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(03/18/13 7:53am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>CHICAGO — Throughout their careers in Bloomington, Jordan Hulls, Christian Watford and Derek Elston, have taken down nearly every obstacle in their way.The trio of seniors started its freshman season with 10 wins and has now clinched a No. 1 seed in the 2013 NCAA Tournament.Yet, the Hoosier seniors left the United Center Saturday afternoon with one task that most likely will never be completed.After losing to Wisconsin 68-56 in the Big Ten Tournament semifinals, IU’s three seniors never have experienced a win against the Badgers, going 0-8 against Wisconsin Coach Bo Ryan.Through the years, Ryan and the Badgers have been known as a physical, methodical team, running down the shot clock in attempt to find the perfect shot. IU Coach Tom Crean has said all season that his program is built around speed and scoring.Saturday, though, the Badgers were able to execute their own game plan while beating IU at its own game.Wisconsin started the game off by scoring its first 18 points from inside the 3-point line.The Hoosiers managed to hold Wisconsin’s big man Jared Berggren at bay on the offensive end for much of the half, but he proved tough to deal with for sophomore forward Cody Zeller. Zeller got off just four shots in the first half as Berrgren made it tough for Zeller to get to the hoop.On the two shots Zeller missed, Berggren was charged with fouls each time, sending him to the bench with 7:55 left in the first half, but Zeller went just 2-of-4 from the charity stripe from both trips.As Berggren went to the bench, IU had amassed a 22-16 lead despite the Badgers’ success in the paint. Without Berggren for the rest of the half, though, Wisconsin moved behind the arc to work its way back into the game and build a three-point halftime lead.The Badgers went on a 10-0 run in just 2:37, putting up shots at a much quicker pace than normal, a style much more characteristic of the Hoosiers.Wisconsin’s Ben Brust hit a 3-pointer with 6:24 left in the half to take the lead at 23-22, and then Mike Bruesewitz followed to cap off the 10-point surge.Crean said one of the things his team had been succeeding at lately was defending the long shot, but he said it was one of several key things his players got away from Saturday.“We’ve been defending the three the last six, seven games at an incredibly high level, and today we didn’t,” Crean said. “They got some kick-out threes and things of that nature, but we got away from what had been making us better. We started to over-help again, and tried to cover for one another when there was no need to do it.”Zeller managed a tough layup inside to stop the bleeding for a moment, but Wisconsin’s George Marshall followed with the first of his two 3-pointers.Zeller and junior guard Victor Oladipo grabbed a few late buckets, and Watford hit a fade-away 3-pointer from the left wing to pull the Hoosiers within just three at the half.But after the Hoosiers pulled close, the Badgers began the second half on a 6-0 run to force Crean into an early timeout just three minutes in.Zeller and freshman guard Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell came out of the timeout and brought IU right back. Zeller fought hard for a dunk while drawing a foul on Bruesewitz, completing the 3-point play. He then tipped in a miss from junior forward Will Sheehey on the next possession, and as Ferrell drove to the bucket with an off-hand layup, the Hoosiers were tied.Crean would take out the pair just moments later, though, with the game tied 43-43, and Wisconsin’s Sam Dekker would go on a 7-0 run on his own to pull the Badgers back ahead 50-43.“The biggest disappointment is every time we had something working, like I said, we had to come back in, and we didn’t stick with it enough,” Crean said.IU would get within a single point, 50-49, but the Hoosiers never seemed to have quite the same energy. Once again, they fell behind by six during the start of another scoring drought which would last the remainder of the game, finishing the final 9:45 shooting just 3-of-15 from the field.The Hoosiers now enter the NCAA Tournament on a 3-3 skid after the team’s come-from-behind victory on the road against Michigan State. Crean said after the game that on the tail of Friday’s 80-64 revenge victory against Illinois in the second round, he felt his team was right back on track playing some of its best basketball.After Saturday, he wasn’t sure.“It doesn’t undo what we have done to this point,” Crean said. “We have had an excellent season. There’s room for growth, there’s no doubt about that, but we would have liked to have played better today, no question.”
(03/18/13 12:29am)
After the Selection Sunday show completed, IU men's basketball media had the chance to talk to several players, as well as IU Coach Tom Crean, on securing a No. 1 seed in the tournament, falling out of the Midwest region, the team's possible opponents in Dayton next weekend, and much more.
(03/17/13 11:51pm)
All Sunday, IU fans were forced to wait and wonder where exactly the Hoosiers would be placed in the 2013 NCAA Tournament. A win against Wisconsin in the semifinals of the Big Ten Tournament, you would think, would have nearly solidified them as the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament, where they would have had to travel just about an hour to Indianapolis and Lucas Oil Stadium for the second weekend of the tournament.
(03/17/13 10:37pm)
CBS just announced Sunday evening that the IU men's basketball team is the third overall No. 1 seed in the 2013 NCAA Tournament and will play in the East region, going through Washington D.C. to get to the Final Four in Atlanta.
