4-of-6 from the field and 5-of-5 from the free-throw line and made his lone 3-point attempt. Maurice Creek, meanwhile, went for 17 points on 7-of-11 shooting to go along with two rebounds, two assists, one block and one steal. He said he understands the way things worked out on Friday. “You have other people on the floor that can get the job done just as well,” he said. “Time really don’t matter to me. It only matters about a win. As long as you be getting the ‘W’ in some sort, in some way, I’m perfect with that.” Playing another lower-tier Division I school today against USC Upstate, another “W” should not be hard to come by here in Game 2. But considering the team flies to Puerto Rico on Tuesday to play a talented yet underrated Mississippi squad on Thursday, each player must continue to play that quality basketball with their given minutes. Just as he has said many times before, Crean spoke about the players continuing to get used to playing at a “high level for a long time.” “If you max it out when you’re in there, you get another chance,” he said. “If you don’t, it may be a while. I want that to be the way this team is built right now.” Monday might not be much of a test in terms of playing a strong team, but by the end of the week, we will start to see what this season’s Hoosiers are really made of.
Here's a report from the Memphis' The Commercial Appeal, saying that Jelan Kendrick has signed with the Memphis Tigers. So much for the speculation he was going to sign in the spring signing period.
After some research on the Howard Bison, here is a projected starting lineup for tonight's game, followed by some other fun facts about Howard:
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Nov. 12, 2008, was a special day all around – for IU coach Tom Crean, for the five freshmen who signed their national letters of intent and IU basketball as a whole. Forward Bobby Capobianco, the first recruit to commit to play for Crean at IU, had his paper work by 7 a.m. Forward Derek Elston, originally committed to play for Kelvin Sampson, soon followed and officially became a Hoosier after more than two long years of being an oral commit to IU. Forward Christian Watford and guards Maurice Creek and Jordan Hulls also signed their letters that day, while center Bawa Muniru finalized his the following afternoon. One year to the day that Muniru officially became the final member of Crean’s 2009 recruiting class, all six will finally make their Hoosier debut Friday.For Elston – a Sampson holdover – and Capobianco, who has displayed endless passion for IU basketball since the day he verbally committed in April 2008, Friday is extra special to them. The wait is over for the 6-foot-9-inch forwards, and their IU playing careers will officially begin. “It’s been a journey,” said Capobianco, who averaged 2.0 points and 5.5 rebounds in 11 minutes in two exhibition games. “It’s been a lot of hard work, just growing every single day, getting used to the demands of playing at such a high D-I school – especially at a school with so much tradition and trying to bring that back. “Every day has been a lot of work, but we’re really excited for the point to be here when the games are starting for real, and we can show off the work that we’ve put in.” Elston, who averaged 9 points and 7.5 rebounds in the preseason, admitted that the wait since his original September 2007 verbal commitment was difficult. He said he doesn’t spend much time reflecting on the past but is instead looking ahead for things to come and is eager to get out and play. In reflecting on his short time as a member of the IU basketball team, however, he said it has been “all I ever really wanted it to be.” “I knew it was going to be hard and I knew it was going to take a lot out of me,” Elston said. “But there’s nothing better than putting on either the practice jerseys or the actual uniforms and candy stripes and going out there ... It’s the best feeling in the world to me.” Despite all that college basketball has given Elston and Capobianco so far, both admitted that being a student-athlete – that is a student and then an athlete – has been a challenge. Yet both are handling it well. “Sometimes it does get hard,” Elston said. “I remember after the Grace game (Nov. 4) Wednesday, the next day I had two exams at 8 o’clock in the morning, so that was kind of hard. I was actually in the library until three in the morning. Times like that you just want to throw the books aside and get some rest, but you can’t because it’s books first and then basketball.” Friday, however, is about basketball as the team begins the regular season. Although Elston said the realization that he is actually playing Division I basketball – that first “moment” – came when the team took the court for the Grace exhibition game, Capobianco said it will likely really hit him Friday. “It’ll probably be (Friday) night with a packed house, with the wins and losses going for real,” he said. It’s been a long time coming for these freshmen, both of whom anxiously waited out their time as prospective IU basketball players. At last they get to play. They realize that all their hard work as recruits, and now Hoosiers, is more than about just them and about the team. “It’s a game for the whole state of Indiana,” Elston said. Game on. Prediction: Unlike Maurice Creek’s journey to IU from the Washington, D.C., area, this won’t be a pleasant trip for the Howard Bison. They are young, athletic and quick, and they have some talent, including preseason second team all-MEAC selection center Paul Kirkpatrick and guard Kyle Riley – one of two Indianapolis Pike High School graduates on the squad. But they will simply be overmatched by the Hoosiers. Indiana 83, Howard 59
