Live from Haunted Hall of Hoops
7:00 - Estimated attendance, per IU media relations, was 1,800
462 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
7:00 - Estimated attendance, per IU media relations, was 1,800
Kentucky has just announced its star freshman point guard, John Wall, has been cleared to play by the NCAA. Wall is the top rated incoming freshman in the country, and a member of the Top 5 Wildcats squad that will play at IU on Dec. 12.
The first ESPN/USA Today Coaches' poll was released early this morning, and there are a number of IU's 2009-10 opponents in the Top 25. This includes two of the top five teams: Kansas, Michigan State, Texas, North Carolina and Kentucky.
As reported last week, private donors sent a $75,000 check to Bob Knight to settle a lawsuit in which he claimed he was not properly defended by the university when sued by his former assistant Ron Felling.
As we found out yesterday after Tom Crean and a couple players met with the media, the men's basketball team will host the "Haunted Hall of Hoops" again on Halloween. Last year's event, which took place on a Friday night, failed to draw many students, though it is geared more towards familes and children. But perhaps this year's earlier start time is, in part, for that reason, as the team will hold an open practice and scrimmage at 4 p.m.
IU coach Tom Crean briefly - as in five minutes - met with the media this afternoon.
While last Friday's Hoosier Hysteria marked the start of official practices for the IU men's basketball team, the team will "tip off" the 2009-10 campaign with a pep rally at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 29.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>As the 6-foot-5 sophomore received his introduction from Don Fischer, he skipped onto Branch McCracken court, turned and threw a T-shirt into the stands and did a 360-degree turn just inside the three-point line.And as he jogged out to join seven of his teammates past mid-court, Verdell Jones couldn’t hold back his famous smile. It was going to be a fun night.Friday night’s Hoosier Hysteria had it all, from the traditional 3-point and dunk contests and scrimmage to the return of the famed “Mop Lady” – albeit a new one – and the team scrimmaging and singing with a cappella group Straight No Chaser.Even Jared “The Subway Guy” Fogle got in on the action.Following the night’s events, as the remaining fans gathered on the court to get autographs and meet their favorite Hoosiers, IU coach Tom Crean spoke with the media and made it clear that the fun and games were coming to end.“You want to have fun with it, but tomorrow we’re back at it – heavily,” Crean said. “It won’t be a dunk contest tomorrow. It will be, ‘Don’t let guys get layups, put him on the ground and make him shoot foul shots.” It also wouldn’t be Bobby Capobianco getting off easy after failing to box out Tom Pritchard, who grabbed a rebound and easily scored. Devan Dumes wouldn’t be able to airball a 3-pointer without hearing from the coaches. And there certainly wouldn’t be any collective laughter if Bawa Muniru were to dribble another ball off his foot.Saturday marked the first official practices for the Hoosiers. The team held an open practice at 4 p.m., not long after finishing their first one that began in the morning. On Sunday, it was another set of two-a-days.The NCAA permits all teams to practice up to 20 hours per week. But since Sept. 15, the Hoosiers had been allowed just two hours of official court time with Crean and the coaching staff per week.As excited as the team is to get back on the court, they now have less than three weeks before their Nov. 4 exhibition game with Grace College. That means just 25 days until their season opener against Howard on Nov. 13.“This is the biggest part of the season right here, right before we start games and go into practice,” Pritchard said Friday at Hoosier Hysteria. “(We’ve) got to listen to Coach (Crean) and find out what we’re doing because he’s the head, he knows what to do and he’s going to lead us to some wins.”Pritchard added that it will be “really crucial” as they enter practice to “work hard and do what’s right.”While this year’s IU squad is taller, more athletic and simply more talented than in 2008-09, they are still very young by all standards.Though they return last year’s leading scorer in Dumes and Georgetown transfer Jeremiah Rivers, a junior, it will be primarily freshmen and sophomores who make up the rest of the rotation.And among the most difficult tasks in rebuilding a program is getting everyone to mesh together and play as a team. That’s not easy when there isn’t a core of juniors and seniors who have played together for two or three years.In other words, the team has a lot of work to do in the next few weeks, and as Pritchard suggested, these first weeks of practice are critical.“We’ll have growing pains, we’ll have tough days, but I can promise you there will not be days where we do not work and compete to get better,” Crean said, while addressing the fans during Hoosier Hysteria. “That’s a guarantee.”While nothing else is guaranteed this year – not even wins against November opponents such as Howard, USC Upstate or Northwestern State – working hard now will pay off later. So while practice might not make perfect this season, it should go a long way for these young Hoosiers.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Hall of Fame football coach Vince Lombardi has often been credited with coining the quote, “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.” He makes a good point, and it’s one that many teams take to heart. But when it comes to building an entire program – or in this case, rebuilding it – winning isn’t necessarily the “only thing.” After all, NCAA attendance figures from the 2008-09 season show IU averaged 14,331 fans per home game at Assembly Hall despite an overall 6-25 record. NCAA runner-up Michigan State, meanwhile, averaged 14,759 at the Breslin Center, only 428 more fans per game. These days, maybe more than ever, it isn’t always about winning the most games. For programs looking to return to national prominence such as IU, what may be most important is attracting the players who ultimately can lead to that winning. Sure, the teams with the best records and recent NCAA Tournament success have an inherent advantage, but for guys like IU freshmen Maurice Creek and Christian Watford – former four-star recruits with plenty of options – there was clearly more to it. They surely had some idea of the uphill battle their future team would face in 2008-09. But recruiting is a cyclical process. Programs recruit players, build up their teams and ultimately reach some level of success, all the while recruiting younger talent to replace outgoing players. And this goes on and on. IU coach Tom Crean, who is actively recruiting while simultaneously coaching a young team, is going to have to rely on more than just his team’s win-loss record in order to draw major talent – at least for the next year or two. As much as Hoosier Hysteria is about getting fans excited for IU basketball, it’s equally a major recruiting tool. So tonight, Hoosier fans – students especially – have an opportunity to make an impact on the numerous prospects in attendance.“When you bring recruits in for this, they’re not looking to come to a half- to three-quarter-filled building that has moderate energy,” Crean said at a press conference last week. “They’re looking at the people we’re recruiting against right now. They can go to their environment and see something fantastic, too. We want this to be top of the line, a major league event, and that’s what we’re looking forward to.” Last season, an estimated 10,000 fans made it out to Hoosier Hysteria – almost nothing compared to some other marquee programs.Kentucky’s Big Blue Madness – which sold out its 23,500 tickets in a mere 45 minutes – and Kansas’ Late Night in the Phog events have recently become two of the nation’s premier “Midnight Madness” events. But that’s not just because Kentucky and Kansas will contend for the national title this year. Instead, it’s because they will be bringing out the stars. Four- and five-star recruits, that is. And when considering the full list of prospects that will be at both Rupp Arena and Allen Fieldhouse tonight, together these perennial powers will essentially be hosting more future NBA talent than a Los Angeles Clippers exhibition game. This doesn’t even include the potential pros on their current rosters. Just two years ago, Devin Ebanks, Lance Stephenson and Dexter Strickland were all in attendance for Hoosier Hysteria. That’s one potential 2010 NBA Draft lottery pick and two recent McDonald’s All-Americans with NBA aspirations of their own.If IU wants to once again pull in those types of recruits, Assembly Hall needs to be packed with 17,000 fans every night this season, showing that IU isn’t simply a has-been program feeding off its past successes. For now, that means showing up, being rowdy and making a big impression on every guest who steps inside the building tonight. We know “It’s Indiana,” but for Crean, it’s going to take more than five hanging banners to communicate to these high school athletes what IU is about. And it starts with the students. “At these events, we need the students to be there in full force because they bring an energy that is unmatched,” said Pat Kraft, IU’s senior assistant athletics director for marketing. “We’re proud of our student body and our student athletes, and we want to show that. There’s no better way than to have a ruckus crowd, people fired up.”
Trying to put together some sort of list for recruits who will be attending Hoosier Hysteria and I've picked up some other tidbits along the way.
Just past noon today, Tom Crean met with the media for his first press conference of the year. After, we got to watch the team work out on the court for 45 minutes, something Crean didn't do last year.
Just received a press release from media relations regarding Hoosier Hysteria, which will be held on Oct. 16. The men are expected to take the floor at around 8:30 p.m. that night.
In a plug for the new ESPN College Basketball Encylopedia that hit stores today, SportsCenter just revealed the book's top five all-time programs. National titles won are in parentheses:
FoxSports.com's Jeff Goodman has released his Big Ten preview on the web site. One of the top storylines/questions he poses is whether or not IU will take "the next step back to respectability" this year with the addition of transfer Jeremiah Rivers and the six freshman.
In an appearance on the EZ and Bo Show on Louisville's ESPN 1450 The Ticket , former IU player and coach Dan Dakich said he expects Bob Knight to return to Bloomington for his November induction into the IU Athletics Hall of Fame.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In 31 games as the IU men’s basketball coach, Tom Crean has just six wins to his name. What his 6-25 record doesn’t capture is the number of fans and the amount of support he has won in the process off the court.Outside of his coaching duties and the hours he spends recruiting, Crean has been a fixture in front of the microphone, speaking to various groups at different events.Name any region of Indiana, and he’s ‘been there, done that.’ He was in Indianapolis on Tuesday speaking to the Rotary Club. He’ll man the microphone in Lexington, Ky., on Friday for another event.But from Evansville to Ft. Wayne, New Albany to Merrillville and everything in between and beyond state boundaries, that only matters so much at this point. Crean already has the commitment from those people.The IU fans who have made it through the “Mike Davis Era,” weathered the storm that was, and still is, Hurricane Kelvin and are still supporting the team after year one of the rebuilding process are still believers.Believers in the Hoosiers. Believers in Crean.And while there is certainly support from the students, it isn’t what it used to be, at least when you look at it from a ticket sales perspective.That’s just the nature of where things stand right now with IU basketball.So, as Crean stood behind the lectern Wednesday night, it was arguably bigger and more important than any of his other speaking engagements this year.But he didn’t need to stand up there and tell students to buy tickets. In fact, he didn’t do that at all.Crean spent more time delivering life lessons to the students in attendance than he did actually talking about filling the stands, but he was very clear about the significance of students packing Assembly Hall.“People are energized by what the students do,” he said. “They might not admit it, but the fans get energized by what the students do.”Though last year’s attendance figures were certainly down, students previously were responsible for 45 percent of the total attendance at Assembly Hall, Crean said.That 45 percent will be reached when students fully believe in the job Crean is doing.Sophomore Brice Willey is one student who already does, and by the end of night he developed an even greater respect for Crean.“I feel even more confident after going to that, that we have the right man for the job,” Willey said. “He’s passionate, his work ethic is obviously out of this world, and that’s what we need in this situation. I got a lot out of what I just went to.”Freshman Cory Snider said he believes in Crean “100 percent.” “He’s just an awesome guy,” Snider said. “It’s awesome to listen to him. He’s so inspirational.”Though the team is coming off its worst season in school history, Snider didn’t stop to think about buying student tickets this year. But he knows that there will be others who won’t.“It’s definitely a mistake,” he said. “Coming to watch IU basketball is going to be fun this year. This team’s starting to get better ... Hopefully, no one has second thoughts about getting tickets.”The second-year coach won’t win the hearts of the entire student body, and student support might still be a bit down this year, but for those who ever doubted Crean, it would be hard to walk away from last night’s address not wanting to believe in the Hoosiers.Crean can speak all he wants – around the state and around the country – but there’s no question last night’s event was the biggest for Crean, and the biggest for the program, as they move ahead toward rebuilding IU basketball.Though there’s still a zero in the wins column for this season, at least Wednesday, he delivered.
This photo comes from Tom Crean's Twitter account. I've seen him on a couple of occasions coming out of class where the full sport coat and tie and even, if I'm not mistaken, a suit.
IU coach Tom Crean has yet to meet with the media this year at Assembly Hall. But behold, the "first ever Twitter video."
It was not a matter of "if," but instead a matter of "when." Five-star senior point guard Kyrie Irving will be on campus for his official the weekend of Oct. 2, according to Adam Zagoria.
Here is the numerical roster, listed on IUHoosiers.com. Click for more information (height, weight, etc.). Bolded names are scholarship players.