(03/17/13 8:26pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>CHICAGO — Throughout their careers in Bloomington, Jordan Hulls, Christian Watford and Derek Elston, have taken down nearly every obstacle in their way.The trio of seniors started its freshman season with 10 wins and has now clinched a No. 1 seed in the 2013 NCAA Tournament.Yet, the Hoosier seniors left the United Center Saturday afternoon with one task that will never be completed. After losing to Wisconsin 68-56 in the Big Ten Tournament semifinals, IU’s three seniors will never have experienced a win against the Badgers, going 0-8 against Wisconsin Coach Bo Ryan.Through the years, Ryan and the Badgers have been known as a physical, methodical team, running down the shot clock in attempt to find the perfect shot. IU Coach Tom Crean has said all season that his program is built around speed and scoring as much as possible.Saturday, though, the Badgers were able to execute their own game plan while beating IU at its own game.Wisconsin started the game off by scoring its first 18 points from the paint.The Hoosiers managed to hold Wisconsin’s big man Jared Berggren at bay on the offensive end for much of the half, but he proved tough to deal with for sophomore forward Cody Zeller. Zeller got off just four shots in the first half as Berrgren was able to tip balls away intended for Zeller or make it tough for Zeller to get to the hoop.On the two shots Zeller missed, Berggren was charged with fouls each time, sending him to the bench with 7:55 left in the first half, but Zeller went just 2-of-4 from the charity stripe from both trips.As Berggren went to the bench, IU had amassed a 22-16 lead despite the Badgers’ success in the paint. Without Berggren for the rest of the half, though, Wisconsin moved outside the 3-point line to work its way back into the game and build a three-point halftime lead.The Badgers went on a 10-0 run in just 2:37, putting up shots at a much quicker pace than normal, a style much more characteristic of the Hoosiers.Wisconsin’s Ben Brust hit a 3-pointer with 6:24 left in the half to take the lead at 23-22, and then Mike Bruesewitz followed to cap off the 10-point surge.Crean said one of the things his team had been succeeding at lately was defending the long shot, but he said it was one of several key things his players got away from Saturday.“We’ve been defending the three the last six, seven games at an incredibly high level, and today we didn’t,” Crean said. “They got some kick-out threes and things of that nature, but we got away from what had been making us better. We started to over-help again, and tried to cover for one another when there was no need to do it.”Zeller managed a tough layup inside to stop the bleeding for a moment, but Wisconsin’s George Marshall followed with the first of his two 3-pointers.Zeller and junior guard Victor Oladipo grabbed a few late buckets, and Watford hit a fade-away 3-pointer from the left wing to pull the Hoosiers within just three at the half. But after the Hoosiers pulled close, the Badgers began the second half on a 6-0 run to force Crean into an early timeout just three minutes in.Zeller and freshman guard Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell came out of the timeout and brought IU right back. Zeller fought hard for a dunk while drawing a foul on Bruesewitz, completing the 3-point play. He then tipped in a miss from junior forward Will Sheehey on the next possession, and as Ferrell drove to the bucket with an off-hand layup, the Hoosiers were tied.Crean would take out the pair just moments later, though, with the game tied 43-43, and Wisconsin’s Sam Dekker would go on a 7-0 run on his own to pull the Badgers back ahead 50-43. “The biggest disappointment is every time we had something working, like I said, we had to come back in, and we didn’t stick with it enough,” Crean said.IU would get within a single point, 50-49, but the Hoosiers never seemed to have quite the same energy. Once again, they fell behind by six during the start of another scoring drought which would last the remainder of the game, finishing the final 9:45 shooting just 3-of-15 from the field.The Hoosiers now enter the NCAA Tournament on a 3-3 skid after the team’s come-from-behind victory on the road against Michigan State. Crean said after the game that on the tail of Friday’s 80-64 revenge victory against Illinois in the second round, he felt his team was right back on track playing some of its best basketball.After Saturday, he wasn’t sure.“It doesn’t undo what we have done to this point,” Crean said. “We have had an excellent season. There’s room for growth, there’s no doubt about that, but we would have liked to have played better today, no question.”
(03/15/13 8:51pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>CHICAGO-To most IU fans, Illinois’s Tyler Griffey may represent the Hoosier loss this season that shouldn’t have been.On Feb. 7 in Champaign, Ill., Brandon Paul found Griffey wide-open under the basket off an out-of-bounds play with just two seconds to play and the game tied. Unguarded, Griffey easily dropped in the game-winning bucket to take down then-No. 1 IU 74-72.Friday at the United Center in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament, Griffey did his best to pull the Fighting Illini back from a 14-point deficit they took into the locker room at halftime.But this time around, the Hoosiers didn’t crumble under the charging Illinois offense, fending off every 3-point strike and move onto the third round after the 80-64 victory.Back in February, the Hoosiers led Illinois by as many as 14 points in the second half and held a 10-point lead with close to four minutes to play before poor offensive rhythm and turnovers led to IU’s demise.This time, though, Illinois began striking a bit earlier, as Griffey drained his first bucket of the game, a 3-pointer, to open the second half, cutting IU’s lead to 11 just nine seconds into the second half.Illinois’s Tracy Abrams followed suit just two minutes later, as the Fighting Illini began to fall into a rhythm that they struggled to find in the first half.In Champaign, it was two late back-to-back 3-pointers from D.J. Richardson that helped erase IU’s double-digit lead, but the Hoosiers fought shot-for-shot this time around.The teams traded buckets for the next several minutes until the Hoosiers got some fire off the bench from junior forward Will Sheehey and sophomore guard Remy Abell.With 15:40 left, Sheehey was left unguarded on the right wing, and freshman guard Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell found the recipient of the Big Ten’s Sixth Man of the Year award in the corner to get IU’s lead back up to 13.Abell kept the lead there with a 3-pointer with 12:48 to go.Illinois Coach John Groce felt like his team came ready to fight in the second half on the offensive end, but he couldn’t coach his players past the unexpectedly consistent shooting from IU’s bench beyond the arc in the second half.“I thought Abell gave them positive contributions, made a couple jumpers, which typically (he) doesn’t do that,” Groce said. “Those are big plays. Sheehey makes two 3’s. He’s whatever he is, a 32 percent 3-point shooter. Those are two big shots.”Richardson tried to spark his team with into another second half run after answering Abell’s trey just over a minute later, but senior forward Christian Watford’s trusty 3-point shot erased any chance at gaining momentum on the Hoosiers.“Watford made a couple, and he’s been really good all year from three,” Groce said. “He buried a couple. The last one was a real dagger that he made.”The Fighting Illini crawled back within single digits for less than two minutes after two Richardson free throws with 8:17 remaining, but another upset win wasn’t in the cards for Groce and his team Friday afternoon.Watford hit his second 3-pointer of the game with 5:33 to play to put IU back ahead 13 points, and from there on, the IU lead never dipped into the single digits and grew as large as 20.The senior from Birmingham, Ala. said that he and his teammates learned a lot from their late second half collapse to Illinois a month ago, and with the help of a rhythm from several players from behind the arc Friday, the Hoosiers prevented a second upset this season by the Fighting Illini.“We learned from that game,” Watford said. “We looked at the film last night, and we looked at some things. We know we shouldn’t have done some things. We let one get away. We knew what they do, and we kept grinding it out and kept playing.”
(03/15/13 2:40pm)
On Thursday, Illinois's Brandon Paul sank a last-second fade-away jumper to beat Minnesota 51-49 in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament, securing a game with the No. 1-seeded IU men's basketball team.
