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Aloha readers, I'm currently holed up in my hotel room in Maui waiting out the rain.
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Aloha readers, I'm currently holed up in my hotel room in Maui waiting out the rain.
The NCAA announced today that the 2015 Final Four will be played in Indianapolis.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Without taking a shot from the floor the entire game, Daniel Moore led the Hoosiers to their second win of the season Tuesday, beating IU-Purdue University Indianapolis, 60-57.Down one with 27.1 seconds to play, IUPUI coach Ron Hunter called for a time-out. After dribbling out most of the clock, Jaguar freshman forward Alex Young launched a 3-pointer from the top of the key.The ball ricocheted off the rim, and a scrum for the ball ensued under the basket.Moore, the 5-foot-11 walk-on guard, came up with the rebound. BLOG: Basketblog“I don’t even know if I boxed out,” Moore said. “I just kind of felt my way and got lucky.”His “luck” extended to the next play. After collecting the rebound, Moore was fouled with 1.2 seconds to play. The freshman walked to the line and coolly sank the first one.After hitting his first free throw, Moore, noticing the time on the clock, went over to IU coach Tom Crean and asked if he should miss the second one intentionally.Crean told him to make it, explaining to reporters afterward the Hoosiers hadn’t practiced the late-game situations yet.“My rule of thumb is, anything a second over you make the shot because you can still lose the game,” Crean said. “The wrong bounce and a heave and you can lose the game.” With no Hoosiers lined up on the free-throw blocks, Moore drained the second one to give the Hoosiers a three-point lead. IUPUI’s desperate attempt at the buzzer failed.Moore’s two free throws were the only points the Hoosiers scored in the last three minutes of the game. For the night, Moore finished with two points, a game-high six assists and two rebounds in 23 minutes of play.“To play 23 minutes and control the game the way he did was really special,” Crean said.For the second time in as many games, Pritchard finished the game with a double-double, recording 19 points and 10 rebounds. He’s the first player to begin the season with two double-doubles since Jared Jeffries and the first freshman to ever accomplish the feat. Freshman Matt Roth chipped in with 12 points, knocking down 4-of-9 3-pointers, and junior Devan Dumes and freshman Nick Williams each added 10.But it was Moore’s play that helped the Hoosiers grind out the victory. With 8:15 to play, freshman guard Verdell Jones went down with an ankle injury, and IU trainer Tim Garl determined Jones should sit out the rest of the game.But Moore was there to pick up the slack, energizing the team and the 13,174 in attendance. At one point, Assembly Hall even broke out into a “Daniel-Moore” chant.“In the last couple of weeks, he’s really bought into what his role is, which is to absolutely be tough as nails every possession on defense, get the team in an offense and the communication is coming.” Crean said. “He is so fast when we get into an open floor game we really feel good having him in there.”Sitting next to Moore at the press conference, Pritchard was asked to describe Moore’s contributions.“He can get the crowd up for the play, and he can also make passes,” Pritchard said. “He can make passes to anyone on the team. He has great vision on the court and he’s really quick.”The Hoosiers resume action on Monday when they play Notre Dame in the first round of the EA Sports Maui Invitational. Williams said the team is looking forward to the adversity it will face in the competitive pre-season tournament.“We’re the underdog in every game we play no matter who we play,” he said. “We’re a band of brothers, and we’re going to fight for each other every day.”