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Tom Pritchard started every game last season. Verdell Jones averaged 15.5 points in the team’s last 10 games. And in one game in particular, Matt Roth dropped 29 points on Ohio State in just 27 minutes. “One thing that Coach (Tom Crean) said last year was freshmen halfway through the season were already sophomores, since we were already playing so much and we had to take big roles,” Pritchard said. In 31 games last season, the five freshmen from Crean’s 2008 recruiting class accounted for 60 percent of the team’s total minutes played and 68 percent of the Hoosiers’ scoring. Following the season, however, Nick Williams and Malik Story opted to transfer. But IU returns its leading scorer in senior Devan Dumes, and former Georgetown transfer Jeremiah Rivers is now eligible. Crean also brought in a talented group of freshmen. The addition of Rivers and the six freshmen make this team significantly better, and naturally, most of the hype in the offseason was about those seven players. In that regard, there isn’t as much pressure on Jones, Pritchard and Roth as one might expect. Yet playing on what is still one of Division I basketball’s youngest teams, none of those three can afford a sophomore slump. In fact, with just a few returning upperclassmen, the play of this sophomore trio is crucial to IU’s success this year. Here’s a look at what Jones, Pritchard and Roth will bring to the court: Verdell JonesOf all the sophomores, Jones had the biggest season in 2008-09. He filled the stat sheet with 18 points, five assists, four rebounds, three steals and three blocks in his first regular-season career game, and he finished the year with 11.0 points, 3.6 assists and 3.1 rebounds per game. Perhaps more significant, the lanky guard averaged 15.5 points on a 51.5 percent shooting clip during the last 10 games and scored 23 in each of the last two contests. “He improved in a big way,” Crean said. “When you’re going through a season like we had last year, to improve like that, to have numbers like that, from Feb. 1 on, that’s a big deal.” In addition to his stellar shooting, Jones was also 10th in the Big Ten in assists and was very aggressive with the ball, getting to the foul line more than any other Hoosier except for Pritchard. Yet Jones’ aggression also led to many mistakes. Despite 100 assists, his team-high 99 turnovers came at a rate of 3.5 per game. While he admitted he prefers the point and two guard positions, Jones could see significant minutes at the wing. No matter where he plays, however, he will benefit from the depth at the guard position, especially with Rivers joining him in the backcourt. “I’ll be able to take pressure off of him, and he’ll be able to go out there and do his thing out there,” Rivers said.At a preseason press conference, Crean said Jones has significantly improved since last season, and part of that relates to his added strength. The skinny Jones has gained more than 20 pounds during his time at IU. Rivers even likened Jones’ frame to that of eight-year NBA veteran Tayshaun Prince. “You can’t tell me that guy’s not strong,” Rivers said of Prince. “I think that’s the type of body Verdell has. “He might not appearance-wise, look like he put on 30, 40 pounds like we wanted him to, but when he’s got you on the post you’re going to feel it.”Keys for Jones: Being smart with the ball, not forcing too many shots, finding a way to effectively play off the ball. Tom Pritchard Not only was Pritchard the only Hoosier to start in all 31 games last year, he also became the first freshman in IU history to record double-doubles in the first two regular season games of his career. Pritchard handled his role well last year as the big bruiser down in the post, despite only being a freshman with hardly a supporting cast to help lighten the load. Overall his numbers were solid – 9.7 points and 6.4 rebounds per game, the latter ranking eighth in the conference – but he wore down as the season progressed. Despite recording 10 or more points 13 times in the first 18 games of the year, he hit double figures just twice in the last 13 games. Meanwhile, he was held to five rebounds or fewer in 13 of the 18 Big Ten games. Still, if there was one player hit