(03/13/13 10:23pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>After the grueling journey through what many have called the toughest men’s basketball conference in the NCAA, the IU men’s basketball team emerged as the outright Big Ten regular season champions, a feat no IU team had accomplished since 1993.But for the team that came into the 2012-13 season as the nation’s No. 1 team, a regular season conference title was only the start of what they hope will be something very special.“It feels like the season is starting over again,” junior guard Victor Oladipo said.Oladipo and the Hoosiers will begin their post season run this Friday at 12 p.m. ET at the United Center in Chicago with their first game of the Big Ten postseason tournament against Illinois.To pull out a win Sunday against then-No. 7 Michigan in the final minute, the Hoosiers had to not only battle through the defense of Big Ten Player of the Year Trey Burke and the rest of the Wolverines, but also play in Crisler Arena filled with more than 12,000 neon yellow-clad screaming Wolverine fans.Yet in Chicago, as well as every game the Hoosiers play during the post season, they will no longer have to deal with the noise and tension of playing in an arena where most of the crowd is rooting for them to lose.During three neutral-site games this season - two games in Brooklyn, N.Y. in the Progressive Legends Classic at the Barclays Center against Georgia and Georgetown, along with one game in Indianapolis in the Boston Scientific Close the Gap Crossroads Classic at Bankers Life Fieldhouse against Butler – the Hoosiers have clearly had the advantage in crowd numbers.In Brooklyn, the Barclays Center was nearly filled with crimson shirts and jerseys, even during the Georgetown game when Hoya fans would have had to have traveled less than 300 miles from Washington D.C., while Hoosiers from Bloomington had to drive or fly nearly 800 miles to make the trip. As senior guard Jordan Hulls said, no matter where the Hoosiers play, especially with the team’s success this season, there’s always a good number of IU fans in the crowd.“It’s a fun environment. IU fans always travel really well,” Hulls said. “We’ll have people there cheering for us, but we’ll also have people cheering against us as well. It’s always fun to go to a new place. We’re ready to do well, so it’ll be fun.”Along with the three games this season as well as the NCAA Tournament last season, several Hoosiers have past experience playing in the neutral court environment. Freshman guard Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell, sophomore forward Cody Zeller and Hulls each played in Bankers Life Fieldhouse during their high school careers while vying for Indiana state basketball championships.Additionally, Ferrell and Zeller have each played in the United Center previously, each during their respective McDonald’s All-American games in high school, and they both echoed that playing in an NBA arena does pose a different type of atmosphere compared to playing at home or away on a college court.Yet, when it’s all said and done, junior forward Will Sheehey said that the Hoosiers can’t look at this tournament and the post season any differently than the regular season, where the Hoosiers went 26-5 while wrapping up a regular season conference title along with the possibility of holding a No. 1-seed when it comes time for the NCAA Tournament.“We’re preparing for it the same way,” Sheehey said. “We’ll have the same mental focus and the same preparation as always.“We’ve been preparing for this stretch for a long time. We played in the preseason tournament up in Brooklyn, which was similar. It’s a tough league, and it’ll be a tough little tournament.”
(03/11/13 1:43am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Along with the status of the regular season Big Ten title, Sunday’s game pitting No. 2 IU against No. 7 Michigan was supposed to settle the Big Ten and National Player of the Year debates.Junior guard Victor Oladipo and Michigan’s Trey Burke had been towards the top of lists all around the country coming into the teams’ regular season finale in Ann Arbor.Oladipo posted a career-high 13 rebounds to go along with 14 points for his second-career double-double. Burke put up 20 points on 5-of-8 shooting from beyond the arc.Yet to Oladipo, the rest of the country will be crazy if they don’t give the player of the year award to his teammate, sophomore forward Cody Zeller, whose six points in the final 41 seconds Sunday at the Crisler Center boosted IU past Michigan for a 72-71 victory, sealing the outright regular season Big Ten title for the first time since 1993.“I’ve been saying all year long he should be the player of the year,” Oladipo said. “If y’all don’t give it to him, there’s something wrong with you.”But it took a while for Zeller to get going early. The 7-foot forward missed his first four shots as he and the rest of his teammates struggled to get the bounces early on, missing 14 layups in the first half. Oladipo pulled down four offensive rebounds in the first half, but the Hoosiers weren’t quite getting the rolls they needed.Yet.After managing an early 10-3 fueled by two early 3-pointers from senior guard Jordan Hulls, the Wolverines took off on a 12-0 run that lasted 4:22. The Hoosiers took a seven-point lead into the first media timeout, and it wouldn’t be until after the second one that they would score again.In all, IU scored just six points in 11:39, but Michigan wasn’t exactly shooting lights out to build a lead that reached as many as 11 points – tying IU’s largest deficit this season.But Michigan finished the first half making just two of the its final six shots, and seven points from Zeller in the final 3:22 of the half pulled the Hoosiers within three, 33-30.Zeller scored three more points in the first minute of the second half, and another 3-pointer from Hulls gave IU its first lead since the 13:31 mark in the first half.3-pointers would play a major role for both teams in the second half, as Michigan hit 7-of-12 from beyond the arc in the final 20 minutes and the Hoosiers were 4-of-10.Glenn Robinson III, Burke and Tim Hardaway Jr. each hit 3-pointers during a 9-2 Michigan run to take a six point lead with 15:22 left, its largest lead of the second half.After shooting 0-of-8 in the first half to go along with three turnovers and three fouls, IU’s bench, highlighted by junior forward Will Sheehey and freshman forward Jeremy Hollowell, found its offensive rhythm it lacked in the first half.The pair scored 10 consecutive IU points, including 3-pointers from both, and it seemed that IU had stolen the thunder of the neon yellow-clad Crisler Center crowd.The Hoosiers led by as many as four after freshman guard Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell hit a jumper with 9:10 to go, but as the lead swung back and forth, neither team gained total control.That was, until Burke tied the game at 66 with 2:12 left. Hulls responded with a missed 3-pointer. Ferrell threw the ball out of bounds. Zeller was called for traveling. After buckets from Jordan Morgan and Hardaway Jr., IU was down four with 1:03 to go and the Hoosiers hung their heads going to into the team huddle after Michigan called its final timeout.But just as they did in the closing minutes of the first half, the Wolverines couldn’t keep their momentum going. Senior forward Christian Watford put a hard foul on Robinson III after he sunk behind the IU defense during an inbounds play and drove to the basket.The hard foul was worth it though, as Robinson III missed the first of two free throws, giving the Hoosiers a fighting chance. Rather than Oladipo, as he did down the stretch in East Lansing, Mich. several weeks ago against Michigan State, it was instead Zeller, a player who may have fallen out of the player of the year race, who helped seal the outright Big Ten title in the final minutes.Even down five points, Crean said his players had the experience of close games down the stretch this season, and they knew that Zeller would be there when they needed him most.“Nobody thought we were out of time,” Crean said. “They had to miss a couple shots to help you out, but I mean, nobody felt like we weren’t going to come down and make plays.“They stayed committed to what was working. No one got into a ‘I’ve got to win this myself’ and they knew that No. 40 was impossible to guard tonight.”Zeller followed with a quick bucket off his own miss, and Hardaway Jr. missed the front end of a 1-and-1 moments later. The Hoosiers were now down only three.After Zeller hit two pressure-packed free throws, Burke had two chances to keep his team in the driver’s seat, but Oladipo’s tenacious defense throughout the game may have drained him just a bit too much in the game’s final minute.“I was just trying to get him tired and slow him down a little bit,” Oladipo said. “He’s a phenomenal player, as you guys can tell. He made tough shots, but maybe he didn’t have the legs to hit that final free throw at the end. Who knows.”Burke clanked the first attempt in a 1-and-1, and Zeller followed with another basket to take a 72-71 lead.Burke took the inbounds pass with 14 seconds left and drove the length of the court and put up a layup that rimmed out.Morgan managed to grab the offensive rebound and flipped in the put back. The ball seemed to stop for a moment on the rim, only to fall off, as Watford pulled down the rebound to clinch the victory and the outright Big Ten title.The Hoosiers finally got the roll they needed.“I’m kind of speechless,” Oladipo said. “It’s been a crazy ride. We’ve had our share of ups and downs, but this team comes together when we really need to. I’d so proud of my teammates.”After the final seconds ticked off the clock, Oladipo shared a moment on the court. The junior said he hadn’t felt like he’d played up to his potential his last few games, and Crean reassured him of how great a player he truly was.After the game, Crean wouldn’t give a definitive opinion on the player of the year race, but like Oladipo, he said Zeller deserved more credit than he’s been getting lately.Through the pressure of being named the preseason player of the year by media all over the country, Zeller has emerged as one of the best players in IU history, Crean said.“I look at some of these teams that are starting to come out, and there he is on the third team, and I’m not even quite sure what anybody could possibly be remotely thinking about that,” Crean said. “That is one of the best players that’s going to come through Indiana, no matter what.“No matter how long we have him, he’s one of the best players, not to mention best people, but one of the best players that’s ever going to come through here.”