The Hoosiers grinded out a victory over IUPUI tonight, 60-57. The game came down to the last possession. After Daniel Moore hit two free throws with 1.2 seconds play, IUPUI threw a deep pass to Leroy Noblels, who had his desperation attempt blocked by Tom Pritchard at the buzzer.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>One game into the season, Tom Crean and his players have found plenty of flaws in their own play.“(We’re) up against a lot of challenges, but I don’t think any of our teammates aren’t up for it and our coaches as well,” junior guard Devan Dumes said after IU’s 83-65 victory in its season-opener against Northwestern State.Crean smirked when asked if things went according to plan Saturday.“They never will,” he said. “I don’t know what the plan is. No way it can go 100 percent.”Crean and his players were happy to open the season with a win, but they remained critical of their play at times during their postgame press conference.Here are five challenges the basketball team faces, diagnosed by the Hoosiers themselves.PLAYING WITH ENERGYThe masked duo of guards, sophomore Brett Finkelmeier and freshman Daniel Moore, provided a spark Saturday, playing a combined 25 minutes off the bench.Moore finished with six points and three assists, and Finkelmeier’s awareness led to three steals and four rebounds. Crean would like to see more of that.“Those two putting pressure on the ball is pretty good,” Crean said. “That’s the only way we can play.”CRASHING THE BOARDSThe Hoosiers might have had the closest thing to a size advantage they’ll have all season, but the Demons still out-rebounded them 52-41.Freshman forward Tom Pritchard led the team with 10, and freshman guard Nick Williams added eight.“There’s a lot of stuff we have to work on – obviously offensive rebounding is a big one right now,” Pritchard said. “I’m sure Coach will figure it out, and we’ll work hard in practice for it.”Northwestern State finished with 27 offensive rebounds to IU’s 14.‘RAZOR-THIN’ FRONTLINEAfter starting four guards in both exhibition games, Crean inserted senior forward Kyle Taber into the starting lineup Saturday in favor of freshman guard Matt Roth.But the team’s lack of size forced Crean to put Pritchard, already with two fouls, back on the floor midway through the first half.“With a veteran team, I would never have done that, but we have no choice,” Crean said. “Number one, we need him, and number two, he has to learn to play with them.”THE HURRYIN’ HOOSIERSWith a guard-heavy roster, Crean said the Hoosiers are going to run this season. “We want to get our easy baskets when we can,” he said. “There are two things that separate guards and people who handle the ball a lot. It’s their vision and their decision-making.”As for transition shot selection, Crean said, “It’d be different if we were taking bad hurried shots, but if we’re playing at a fast past and getting good looks, that’s another story.”The Hoosiers outscored the Demons off fast-break points, 24-18. IU only had 10 the game before in an exhibition match against Bemidji State.LACK OF EXPERIENCEDumes, Finkelmeier and Taber were the only Hoosiers not playing in their first game against a Division-I team Saturday.The team only had Sunday and Monday to prepare for its second game of the season today against IU-Purdue University Indianapolis, a D-I team that won 26 games last season and narrowly lost to Crean’s then-No.13 Marquette squad last season, 76-68.“I don’t think we have any time to grow up,” Pritchard said. “This first game was helpful to find out what it’s like in a college situation. The games are going to get tougher. We’re going to have to play harder.”
The Hoosiers play in their second game of the season Tuesday when they host IUPUI inside Assembly Hall at 6:30 p.m. (Strange start time, just warning you).
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Tom Crean’s stomach was rumbling.He’d coached in plenty of big games during his nine years at Marquette and had already led the Hoosiers to two home victories in the exhibition season, but the coach’s insides were tossing and turning before Saturday’s game. “I feel that way all the time,” he said of pre-game butterflies. SLIDESHOW: IU vs. Northwestern State Maybe he’d guzzled one too many Diet Cokes. Or maybe IU’s first-year coach was feeling the pressure. He was set to make his debut as IU’s 28th men’s basketball coach and lead his young team against a Division I school for the first time. “My stomach knew it was a real game,” Crean said after his team beat Northwestern State, 83-65. “It didn’t know it the last two, I guess, but it knew today.”After the game, Crean’s stomach relaxed.“We’re not going to get shut out this season,” he said with a smile.He opened his press conference by noting his players will “never forget their first win as part of the Indiana basketball family inside Assembly Hall.” Then he added, “Never forget it, none of us will ever forget.”If the pressure of his first game wasn’t enough, Crean had several numbers adding pounds to the monkey on his back. The Hoosiers had won 23 straight season openers at home in a row and 10 straight season openers. In addition, the program’s last eight head coaches had all won in their debuts.Crean extended all the records.After the game, for the third time in a little more than a week, the IU coach went over to the Assembly Hall student section to thank the fans. Although it was not a sellout – the announced attendance was 13,446 – the fans who were there heckled the opposition for most of the night, focusing most of their attention on 5-foot-9 Demon guard Michael McConathy, who they nicknamed “Hobbit.” Freshman guard Verdell Jones said the home crowd “gave us a lot of energy,” but Crean, who has sat on the away team’s bench for a couple of games as an assistant coach at Michigan State, said he was just happy to be on his side of the court.“It’s just so awesome to walk out and see that crowd,” he said. “To be on the home-team bench, I guess it’s hitting me; I guess it hasn’t totally hit me yet. But to be on that side and know they are cheering for the team I’m actually standing there with – that’s a good feeling. “Because it’s an intimidating presence when you’re down on the other end.”The guy on the other end, Northwestern State coach Mike McConathy, father of Michael McConathy and fellow Demon guard Logan McConathy, praised Crean after the game for his team’s effort.“A lot of times, we go around the country, sometimes I feel like we’re the Barnum & Bailey Circus,” he said, drawing a laugh. “But a lot of times, you don’t see the big time programs play as hard as they played tonight. ... And that’s a credit to the staff Coach Crean has assembled here.”