the hardest by lack of depth and size on the team, it was him. “Last year it was just me and Tijan (Jobe) fighting down there,” Pritchard said. But among the six freshmen, three are 6-foot-9 forwards and one is a 6-foot-11 center. Add in an improved Jobe, as well as the help of assistant coach Roshown McLeod in practice, and Pritchard’s job is significantly easier. “With our new offense, he’s getting a lot of dump downs, he’s dunking, and I think he’s getting his points a lot easier (in practice) than last year,” Jones said of Pritchard. Pritchard has also improved his mid-range jump shot, but Crean said the sophomore is not getting as many opportunities to score. But he has been “more efficient when he gets the ball,” Crean said. The big man’s conditioning is also “the best it’s been in my whole life,” he said, while Pritchard has added some muscle and should be able to move bigger guys around. “I’ve been able to do things that I wasn’t able to do last year,” Pritchard said. “Being 6’8”, there’s a lot of 7-footers out there, a lot of bigger guys, and I’ve got to use my lower body and get them out of the way.” Keys for Pritchard: Staying strong the entire year, staying out of foul trouble, improving free throw percentage. Matt Roth While Pritchard and Jones started a combined 56 games last year – and will likely start this year – Roth played just 21 minutes per game and started just seven times a year ago. His role still remains a bit unseen, as the depth at the guard position does not guarantee him any playing time. But this is the guy who scored 7.8 points per game in Big Ten play last year, including a 29-point outburst versus Ohio State in which he hit 9 of 11 3-pointers.Roth hit 37 percent of his threes in 2008-09, but he was often a liability and struggled defensively. He has become stronger and quicker, he said, and he has been taking steps to expand his game. “Matt’s trying to do more than just shoot threes,” Crean said. “We’re actually trying to get him to move his range in, so that he has a quicker release and at points in time can break you down off a shot fake. He’s trying to get to the offensive boards.” Last season, just 21 of Roth’s 153 field goal attempts came from inside the arc. He also shot a team-high 80 percent from the free-throw line, but on only 25 attempts. Bringing in his range will certainly help him get to the foul line, while it should make him an even greater 3-point threat than before. With a number of scoring threats at the guard position, as well as versatile forwards in freshmen Christian Watford, Derek Elston and Bobby Capobianco, it will be harder for opposing defenses to key on Roth as they once did.“If those guys get in the lane and people have to collapse on him, Matt Roth is always out there for the open shot,” Pritchard said. “His shot is looking better than ever. He’s been knocking down things in practice, and especially in that Hoosier Hysteria 3-point contest, he was really hitting those shots.” While Roth said he needs to do “all the little things” – grab rebounds and loose balls and take charges – he knows his greatest weapon is still his outside shot. “I’ve just got to keep doing what I did last year, keep shooting the ball, keep making shots,” he said. “That’s something that the coaches look for me to do, and that’s what my teammates expect me to do.” Keys for Roth: Utilizing other players to get open, getting to the free throw line, becoming more versatile by stepping inside the arc.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Jim Cramer had his turn. On April 4, 2007, the CNBC “infotainer” brought “Mad Money” to IU, where he taped an episode at Assembly Hall. He speculated about the stock market, he gave advice on where to invest money – the whole nine yards. As a journalism major, that kind of talk isn’t my forte. But I do know a general strategy for playing the stock market, and that is “Buy Low, Sell High.” After taking in Monday’s exhibition game, that’s my advice from Assembly Hall. Invest in the Hoosiers now. They might still be a bit down, but they’re definitely on the way up.Following its national runner-up finish in 2002, IU had its share of fluctuations under then-coach Mike Davis. In 2002-03, IU went 21-13 and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Then came a 14-15 campaign in 2003-04 and a 15-14 season in 2004-05 that culminated with an opening round loss to Vanderbilt in the NIT. Davis managed to right the ship and return to the second round of the NCAA Tournament in 2005-06, as did Kelvin Sampson in his first season. IU stood at 20-3 in 2007-08, but then, of course, the wheels started to come lose and the Sampson fallout pretty much speaks for itself at this point. After getting a second look at IU on Monday, it should have been encouraging for IU fans to see the way the team played from start to finish. Looking at the big picture, there is a tremendous upside for this program over the course of the next few years. That’s why, if you haven’t