(03/11/13 12:01am)
After the No. 2 IU men's basketball team sealed the outright Big Ten regular season title Sunday in a 72-71 victory against No. 7, IU President Michael McRobbie released this statement through IU Athletics on the monumental victory and his feelings going into the Big Ten and NCAA post season tournaments:
(03/08/13 3:33am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Even before their stunning loss to No. 14 Ohio State March 5, on Senior Night no less, the IU men’s basketball team already had something to be proud of.After the team’s win against Iowa the weekend before, coupled with losses by Wisconsin and Michigan State the following day, the Hoosiers had clinched at least a share of the Big Ten regular season title, something the program hadn’t done since 2002 when IU, with former IU Coach Mike Davis on the bench, made a journey all the way to the national championship game before falling to Maryland in the finals.Before the March 5 loss, IU Coach Tom Crean said the athletic department, along with IU President Michael McRobbie, had planned a coronation ceremony to celebrate what they hoped would be an outright Big Ten title after seniors Jordan Hulls, Christian Watford and Derek Elston gave their Senior Night speeches.But with the 67-58 loss, the Hoosiers instead cut down the nets and snapped photos with the championship trophy while donning Big Ten champion hats with blank stares and signs of disappointment in the postgame press conference.“We were trying to celebrate what these guys have earned, but at the same time, we didn’t earn it tonight,” Crean said in the postgame press conference.Instead of what could have been the ultimate celebration on Senior Night, the Hoosiers will have to pull out a victory Sunday in Ann Arbor, Mich. against No. 7 Michigan in order to seal the first outright Big Ten regular season title in Bloomington in 20 years to go along with the No. 1 seed in the Big Ten postseason tournament the following week.More than a month ago when the teams first met under the pressure of College GameDay, the Hoosiers took down then-No. 1 Michigan 81-73 in Assembly Hall in what was one of the most balanced scoring games by IU’s starting five this season.Each of the five starters scored at least 11 points, with sophomore forward Cody Zeller leading the way with 19 on 8-of-10 shooting from the field. Hulls anchored an IU 3-point attack that was nearly 40 percent for the game, shooting 3-of-4 from beyond the arc by himself.IU gave up 25 points to national Player of the Year candidate Trey Burke, but it took the sophomore guard 24 shots from the field to get there as the Wolverines shot 42.9 percent from the floor, compared to IU’s 52 percent.After that win, the Hoosiers took over as the No. 1 team in the country, and it appeared that after victories against Ohio State and Michigan State in the following weeks that IU was lined up for the outright conference title.But two losses in the past three games have hurt their chances.A win on March 10 against Michigan would clinch the outright title. A loss would mean the Hoosiers will be sharing the honors with at least Michigan, and possibly Ohio State and Michigan State. Tiebreakers will instead determine IU’s seeding in the Big Ten tournament. With titles for both teams on the line, there’s no question the Michigan game will be one of the most important of the season, Crean said, but he added that it’s only one in a long list of big games for the Hoosiers this year.“They’re all big games,” he said. “There’s no question we’ll go into that with a one-game mindset. That’s how you coach this time of year, and that’s exactly how we’re going to operate as much as possible.“We know we’re playing a really good team. We know what they’re capable of. We know the stakes for them.”The stakes for IU, though, are arguably higher. After Michigan’s upset loss to the bottom of the Big Ten, Penn State, the Wolverines fell to No. 7 even with a win against then-No. 9 Michigan State and hurt their chances at claiming a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.Even with the March 5 loss at home, the Hoosiers are still projected by many of the national analysts to hold onto the No. 1 seed in the Midwest for now, but going into the postseason on a two-game losing streak could put that into serious jeopardy.But for now, Crean said he’s got his players focusing on the game ahead, not the standings or the rankings or seeding. Taking care of business will allow all that to fall into place, he said.“We just want to win the next game, “ he said. “That’s really what the focus is on, there’s no hyperbole. There’s no more than what it is other than to win the next game.“Right now, we just need to go up there and put our best foot forward and focus on Michigan and not the rest of it.”
(03/06/13 6:09am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>They took the ball down the court for the final time in Assembly Hall this season, and though the IU men’s basketball team was seconds away from a 67-58 loss to Ohio State on Senior Night, the students in the general admission section weren’t done just yet.“Thank you, seniors,” they chanted in unison.A video tribute for Derek Elston, Jordan Hulls and Christian Watford began to play on the jumbo-tron with The Wanted’s “I’m Glad You Came” playing in the background, and IU fans were reminded exactly what this senior class brought to the struggling IU program four years ago.“Their efforts have been instrumental to bringing Indiana back to the nation’s elite programs,” IU Assistant Athletic Director Chuck Crabb said.IU Coach Tom Crean started off the speeches, noting that when he was courting the three members of this year’s senior class, he didn’t really have any success to promise them.“Really what we were selling them was the tradition of Indiana,” Crean said. “When we started here, we didn’t have that on the court, but we had the tradition.“They could not only come in as part of the tradition, but they could come in and make their own, and I think they’ve done that.”Crean first introduced Elston, the senior who may have lacked the impressive stats on the court, but Crean said there was no one else more instrumental to impacting his teammates off the court.“He is defined as a leader in this program,” Crean said. “None of the three of them walked into leadership … They had to create their own, and that’s really hard.“Derek Elston takes a back seat to no one when it comes to perseverance.”Elston struggled through the end of his career at IU, plagued by a knee injury that surfaced before the start of his senior season. For several weeks, he took on the role of another assistant coach during practice in Cook Hall.“I’m up here with two guys who came in with me,” Elston said. “We always said to the reporters we were going to be the group to bring it back. Everybody kind of looked at us like we were crazy.”Hulls followed, the one of the trio who was recruited the least up until a magical AAU tournament during the spring of his junior year of high school at Bloomington South High School. Luckily for Hulls, IU Associate Head Coach Tim Buckley was in the stands, and from there on, Hulls stayed another four years in Bloomington and became one of the most important players during the rebuilding process of IU basketball.“We haven’t made a lot of great moves, but that was a great one, that was a big time move,” Crean said.Hulls’ entire family came to Assembly Hall the night he committed to IU, including cousins, aunts and uncles that span across the country. He said that during his time at IU, his family members began creating more and more IU fans across the country, but nothing was more important during his IU career than family, Hulls said.The Bloomington-native got very emotional when talking about his sisters, in particular. His younger sister, Kaila, a fellow IU basketball player, always gave him someone to compete with, and his older sister, Kati, was the one the family always looked to for anything about the team.“They were always there for me, always believing in me, even when no one else would be,” said Hulls as he hesitated to wipe away tears from his face.Watford finished up the ceremony with a thanks, in particular, to the IU students.To them, he will always be remembered for the “Wat-Shot”, but he noted they had always been there, from the 10-win season to storming the court against Kentucky, and even after Tuesday’s loss.Crean had the players cut down the nets after the speeches were complete, saying they deserved it for earning the share of the Big Ten title, along with the long road the seniors had traveled down.But IU’s senior class isn’t quite satisfied yet.“We’ve got more games to play,” said Elston, as he pointed to IU’s five NCAA Championship banners hanging across the gym from him. “In a few weeks, it’s time to go take care of something on that wall.”