The Hoosiers came out victorious in the team's season-opener and Tom Crean's first game, beating Northwestern State, 83-65.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>For the past seven months, Tom Crean’s life has been as frantic and high-paced as the “William Tell” overture.He’s been a public figure, delivering countless speeches, reaching out to former IU players and recruiting future ones. He’s been a salesman, working hard to boost struggling ticket sales and making promises to the masses of restoring tradition. He’s even served on a committee, helping the University select its next athletics director.On Saturday, Crean will take his team “under the lights,” as he likes to say, for the first time when the score will count in the team’s season-opener.The Hoosiers host Northwestern State at 7 p.m. in Assembly Hall.“It’s truly game week now,” Crean said in his weekly press conference Thursday. The Demons will be the first Division-I team the Hoosiers have faced this fall. The Hoosiers went undefeated in two exhibition games throughout the past week, defeating D-III Anderson by 32 points and D-II Bemidji State, 72-54.In the two games, the Hoosiers showed flashes of greatness, including a 21-2 run to open the Anderson game. But they also faced struggles the men’s basketball program is not accustomed to facing this early in the season.Despite the quick start, they allowed Anderson to score 71 points in the first game. In the second, the Hoosiers surrendered a 10-point run to Bemidji State to open the second half, and found themselves with only a one-point lead, 37-36, with 15:57 to play.In both games, Crean went with a four guard lineup, starting freshman forward Tom Pritchard in the post, playing versatile freshman Nick Williams at the power forward position and playing junior Devan Dumes, freshmen Matt Roth and Verdell Jones in the back court. Crean said his team doesn’t “have our identity yet,” but showed glimpses on Tuesday of what they want to do: pressure the ball, create havoc on the court and bring a lot of energy.While he was an assistant coach at Michigan State from 1995-2001, Crean said his teams knew what to expect when they came to play in Assembly Hall. Certain things were assumed: You knew there’d be a packed house, you knew the Hoosiers were going to get to the free-throw line and you knew they’d play well. But with 12 players suiting up for the first time in a regular-season game for the Hoosiers on Saturday, Crean said, “We don’t have that right now.” In the team’s two exhibition games, Pritchard led the Hoosiers in both scoring and rebounding, averaging 16 points and 9.5 rebounds. Dumes (15 points), freshman guard/forward Malik Story (14.5), Jones (13) and Williams (11.0) averaged in double figures, as well. The Demons, who play in the Southland conference, went 15-18 overall, finishing 4-11 on the road. They graduated three of their top five scorers, who accounted for 46.2 percent of the team’s offense last season. “They lost some scoring and rebounding but returned a lot of athleticism and shooting ability,” Crean said. On Thursday the first-year coach said his team planned to watch some film of Northwestern State on Thursday, go through its defensive sets and game plan in live practice Friday, then review it in the walk-through before Saturday’s opener.In his first game back from his knee injury, senior forward Kyle Taber scored four points and pulled down nine rebounds while being limited to 15 minutes of play by the coaching and training staff.Crean said IU trainer Tim Garl told him Taber looks good and could play Saturday without his minutes being monitored.Noting his front line is “razor thin,” Crean added, “I hope we don’t have a limit with him.”