completely bought into IU coach Tom Crean and the team he is running, now is a great time. Buy them now that they are low, because they are quickly getting better. From a statistical standpoint, which certainly does not tell the full story, 16 points from freshman guard Maurice Creek, 15 a piece for junior guard Jeremiah Rivers and sophomore guard Verdell Jones and 13 from freshman forward Christian Watford immediately jump out.Creek played a rather strong game Monday, Watford continues to impress and has shot 16 of 17 from the free throw line in two games and Rivers has really been a spark plug for the team. Jones seems to have picked up right where he left off last season, as well. Most noticeably, the team was very impressive from the start in pushing the ball up the court and playing an effective, fast-paced game. Crean has brought an exciting brand of basketball to IU, and it will only get better as the team matures and also brings in the right players. “When Jeremiah Rivers is playing at that speed, when these guys are getting out playing that way, it’s showing a sign of things to come,” Crean said after the game. “I want recruits to be able to see that.” Former Hoosier guard Errek Suhr, who played on the 14-15 and 15-14 Mike Davis squads while also going to the NCAA Tournament twice, sees the upside of what is being built now with Crean. “When I played at Indiana, we weren’t always young. We were up and down, but we weren’t young,” said Suhr, who was the color commentator for the Big Ten Network’s broadcasts of the two exhibition games. “We (now) have young guys that are really good and they’re the ones that are making good first impressions. In my opinion, as they get older, we’re going to see nothing but improvement.” Yes, the Hoosiers will have their ups and their downs this season, but a long-term upward trend is in the works. Forget Wall Street. What’s starting to go down over on 17th Street will have a lot of folks saying, in the borrowed words of Cramer, ‘boo-yah.’
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>If you thought IU coach Tom Crean would take it a bit easy on the players the day before a game, you would be wrong. Not with so few veterans and leadership yet to truly emerge. “There’s no easy practice,” sophomore guard Verdell Jones said. “We come in and work every day.” Last Tuesday, the day before IU outlasted Grace College 96-73 in an exhibition game, the team practiced and then lifted weights.This weekend was more of the same. On Friday, the team had a tough player-driven practice, Crean said. They played after the IU football game Saturday, and Sunday morning they were at it again. “I think we’ve had a good weekend,” Crean said Sunday. “They’re fatigued. They’re tired. They’re being pushed through many things. I think guys are starting to really awaken to the fact that there’s real competition for minutes and spots.” In the grand scheme of things, the final score of today’s exhibition contest with St. Joseph’s College, a Division II school, won’t matter. Instead, it is about the team having pushed through rough practices and translating their hard work to the game. A player may have busted his butt all week, but if he does not come to play tonight, he’ll have a chair waiting for him on the sideline. There’s no time for “three o’clock All-Americans.” Being a star in practice is worthless if one falls flat during games. On Sunday, Crean rattled off a laundry list of things the team touched on practice: transition defense, half-court defense, help side and weak side defense, the running game, rebounding and preparation for St. Joe. They hardly had time to run sets and work on their half-court offense, and Crean admittedly is a bit concerned about that. “We needed a lot of work on that, but there’s just not enough time in the day if you really want to get better at all those other things,” he said. That’s the reality of it, though. The Hoosiers don’t have all the time in the world to practice, and that’s what makes every day at Assembly Hall crucial. Game or no game, the players need to bring it every day. It’s where leadership is formed, and it’s where chemistry is formed. Besides, there is plenty of playing time and even some positions up for grabs. A game requires consistent play for 40 minutes, and it is essential that practices are no different. “The moment that they think it’s just about over is when we’ve got to keep going,” Crean said. Prediction: Grace deserves a lot of credit for the way they pushed IU last week, but there’s no reason for IU to get pushed around again this week against yet another smaller team. If they eliminate their mistakes, get back on defense, penetrate and continue to work the ball around, they should have no issues today. The Pumas could cause some fits for IU’s defense out on the perimeter, but it should be another big win. IU 98, St. Joseph’s 71
DeAntate and I were among the six or seven members of the media who met with Tom Crean around 6:30 tonight in Assembly Hall.