(03/05/13 3:46am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Luckily for IU’s three seniors, last Saturday’s game against Iowa wasn’t the trio’s last game in Assembly Hall.Sure, the Hoosiers pulled out a 73-60 victory, and Sunday’s game clinched a share of the Big Ten title after losses from Wisconsin and Michigan State. But in a game characterized by an abundance of foul calls and sluggish offensive play early on, IU’s senior class left room for improvement in their final game at Assembly Hall at 9 p.m. today as No. 2 IU takes on No. 14 Ohio State.Senior forward Derek Elston tied his season high Saturday with five points on 2-of-4 shooting in nine minutes of action, but senior guards Jordan Hulls and Christian Watford, two of IU’s most lethal scoring threats, combined for just seven points — all from free throws — while shooting a combined 0-of-15 from the floor.IU Coach Tom Crean said that what’s important is his seniors led the team to another victory.“It’s important that we win, and they impact winning,” Crean said. “For me to tell you that they need to shoot a certain percentage — it’s not like that. Jordan Hulls has had two tough field goal games against Iowa, and we’re 2-0 this year, and that’s the bottom line.“Obviously they want to do well individually, and I don’t blame them. We want them to do well individually, but when you win collectively, that’s what you’ve got to focus on.”Along with playing in their last game in Assembly Hall, Hulls, Watford and Elston will have to deal with the emotion and excitement of trying to clinch an outright Big Ten regular season title, something IU hasn’t done since 1993.Crean said he knows his seniors will be extra energetic, but he hopes they use that energy in a positive way.“There will be a lot of emotion surrounding the game and surrounding the building, but the energy and the excitement of the crowd and the excitement of playing has to override it,” Crean said. “We’ve played in a lot of games that have been surrounded by a lot of hype, a lot of hoopla — highly ranked teams, highly ranked television games — but because we came and were able to focus over that, we’ve been better.”But for a senior class that has gone through some of the roughest moments in IU basketball history, maybe a rough game to lead into senior night is fitting.Hulls, Elston and Watford went 22-41 in their first two years in the candy stripes as Crean and his coaching staff tried to rebuild the struggling program marred by the transgressions of former IU Coach Kelvin Sampson.Watford and Hulls were thrown right into the mix their freshman year. Watford has started all but two games during his entire IU career, and Hulls has started every game since his sophomore year. Because they spent so much of their first two seasons doing whatever they could to scrape together wins, sophomore forward Cody Zeller said stats aren’t as important to the senior class, even if it’s their last game in Assembly Hall.“What makes those seniors so great is they don’t care about personal stats or anything,” Zeller said. “I think if we come out and play well and win, even if one of them doesn’t play well, I think they’ll be happy just because it’s a big win for us, ending on a win and winning the Big Ten.”Crean said he has barely let himself focus on the fact that Tuesday night will be the last time he’ll get to watch his first true recruiting class play on Branch McCracken Court. For him, winning Tuesday night is all that matters.“We have so much in front of us that that’s what you’ve got to keep your focus on,” Crean said. “It hits me at times, it does. I love these guys, but the bottom line is we’re right in the middle of it right now. When you’re right in the middle of it, that’s when you’ve got to keep your focus.“I don’t see closure in front of us, so that’s what’s most important. Everything’s about getting ready to beat the Ohio State Buckeyes.”
(03/04/13 7:48pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>After the IU men’s basketball team lost to unranked Minnesota last Tuesday in Minneapolis, Minn., the Hoosiers fell to No. 2 in the latest AP and the USA Today coaches polls released this afternoon.Gonzaga took over the No. 1 spot this week in both polls, taking 51 first place votes in the AP Poll. IU received seven No. 1 votes, taking an obvious hit from the voters, even though the Hoosiers have now clinched a portion of the Big Ten regular season title after their win Saturday against Iowa, along with losses from Wisconsin and Michigan State on Sunday.After taking over the No. 1 spot for the first time this season, Gonzaga set the mark for the highest ranking from any mid-major school this season.Duke (five first-place votes), Kansas and Georgetown (two first-place votes) round out the AP top five, respectively.The top three teams from last week’s poll, including Duke, stayed within the top five, with the Blue Devils maintaining their No. 3 spot. Michigan fell out of the top five this week after falling to previously conference winless Penn State in State College, Pa., although the Wolverines took down Michigan State Sunday.Miami (FL) also fell out of last week’s top five after a three-point loss to Duke Saturday 79-76.The Big Ten continues to have five teams in the AP top 25, with Michigan (No. 7), Michigan State (No. 10), Ohio State (No. 14) and Wisconsin (No. 22). Illinois and Minnesota also received votes this week.
(03/04/13 6:00pm)
After the IU men's basketball team lost to unranked Minnesota last Tuesday in Minneapolis, Minn., the Hoosiers fell to No. 2 in the latest AP and Coaches polls released this afternoon.