With ticket sales still not where they'd like them to be, IU Athletics is offering a six-game ticket package for $159 dollars.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Their regular season doesn’t begin until Saturday, but the Hoosiers have already had to grind out a win at home. With their starters off-key in the team’s final tune-up, IU needed a second-half run and a strong showing from its bench to pull away from Division II school Bemidji State, eventually winning 72-54. In a game that was far more competitive than the Hoosier’s exhibition 103-71 win last Friday against Anderson, IU coach Tom Crean said he saw his team struggle. “If we don’t play with tremendous energy and heartfelt passion and attack on defense ... we’re not going to be in many games,” he said. With his starting lineup falling flat, the first-year coach relied heavily on his bench. The starting trio of junior Devan Dumes and freshmen Tom Pritchard and Verdell Jones combined to shoot 8-of-31 from the floor. “There was a drastic difference in the energy between the starters and the subs,” Crean said, citing his backcourt “didn’t bring it at a high level.” The Hoosiers led 37-26 going into halftime but were caught off guard when the Beavers opened the second half with a 10-0 run. That’s when IU’s bench, led by senior forward Kyle Taber and freshmen Daniel Moore and Malik Story, picked up the slack. Story finished with a game-high 15 points and Taber, in his first game back from a knee injury, finished with four points and nine rebounds in 15 minutes . “I felt pretty good,” Taber said, who admitted he was a little nervous at first. “Everyone who came off the bench tonight did very well, brought energy and emotion to the game. That’s what Coach is looking for.” The spark plug of the night was Moore, who was one of the players Crean singled out as a “defensive catalyst.” Still playing with a mask over his broken nose, Moore pressured the ball with relentless fervor in his 18 minutes of play and helped energize a relatively quiet Assembly Hall crowd.“Coach Crean has told me my role is three things: talk, be a pest on defense and be able to run the club from the point,” Moore said. “As long as I do those three things, I feel like I’m doing what I need to do.” The 5-foot-11 walk-on, known for his hustling defense, has been compared by many to former IU guard Errek Suhr, who Moore calls a role model. “I’m not as good as him yet,” Moore said. “I think if I can do the things he’s done for IU, I’ll have a successful career.” The Hoosiers struggled offensively Tuesday night, shooting 43.1 percent from the field and 17-of-29 (58.6 percent) from the charity stripe. Bemidji State coach Matt Bowen, a former IU student manager under Bob Knight, said despite IU’s early shortcomings, he thinks the team can turn things around quickly.“Coach Crean is going to grind it out and find a way to put the players in the best position he can,” Bowen said. “He’s going to find a way to keep guys in games.” Crean said there are several areas the Hoosiers will address before playing in their season-opener against Northwestern State on Saturday, including improving his team’s energy level. “Energy is going to be king,” he said. “We’ve got to win the hustle game all the time. We have got no way around it. It’s going to be a lesson learning year, and we learned (our first one) tonight.”
The Hoosiers will play in their last tune-up game tonight (7 p.m. tip-off) when they host Bemidji State inside Assembly Hall. The Hoosiers won their first exhibition game last Friday, 103-71, over Anderson.