Former IU players Jamarcus Ellis, Rod Wilmont and A.J. Ratliff were selected in tonight's NBA Development League Draft.
Earlier this afternoon, IU coach Tom Crean tweeted that freshman center Bawa Muniru has been cleared to play.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In a word, one could easily say IU played “sloppily.” They struggled with their transition defense. They missed several shots from point-blank range. They dropped a lot of passes. They turned the ball over 17 times. But IU coach Tom Crean was rather upbeat at the press conference, and rightfully so. “I love their mind-set, I love their attitude, I love their desire to get better,” Crean said. It’s not an excuse that this team is very young – it’s a reality. Eight players saw 15 or more minutes of floor time. Five were freshmen, two were sophomores and one, junior guard Jeremiah Rivers, hasn’t played in an actual game since March 2008 while at Georgetown. Though senior guard Devan Dumes sat out with a knee injury, most of this team’s rotation will be made up of freshmen and sophomores. So they’ll have their growing pains, as Crean once said. Grace College’s coach Jim Kessler might have said it best. Having been around the game long enough, he knows what a young team has to do more than practice and watch game film.“Youth has to mature, youth has to grow,” he said. “And you don’t grow until you get on the court.” After beating up on each other for almost three weeks now – and quite literally, at that – Wednesday gave IU a chance to beat up on another opponent. While that maybe didn’t go as planned, especially considering Grace held a lead as late as 12 minutes into the game and IU didn’t really pull away until mid-second half, it was a learning experience. Freshman forward Christian Watford, who had 19 points, 11 rebounds and three steals – and yes, a handful of missed layups – said the attitude in the locker room was “very positive,” but he knows there is work to be done. “We’re happy about the win, but of course we’re not overjoyed,” he said. “It went well, but it didn’t go as well as we would have liked, so we’ve just got to come in here tomorrow ready to work.”But there are plenty of things that can be placed in the positive category. IU had 21 assists on 35 field goals. Six players scored in double figures, including three freshmen. And the team shot a much-improved 22-of-29 from the free throw line, or 76 percent. Freshman guard Jordan Hulls was very impressive. Watford was too, for the most part. Rivers had his moments and appears ready to carry the team on both ends of the court. And sophomore guard Verdell Jones filled the stat sheet as always. The Hoosiers will get better, no doubt about that. But it will come with time. They have just a little more than two weeks before they open play in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Puerto Rico Tipoff against a tough Mississippi squad, and that should be their first real 40-minute test. For now, they just have to get back to practice and buy into Crean’s system, something they have already been doing. Up next is Saint Joseph’s on Monday to close out the exhibition slate, then regular season contests with Howard and USC-Upstate. IU probably will look bad at times, good at others. But this is a process. We’ve called it rebuilding, the game notes dubbed it “the restoration.” It’s just year two for Crean and the Hoosiers, a program that has already come a long way back in such a short time. It might not be all that pretty here in 2009-10, but it’s only up from here.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Believe the hype. There might not be any true “diaper dandy,” leave-early-for-the-NBA-type talents among IU’s highly touted freshman class, but these guys are darn good. Though center Bawa Muniru will be forced to watch from the sidelines, still awaiting his clearance from the NCAA, the other five freshmen will suit up in full uniform for the first time as Hoosiers today. While each of them has been on display at Hoosier Hysteria, the open practices and the Haunted Hall of Hoops, for many fans this will be their first look at IU’s young talent. Here’s a breakdown of what to expect from the freshmen tonight and throughout the year: No. 1 Jordan Hulls, GuardDespite averaging 17.5 turnovers per game a year ago, IU shouldn’t be as worried about sloppy play with Jordan Hulls in the game. Hulls, the 25th Indiana Mr. Basketball to play for IU, is a great leader, handles pressure well and has an extremely high basketball IQ. Offensively, he has great court vision and distributes the ball well but is also a strong shooter coming around screens and off the dribble. More than anything, he’s a winner, and after watching him play, it’s no surprise he was such a highly rated point guard prospect. No. 2 Christian Watford, Forward Christian Watford brings the Hoosiers length and versatility, two things they lacked in 2008-09. IU coach Tom Crean has called him a “match-up nightmare” as he has the ability to take smaller guys down low and can beat bigger defenders to the rim. Watford has that long, athletic, almost NBA-type body, and he likes to get to the rack on offense. He also has good range and is tough defensively. Watford was a consensus top-50 recruit, and he chose IU instead of Alabama, Kentucky, Louisville and Memphis. No. 3 Maurice Creek, GuardMaurice Creek is a threat to score any time he has the ball in his hands, so it’s no wonder Crean has referred to him as a “prolific shooter.” Though Creek has carried that reputation with him throughout high school and also on the AAU circuit, the Washington-area native is also a solid ball handler and very underrated defensive player. Last year, the four-star recruit averaged 18.4 points, five rebounds, four assists, two steals and two blocks for prep power Hargrave Military Academy. No. 15 Bawa Muniru, Center As expected, Bawa Muniru is raw but has lots of potential. After joining the team late this summer, Muniru has some catching up to do. His hands aren’t terrible, but he also isn’t the most intimidating shot blocker. Despite what he might have shown at Hoosier Hysteria, Muniru is a big dunker when he gets the ball in the open court. Should Muniru be cleared to play for the Hoosiers, he should be a fun player to watch develop during his four years with Crean. No. 23 Bobby Capobianco, Forward Bobby Capobianco might look like just another big body, but as seen these last few weeks, this kid’s got some range. His ability to step outside and run the floor, while also playing tough inside, should earn him minutes. He is by no means extremely athletic, but he has a remarkable attitude and work ethic. Above all, Capobianco has displayed his passion for being a Hoosier and he will likely be a fan favorite. The real question is how the students will chant his seven-syllable name. No. 32 Derek Elston, Forward Though Derek Elston hasn’t received as much hype as some of the other IU freshmen, he could arguably be the top player in the class. While Watford is known for his versatility, Elston is athletic in his own right and can essentially play any position on the floor. Elston can score inside, outside and from mid-range, and he handles the ball very well for a 6-foot-9-inch forward. As a senior, Elston averaged 19.7 points, 10.8 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game. His father, Darrell, played at North Carolina and briefly professionally. Prediction: There’s really no knowing what to expect from the young Hoosiers tonight, especially with some of the injuries recently sustained in practice. But even last year, IU opened its exhibition slate with a 32-point win versus lesser competition. The Lancers are an NAIA squad with just four players taller than 6 feet, 4 inches and, like IU, have just five upperclassmen. Grace will need more than a prayer to hang with IU.Indiana 95, Grace 60
IU coach Tom Crean met with the media earlier in the hour and, among other things relevant to the upcoming exhibition with Grace College on Wednesday, he updated us on the status of the four guys who sat out at Saturday's Haunted Hall of Hoops scrimmage.
This just in from IU media relations:
Today marks the first of several periodic updates on how IU's NBA players have faired here in 2009-10.