(03/04/13 5:43am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>After a tough loss on the road against Minnesota on Tuesday, the IU men’s basketball team faced a slightly tougher road to clinching an outright Big Ten regular season title.Now with three losses, many thought the Hoosiers would need at least two wins in their final three games to earn at least a share of the title, something IU hadn’t won since 2002.But with a 73-60 win Saturday at home against Iowa, along with losses by Wisconsin and Michigan State on Sunday, IU clinched a share of the 2012-13 Big Ten regular season title.Coming into Saturday’s matchup against the Iowa Hawkeyes, IU’s trusty shooter senior guard Jordan Hulls was shooting nearly 48 percent.Yet it took until 6:16 left in the second half of IU’s 73-60 win against the Hawkeyes for Hulls to score a single point against Iowa this season.Saturday night, his scoring woes mirrored the struggles his teammates faced early on, shooting 28.6 percent as a team in the first half.The Hawkeyes gave IU every opportunity they could to let the Hoosiers blow open the game in its opening minutes. Iowa racked up 10 turnovers in less than 10 minutes. Despite Iowa starting the game shooting just 4-of-16 from the field, but the Hoosiers could not capitalize.With 10:03 remaining in the first half, IU managed only 13 points.“I think we were noticing we weren’t really making any shots,” freshman Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell said. “We know we’re a good shooting team. We kept shooting them and hoped that one of them would go down.”And for Iowa, the scoring troubles were even worse. The Hawkeyes scored just six points in the first 11 minutes. The Hoosiers’ lone bright spot for the half came on the defensive end, forcing 13 Iowa turnovers in the first half while allowing just 14 points. “(The offense) comes eventually,” sophomore forward Cody Zeller said. “When we’re defending, they’re not scoring. We’re still in good shape.”Early in the second half, the Hawkeyes cut the IU lead to eight by making their first two buckets in less than a minute. But the single digit lead didn’t last for long.Ferrell answered with a jumper and IU’s lead never dipped below 10 for the remainder of the game.Ferrell’s jumper, though, was the only shot IU would make until the game’s final minute, outside of the paint the entire game.Hulls and the Hoosiers continued to miss from behind the arc, missing their first 12 as a team. Zeller began to see the ball more and more inside, drawing a foul nearly every time down the court.This choppy start-and-stop game flow never allowed to IU to break the game wide open, but the Hawkeyes never managed to come back either. IU shot 19-of-25 from the free throw line in the second half as well as an improved 50 percent from the floor.IU’s traditional shooters struggled Saturday night as Hulls and senior forward Christian Watford failed to hit a single shot from the field.But the Hoosiers were able to maintain their double-digit lead with the inside presence of Zeller and the improved ability of Ferrell to find lanes to the basket, players said after the game.Zeller posted a game-high 22 points off a 7-of-9 shooting performance. He also added 10 rebounds to cap off the 13th double-double of his career.Ferrell scored a career-high 19 points in a performance IU Coach Tom Crean said was much improved from Tuesday’s loss to Minnesota.“Tonight he really focused on making the basket, and he did a much better job with that. He’s really a two-way player, and I wouldn’t trade him for anybody,” Crean said.
(03/04/13 4:48am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Five feet.When Jordan Hulls grew up learning to shoot the basketball the proper way, his dad, J.C. Hulls, wouldn’t let him shoot more than five feet away from the hoop.When he first took to the sport, Hulls flung the ball at the hoop, his dad said, because he wasn’t strong enough, but that wasn’t the way to develop a good shooting form.Until seventh grade, Hulls was never allowed to shoot 3-pointers. His dad, who coached many of his teams growing up, just wanted a player he knew could manage the game.Now, after four years of college basketball on one of the top teams in the country, Hulls has blossomed into one of the most prolific shooters in IU history, while managing one of the most successful IU men’s basketball teams in recent memory.***As Hulls matured and continued to play basketball, he rarely shot the ball. His teams had success, his dad said, because he did whatever it took for his teams to win, even if that meant acting as the facilitator rather than trying to shoot.“I was always passing the ball. He always said ‘Just pass. Get the ball where it needs to go. Play defense, take charges,’” Hulls said of his father. “He never really let me shoot, so all the other shooters would spot up.”Hulls tried out for the Bloomington High School South team his freshman year, and he played a fair number of minutes for the junior varsity squad while dressing for the varsity team.Even though Hulls was three years younger than several of the players on the varsity squad, he worked his way into the lineup. The team made it all the way to the semi-finals of the Indiana 4A State Basketball Tournament.As a sophomore, he started alongside four seniors, leading the team right back to the semi-finals again, all the while earning respect for his leadership on and off the court.“We had really good players with him, but he was the guy who we’d turn to with the game on the line,” BHSS Coach J.R. Holmes said. “He had the ball in his hands to make the decision on where we were going to go down the stretch, and he was the leader of many very good players on that particular team.“I think four were Division I basketball players, but it was understood who the man was when it got to crunch time.”Yet, until the end of his junior year, the floor general of one of the best high school basketball programs in Indiana went largely unnoticed by many of the best basketball schools, including the one right down the road.“I wasn’t really recruited by anybody,” Hulls said. “It was just the way it was. I was just a little kid running around shooting threes and stuff. It was difficult.”Hulls and his dad said that during his first few years of high school, scouts from programs such as IU, Duke and Purdue would show up at his high school games, but watching the scrawny white kid with the long range wasn’t on their agenda.That was, until a special Amateur Athletic Union tournament during the spring of his junior year.While playing with his Indiana Elite AAU team in Pittsburgh during April 2008, Jordan led his team to the tournament title while facing off against one of the top guard prospects in the nation, John Wall, who is now the starting point guard for the Washington Wizards.Hulls knocked down 3-pointer after 3-pointer in front of IU Assistant Coach Tim Buckley and Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski, and he flew home as one of the hottest names on the recruiting trail.“I remember flying back with him, and he said ‘Dad, I just don’t get it’, and I said ‘I don’t either,’” J.C. said. “‘You’re doing the same thing you’ve always done, so I don’t know why it was such a big deal.’”After hardly looking at the hometown guard, IU and newly-named Head Coach Tom Crean jumped on board to court Hulls, but the Hoosiers weren’t the obvious choice.He grew to become a huge Blue Devils fan after Bob Knight left the IU program, donning Duke posters in his room and a Duke license plate on his car in high school.“Everybody thought he was coming to IU right?” J.C. said. “That’s just an automatic? And not at all.“He wasn’t really coming here because it wasn’t a right fit at the time, and then Coach Crean gets here.“Crean basically comes to him and says ‘You’re the right kind of kid. It’s going to be hard, but we want you being the one to come help us, and we think you can do that.’”His senior season, Hulls would go on to lead BHHS to a 26-0 record en route to an elusive state championship, while being named Indiana’s Mr. Basketball.But no amount of success could prepare him for what the next two years had in store.***Hulls entered an IU program in the process of rebuilding after losing its former head coach Kelvin Sampson to numerous recruiting violations. The Hoosiers lost scholarships, and many players jumped ship, leaving IU with little to work with.The Bloomington native was a part of Crean’s first true recruiting class after the Hoosiers opened Crean’s IU career by going 6-25, the fewest wins by an IU basketball team since the 1915-16 season when the team played just 13 games.During his first season in the candy stripes, Hulls and the Hoosiers lost 21 games — more than he had ever lost during his entire high school basketball career.Losing wasn’t something he had to adjust to growing up, and it didn’t come without some difficult practices and rough nights on the phone with his dad.“You couldn’t have prepared yourself for what we had to go through,” Hulls said. “Winning 10 games and winning 12 games my second year, it was definitely a lot harder than anything I’ve ever done in my life. It was mentally and physically draining, and you didn’t quite know who to talk to or what to do because I came from never losing really my whole life.”Hulls, though, continued to persevere. In high school, he had developed a gym rat mentality, spending late nights and early mornings working on his shot with his dad or whoever would rebound for him.Because he lacked the physical gifts some great college basketball players were born with, Hulls knew he had to constantly improve his game.But hard work wasn’t an easy thing to instill among his teammates, who got discouraged from all the losing.“He would come in and say ‘I’m the only one shooting in the gym’ or ‘I’m the only one that’s doing this, I’m the only one doing that,’ and I said ‘Well, go grab Derek (Elston),’” J.C. said. “Go grab Mo (Creek), go grab Bobby (Capobianco) and bring them to shoot around.’“It was a very big maturing process from high school to college, where in high school, the high school coach is telling the other kids ‘Hey, listen to what that kid tells you. He knows what he’s talking about’, but when you get here, a college coach is saying ‘You tell them. I can’t be there all the time, so you take the reigns and go.’”***But promise was on the way.Feisty freshmen Will Sheehey and Victor Oladipo came in during Hulls’ second year. The two players prided themselves on defense and work ethic, and things began to fall into place. Hulls finally had others who were willing to buy into what Crean would call the “365 Club,” a group reserved only for those players who worked on their games every single day.“We were all saying ‘Man, I’m tired’ and he’d go back in there, and you’d say ‘Jordan, you tired man? What’s up?’” senior forward Christian Watford said. “But that’s just Jordan. He’s got a motor, man. He can go forever and ever and ever. That’s what makes him Jordan.”Hulls’ work ethic began to spread as the Hoosiers took small steps back to relevance in the college basketball world.“Seeing him get extra shots made me want to get extra shots,” Watford said. “Seeing the way he shoots the basketball made me want to shoot the basketball as well as I could, and I feel like it’s worked out for the better for both of us.”Hulls said he saw things begin to take shape the summer before his junior season after Sheehey and Oladipo had a season under their belts and a special prospect, Cody Zeller, was preparing to make his debut on the college basketball scene. Players began to take to the gym more often, without Hulls having to pester them.The culture change was coming.The Hoosiers started the season on a roll, winning their first seven games. After a road win against NC State in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge, Hulls said he began to notice he was a part of a different type of team than during his first two years.IU went on to beat No. 1 Kentucky just 10 days after the NC State victory and would go on to earn a berth in the NCAA Tournament as a No. 4 seed.Even in losing to the eventual national champions in the Sweet 16, the Hoosiers had made it back to the promised land sooner than either Hulls or his family could have imagined.And Hulls and the Hoosiers were just getting started.***The Hoosiers now sit on the cusp of an overall No. 1 seed in the 2013 NCAA Tournament, and Hulls can tell it’s because of the culture change around the program that his teammates trace right back to his own work ethic.“We just have guys on the team who want to get better every day, so it’s very competitive in practice,” Hulls said. “That’s what makes us a good team, is that in our practices, we’re going at each other and going against good players, so we’re getting better that way.”But even he can’t deny the losses and the struggles he went through just to get noticed by his hometown school don’t feed into his motivation to work harder every single day.“It makes you appreciate winning that much more,” Hulls said. “You definitely hate to lose. I think we have a bunch of guys on this team who are dedicated to not getting back to that place, even though some of the guys weren’t in that situation.“They can feed off the energy of guys like Derek, myself, Christian, Victor and Will. They can see it in us that we don’t want to go back to that place.”Hulls said that with the success these last two years have brought, they certainly have flown by. Right now, all that’s on his mind is the next game against Ohio State, his last ever in Assembly Hall.He knows he started his career as a 6-foot freshman with the questions of more than 17,000 fans to answer. Nevertheless, the doubt and challenges he has overcome while playing on some of the best and worst basketball teams in IU history have made him even stronger.“There’s a lot of people out there who doubted me,” Hulls said. “They didn’t know if I was fast enough, tall enough, strong enough or whatever, so I feel like over the last four years, I’ve gotten a lot stronger, a lot faster, gotten better at shooting. Just my overall game has gotten better.”Holmes was one of the first to give Hulls a chance when he came into high school, and he said after Hulls finishes this season, all he needs is one more person to believe in him to be able to continue his career as a basketball player at the professional level.He’s got the skills, Holmes said. All he needs is an opportunity.“If someone will give him a chance,” Holmes said. “Sometimes they get into that point where they look at size and quickness and dunking and stuff like that. If they check out the heart and the work ethic and the leadership ability and someone gives him a chance, I think there’s an opportunity for him to play on.”J.C. thinks the sky is the limit for his son.“He’s got a dream, and his dream is to play at the next level,” he said. “Can he play at the next level? I don’t know. People have told him he could, that he has a shot at it because of the things he does, how he shoots, how he sees the floor. The things he does are still valued.”
(03/03/13 7:08pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Coming into Saturday’s matchup against the Iowa Hawkeyes, IU’s trusty shooter senior guard Jordan Hulls was shooting nearly 48 percent for the Hoosiers.Yet it took until 6:16 left in the second half of IU’s 73-60 win against the Hawkeyes for Hulls to score a single point against Iowa this season.Earlier this season on New Year’s Eve, the Bloomington native shot 0-of-10 from the floor in Carver-Hawkeye Arena and failed to make it to the foul line in his scoreless performance to open Big Ten play.Saturday night, his scoring woes mirrored the struggles his teammates faced early on, shooting 28.6 percent as a team in the first half.The Hawkeyes gave IU every opportunity they could to let the Hoosiers blow open the game in its opening minutes. Iowa racked up 10 turnovers in less than 10 minutes while starting the game shooting just 4-of-16 from the field, but the Hoosiers could not capitalize.IU started the game shooting just 1-of-7, including four straight misses to open the game by sophomore forward Cody Zeller.The Hoosiers continued to feed Zeller the ball in the post for much of the game, as he was able to draw several fouls inside and take advantage of the tight game being called. But even IU’s big man, who came in averaging nearly 77 percent from the free throw line, missed three of his first six attempts.With 10:03 remaining in the first half, IU had managed just 13 points.“I think we were noticing we weren’t really making any shots,” freshman Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell said. “We know we’re a good shooting team. We kept shooting them and hoped that one of them would go down.”And for Iowa, the scoring troubles were even worse. The Hawkeyes scored just six points in the first 11 minutes. Whether it was at his players for struggling to find the bottom of the net or the refs for some questionable foul calls, Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery seldom stopped yelling.With 10:26 left, his intensity finally earned him a technical foul, but junior guard Victor Oladipo hit just 1-of-2 from the line.The Hoosiers’ lone bright spot for the half came on the defensive end, forcing 13 Iowa turnovers in the first half while allowing just 14 points. Although IU wasn’t lighting it up on offense, it was the defense, Zeller said, that allowed their offense time to catch fire.“It comes eventually,” Zeller said. “When we’re defending, they’re not scoring. We’re still in good shape. Obviously it looks better when we’re scoring, but we can win if it’s a low scoring game because our defense is playing well.”Early in the second half, the Hawkeyes cut the IU lead to eight by making their first two buckets in less than a minute. But the single digit lead didn’t last for long.Ferrell answered with a jumper and IU’s lead never dipped below 10 for the remainder of the game and hit as many as 17 points.Ferrell’s jumper, though, was the only shot until the game’s final minute that IU would make outside of the paint the entire game.Hulls and the Hoosiers continued to miss from behind the arc, missing their first 12 as a team. Zeller began to see the ball more and more inside, drawing a foul nearly every time down the court as the refs never shied away from their whistles.This choppy start-and-stop game flow never allowed to IU to break the game wide open, but the Hawkeyes never managed to come back either. IU shot 19-of-25 from the free throw line in the second half as well as an improved 50 percent from the floor.IU’s traditional shooters struggled Saturday night as Hulls and senior forward Christian Watford failed to hit a single shot from the field, shooting a combined 0-of-15 while combining for seven points, all from free throws.But the Hoosiers were able to maintain their double-digit lead with the inside presence of Zeller and the improved ability of Ferrell to find lanes to the basket, players said after the game.Zeller posted a game-high 22 points off a 7-of-9 shooting performance after his four straight misses to open the game. He also added 10 rebounds to cap off the 13th double-double of his career.Ferrell scored a career-high 19 points in a performance IU Coach Tom Crean said was much improved from Tuesday’s loss to Minnesota.In Minneapolis, Minn., Crean said that Ferrell was looking too much to draw the foul. Saturday night, he went to the bucket looking to score, and his shots fell in.“Tonight he really focused on making the basket, and he did a much better job with that. He’s really a two-way player, and I wouldn’t trade him for anybody,” Crean said.