Tom Crean unveiled his starting line-up for the time being last Friday.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>If silence is golden, then Tom Pritchard is worth billions.The freshman forward is so quiet that IU coach Tom Crean implemented a new team rule earlier this fall.If Pritchard doesn’t yell after he dunks, everyone has to run. Everyone.“We have to get that emotion out of him,” Crean said. “He’s going to be a good player. He just can’t be a quiet player.”That description epitomizes the dilemma facing the 6-foot-9 frosh from Westlake, Ohio. In the Hoosiers’ first exhibition game last Friday, Pritchard showed how good of a player he can be, scoring 20 points and pulling down a game-high 10 rebounds before fouling out late in the game.“If he made his layups, he would have had 30 tonight, wouldn’t he?” Crean asked reporters after the game.On the team’s media day last month, Pritchard acknowledged the rule and admitted being vocal on the court is one of his weaknesses. One reason Pritchard said he is quiet is because he isn’t used to the spotlight. Until his senior year at St. Edward, Pritchard was primarily a role player. The star of the team, Michigan State freshman Delvon Roe, scored most of the points and attracted most of the attention. That is, until Roe went down with a season-ending injury his senior year, making the reluctant post player “The Man” of his team.Pritchard blossomed. He averaged 18 points and 10 rebounds per game, shooting nearly 60 percent from the field. The forward, who had just hoped to make the basketball team his freshman year, was now being recruited by colleges. Well, kind of.The way Pritchard was discovered is one of those unforgettable stories that seems too good to be true. Former IU men’s basketball coach Kelvin Sampson was at an AAU tournament recruiting a different player when he saw a player who he believed was Xavier recruit Kenny Frease.Frease was playing well, but Sampson thought the player was spoken for. That is, until he realized that “Frease” was shooting left-handed, despite the real Frease being a righty. Sampson discovered the error, and Pritchard’s recruitment began.When Sampson resigned in February, Pritchard’s commitment did not waver. As in high school, Pritchard was originally thought to be a role player early in college. Now, Crean has described him as a cornerstone of the program.“I’m always driving him to be a better offensive player around the basket,” Crean said Friday. “He’s going to be a heck of a player.”Crean noticed that when Pritchard fouled out of the game Friday night, fans responded by giving him a standing ovation.After the game, Pritchard was one of three players brought to the media room to speak with reporters. Since he arrived on campus, Crean has been trying to get Pritchard to speak up. On Friday, there was finally something the freshman found worth talking about.Glancing at the stat sheet after the game, Pritchard saw he had zero assists for the game. The self-described “natural” passer made his case.“I was just going to say, they have me with zero assists. I know I had a pass to ‘V’ coming down the lane,” Pritchard said in reference to a pass that led to a basket by freshman guard Verdell Jones. Crean wasn’t in the room, but he most likely would have been proud of his freshman getting vocal unprompted. Despite his impressive stat line, Pritchard admitted he didn’t finish “very well today, and I need to work on that.” In the exhibition game, Pritchard often rebounded his own missed shot over an undersized Anderson team and scored.Another area Pritchard will have to address is playing defense without fouling. Pritchard, junior center Tijan Jobe and senior forward Kyle Taber are the only post players at Crean’s disposal this season, which makes Pritchard’s time on the court that much more valuable.“He’s huge (to us),” said junior guard Devan Dumes on Friday. After Pritchard missed a layup Friday night, Dumes, one of the few veterans on the roster, pulled him aside.“We don’t have a D.J. White on this team,” Dumes told Pritchard. “You have to be that man.”“He’s a big factor to us; he may be the biggest,” Dumes said. “I’m not putting no pressure on him, since he’s sitting right by me, but maybe the biggest.”Pritchard smiled. It was someone else’s turn to be vocal.
IU coach Tom Crean sensed his players were nervous during the team's walk-through this afternoon.