(03/01/13 3:34am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU men’s basketball team has come a long way since Big Ten play began on Dec. 31, 2012, in Carver-Hawkeye Arena.IU entered its first matchup of the season with the Hawkeyes, the No. 5 team in the country, still trying to claw its way back to the top of the polls after losing to unranked Butler on a neutral court a couple weeks prior, falling from the No. 1 status it had held all season.And though the polls will not change until next week’s votes from the AP and NCAA coaches are finalized, keeping IU as the top team in the country for at least three more days, the Hoosiers enter Saturday’s matchup against Iowa at Assembly Hall again with something to prove.Just two wins away from clinching at least a share of the Big Ten regular season title, with the possibility of clinching it outright with a win over Ohio State on senior night March 5, the Hoosiers faltered on the road against unranked Minnesota. They lost 77-73 while getting out-rebounded by the Golden Gophers’ length and strength inside the paint 44-30.Minnesota didn’t light up the nets in The Barn, only mustering a 42.9 field goal percentage, including shooting just 4-of-20 from beyond the arc.Yet, with 23 offensive rebounds and 44 total rebounds, the Golden Gophers simply created more opportunities than the Hoosiers, shooting 11 more shots than IU to steal the four-point margin of victory.In their first matchup against the Hawkeyes, the Hoosiers were able to out-rebound Iowa both on the offensive and defensive end, but the Hawkeyes currently stand second in the conference in total rebounds per game at 39.4.Iowa ranks third in the Big Ten with 13 offensive rebounds per game and second in the defensive category at 26.4 per game.Yet Aaron White, Iowa’s leading rebounder, sits outside the top 10 in the conference for total rebounds a game, and Iowa doesn’t have anyone else in the top 20. Instead, they have six players averaging at least 3.5 rebounds per game.Tuesday against Minnesota, IU gave up at least four rebounds to five separate Golden Gopher players, including 12 to Trevor Mbakwe. IU’s top rebounding threats, sophomore forward Cody Zeller, senior forward Christian Watford and junior guard Victor Oladipo, who average to combine for 20.5 rebounds per game so far this season, managed to pull down just 14.In order to avoid another scare — or even another loss to an unranked opponent — the Hoosiers will look to improve on Tuesday’s rebounding performance against Iowa’s stout roster of five players standing 6 feet, 8 inches or taller.On Tuesday, IU Coach Tom Crean said rebounding was the only thing keeping the Hoosiers from a tough road victory, and possibly having this last regular season home stretch clinch an outright Big Ten title.“There is nothing more glaring than rebounds,” Crean said. “That was our biggest issue, the fact that we had six offensive rebounds at half and got four in the second half. (Minnesota) got nine (offensive rebounds) in the first half and 14 in the second half. (Rebounding) was the difference.”
(02/27/13 5:32am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Throughout much of the Big Ten season, senior forward Christian Watford had been the catalyst for the IU men’s basketball team early in the first half.But his first shot in Tuesday night’s 77-73 loss on the road to unranked Minnesota proved to be symbolic of how the games of he and several IU starters would unfold. With an open look from the left wing beyond the arc, Watford sent his shot sailing over the rim, glancing off the backboard for one of his uglier shots of the season.From there on, he, sophomore forward Cody Zeller and freshman guard Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell would go on to combine for just four points in the first half. They were scoreless from the floor on 0-of-11 shooting from the field as No. 1 IU went into the first half with a 34-30 lead.The trio, which averaged 37 points coming into Tuesday night’s matchup all seemed to struggle down low with Minnesota’s size.On several drives to the basket, the usually quick Ferrell could never manage to beat his defender to the bucket. Zeller had two of his shots blocked while he battled down low against Minnesota’s Trevor Mbakwe and Elliot Eliason, an unusual occurrence for the 7-footer.“They were physical with him,” IU Coach Tom Crean said. “Extremely physical with him.”The Hoosiers were able to maintain pace with the Golden Gophers with the help of a stellar first half from beyond the arc from senior guard Jordan Hulls who went 4-of-5 on 3-pointers for 14 first half points.IU’s other starter, junior guard Victor Oladipo, added nine. Ferrell was the first of the three to break through with a field goal early in the second half, and he followed his layup with a 3-pointer 2:02 later to boost IU’s lead to six points.For a few minutes, it seemed that IU may have finally gained the momentum as Oladipo added a layup to boost the lead to eight.Yet in a moment where the Hoosiers could have used veterans like Watford and Zeller to step on the gas and continue to pressure the Golden Gophers, Minnesota finally found its footing.The Golden Gophers went on a 15-4 run to take a 51-48 lead. IU would hold a brief one-point lead for three seconds, but two late Watford 3-pointers that kept IU in the game down the stretch were not enough to dig the Hoosiers out a seven-point hole on the road.Ferrell finished as the only one of the three in double figures with 10 points and Zeller followed with nine. But the pair combined to shoot 4-of-19 shots from the field against a conference foe looking for a quality late-season victory.“We knew we were walking in here to face a desperate team, and they played like a desperate team,” IU Associate Head Coach Steve McClain said.