Tom Crean will make his IU coaching debut tonight when the Hoosiers host Anderson, an in-state Divison III school, in an exhibition game.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>If you’re an IU basketball fan, consider this season must-see TV.A new reality television show is debuting Friday, and it stars a charismatic coach who is attempting to restore pride and tradition in his new home.The first of the season’s 32 scheduled episodes takes place Friday night inside Assembly Hall, when the Hoosiers and first-year coach Tom Crean host Anderson in the first exhibition game of the season.In a season where the leading star has stressed to expect the unexpected, Crean said he is “anxious” to see the pilot episode.“We’re going to be our own reality show this year,” he said Wednesday in his weekly press conference.The show’s supporting cast is made up of 15 students from all walks of life. One has played under four coaches and went from being a walk-on to the team’s top returning scorer. Another is relatively new to the United States and grew up in Republic of The Gambia. A few of the players were added to the team after playing well in open gym tryouts.Crean confessed Wednesday that he and his family are obsessed with certain reality shows, including “Real Housewives of Atlanta.” He made the comparison to reality TV after pointing out he doesn’t know what to expect this season, and the team’s story will likely change throughout the year.“There is not going to be any type of normalcy or regular ebb and flow,” he said. “And I’m kind of looking forward to that though, there’s no other way.”When IU’s 28th men’s basketball coach makes his debut during an exhibition game Friday night, he’ll be coaching against a small Christian Division III school with a roster completely composed of in-state talent.“Anderson is a proud program with a great tradition,” Crean said. “This will be one of their only opportunities to play in Assembly Hall. We’ll never underestimate that.”The Ravens have 10 players returning from their 15-12 team last season. They are led by senior guard Mike Russell, who averaged 15.3 points per game last season, and junior forward Ryan Fultz, who averaged 13.3 points and 4.3 rebounds per game last season.Junior guard Devan Dumes, who played his high school ball at Decatur Central in Indianapolis, said he’s played against a lot of the players on Anderson’s team, including Russell, and he said he is looking forward to the game Friday night. He is ready for a change of pace from the intrasquad scrimmages.“I think we are getting tired of playing against each other,” he said.While the game is just an exhibition, freshman guard Nick Williams said the team is focused on winning.“I don’t think you’re a real basketball player if you don’t want to win,” he said. “Getting better means winning. ... Trying to win is our goal.”The Hoosiers have been working furiously in their limited practice time to prepare for the upcoming season. Crean said some of the main areas his coaching staff is focusing on are “how much we want to run,” switching defenses and shot selection. He said it’s not fair to his players to expect them to absorb so much in a short period of time, but to their credit, they are “fairly quick learners, in the sense that after we go through it a bit, they pick it up.”Earlier this week, Crean saw a preview of the reality TV show to come. On one end of the practice court, he had six potential walk-ons trying out for the team. On the other end, Crean was working several current Hoosier players through individual workouts.“That’s where we’re at,” he said. “If we don’t smile and enjoy it a little bit, it’s going to be a very disheartening experience, and I don’t want it to be that way. I want it to be exciting and fun.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>With the team’s home opener just more than a week away and reportedly 4,000 student season tickets still unsold, the IU Athletics Department has announced it has begun to sell the leftover tickets to the general public.The original deadline for students to purchase season tickets passed on Oct. 6, but the athletics department extended the deadline in hopes of selling more. IU has already sold out its allotment of tickets for public renewals, faculty and staff.With an “inventory” of unused student tickets, IU will now make the 4,000 or so tickets, primarily located in the balcony, available to the general public through Ticketmaster. Students will still be able to purchase season tickets throughout the season.In a one-on-one interview with the Indiana Daily Student on Oct. 22, Crean stressed the importance of the student fan base.“There really has never been a student body that I could think of anywhere in the country that is going to be needed more than us as we go through these first few seasons here,” Crean said. The general public will have to pay more than twice the amount students would have paid for the tickets. Student season tickets cost $210, while the public can now purchase the seats for $451.Crean said late last month that he was discouraged with the student season ticket sales.“I don’t think they are where they should be,” Crean said. “I don’t want that to become a disappointment because we might be disappointed in the short term. But the students who don’t get them – or don’t choose to buy them – are going to be disappointed in the long term.”Now Hoosier fans who haven’t been able to get tickets in the past, or are on long waiting lists, will get a chance to buy tickets that typically wouldn’t be available.Crean said in the press release that this is a “great opportunity for someone who maybe hasn’t had the opportunity before to become involved with our program the ground up.”Students can still purchase the tickets as well for the $210 price. Additionally, students can buy the tickets on a per-game basis for $15, as opposed to $23 for the general public.
With the team's home opener just nine days away and reportedly 4,000 student season tickets still unsold, IU Athletics has announced that it has begun to sell the leftover tickets to the general public.
Tom Crean held his weekly press conference today with the media. Junior guard Devan Dumes and freshman forward Nick Williams also stopped by before practice. Here are some of the highlights: