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(01/08/13 5:33am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>After the team’s Big Ten opener on the road where the Hoosiers struggled to break away from the Iowa Hawkeyes, the IU men’s basketball team utilized a fast first half start to defeat Penn State in University Park, Pa., Monday night 74-51 to begin conference play 2-0.Even though the pace of play slowed the rest of the game after the Hoosiers stormed out to a 31-13 lead midway through the first half, the early hot hands of two seniors gave IU a lead the Nittany Lions simply couldn’t overcome.Senior forward Christian Watford scored the team’s first five points, including a bucket down low during the Hoosiers’ first possession. The next time down the court, Watford hit a 3-pointer from the left wing that began a 13-0 IU run after the team fell behind early 3-2.Watford finished the half with 13 points after scoring just 10 points during the entire game last season when the Hoosiers visited Penn State.Senior guard Jordan Hulls broke out of the slump he fell into in Iowa City, Iowa, New Years Eve, where he failed to score a single point, shooting 0-for-10 from the field. Hulls scored 10 points in the first 20 minutes Monday, including going 2-for-3 from beyond the arc.The Hoosiers secured an 18-point lead midway through the half, but Penn State showed a brief sign of fight, going on a 6-0 run in less than a minute to cut IU’s lead to just 12 with 7:04 left in the half, but the Hoosiers bumped it right back up to finish the half up 44-27.But during the second half, neither team looked very sharp as the early turnovers piled up.IU turned the ball over four times in the first 1:45 and scored only four free throws until a layup from junior guard Victor Oladipo with 13:34 left broke a Hoosier scoring drought from the floor.IU Coach Tom Crean said he felt like his players stormed out of the gates a little quick to start the second half, but the Hoosiers’ defense kept the Nittany Lions at bay.“We were going so fast, and we weren’t trusting some of the things,” Crean said. “It was our passing. We just had a couple of mistakes, but the thing I liked is that we weren’t letting them score either.“These guys really did a great job of coming in and getting a road win and making defense a forefront of everything they did.”The Nittany Lions struggled with four turnovers of their own in the first 1:28 of the second half and scored just four points during IU’s drought. As both teams struggled on offense, the Hoosiers were able to maintain a lead that hovered around 20 points through the second half.IU’s lead would stay around there the rest of the game, as both teams recovered their touch from the floor, and the Hoosiers finished the game with their largest lead of the contest at 23 points.Watford led the team with 16 points after he slowed down from his quick five points early in the game. Sophomore forward Cody Zeller followed with 15 points while leading the Hoosiers with four steals and two blocks.Hulls followed his strong first half with just four more points in the final 20 minutes to score 14, shooting 4-for-6 from the field.Crean said even though his players struggled a bit in the second half after IU’s quick first-half start, he liked the leadership he saw on the court.“This was the best they talked all year,” Crean said. “They talked as well in the second half as they did in the first half. They could even be a little more demanding on each other.“It’s a game of reacting, it’s a game of awareness. That’s showing a maturity that we haven’t always had.”
(01/07/13 4:47am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU men’s basketball team has had its fair share of injuries early this season, with the season-ending loss of sophomore guard Austin Etherington as well as games from junior guard Maurice Creek and senior forward Derek Elston. However, the Penn State Nittany Lions, IU’s opponent tonight, may arguably have it worse.Just one season after he led the team with 18.8 points per game and scored a place on the All-Big Ten Second Team and conference All-Defensive Team, senior guard Tim Frazier had been averaging 21.7 points to lead the Nittany Lions through their first three games. However, on Nov. 18, 2012, the preseason All-Big Ten selection suffered a ruptured left Achilles tendon in the team’s 85-60 loss to Akron in the Puerto Rico Tipoff and was declared out for the season. Although he is eligible to apply for a medical redshirt, IU Coach Tom Crean said Frazier’s teammates will miss his offensive presence.“They miss Tim Frazier, but every game they are that much more comfortable with one another, and you can see that,” Crean said.So far, Penn State ranks last in the Big Ten in scoring margin (-1.2) as they prepare to take on the nation’s most lethal scoring offense in the country — the Hoosiers — tonight in University Park, Pa.Through 14 games, IU has averaged 87.9 points to lead the Big Ten and the country, while Penn State has averaged 64.3 points per game, second-to-last in the conference. The Hoosiers rank second in the league in both field goal percentage and 3-point percentage, while the Nittany Lions sit last and second-to-last, respectively.Crean said two Penn State guards, though, have picked up some slack left by Frazier’s absence. “(Jermaine) Marshall and (D.J.) Newbill are handling the ball,” Crean said. “They are taking most of their shots. Their teammates feed off of them. They are really dangerous when they’re in the same action, whether they are on the same side, which they seem to be a lot. “They both have things that they really, really do well. They have strengths that you really have to go into and try to attack those.”Newbill, a sophomore, is averaging 15.5 points through 13 games this season, good enough for seventh in the conference. Junior Marshall sits just one spot behind in the league rankings at 14.9 points.From there, however, the Nittany Lions have only three more players who average more than five points per game and no others in double figures, while the Hoosiers have put their top-five scorers in the top 30 of the conference to front the team’s balanced scoring attack.Crean said that even though Penn State’s offense drops off after Newbill and Marshall, the Hoosiers have to make certain they don’t overlook the Nittany Lions and play hard to prevent the two guards from keeping their team in the game.“They’re a physical, tough and demanding team, and we are going to have our work cut out for us,” Crean said. “They are a team that relies on pace and wants to play a certain way, so we have to go in there and make the game go our way as far as pace goes.”
(01/01/13 1:13am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IOWA CITY, Iowa-As the IU men’s basketball team opened its conference slate Monday evening in Carver-Hawkeye Arena against Iowa, IU Coach Tom Crean’s players had to not only adjust to Big Ten talent, but Big Ten home crowds as well.In the team’s first true road game of the season, the Hoosiers had to battle through the raucous Hawkeye crowd that filled every seat in the arena. They had to make late-game free throws with the game on the line and the fans jumping around yelling and screaming, a part of the game the Hoosiers haven’t had to factor in yet this season.Despite a late Iowa surge in the second half, the Hoosiers were able to fend off the Hawkeyes and their fans, pulling out the victory 69-65 to begin the conference season with a win.Leading up to Monday’s game, though, IU had struggled against the Hawkeyes, dropping five of the teams’ last six matchups, spanning three seasons. The lone win came last season when IU hosted Iowa and won an offensive battle 103-89.The Hoosiers had last won in Iowa City in 2008. Junior guard Victor Oladipo said that the team knew coming in that they were going to have to battle hard and turn that trend around.“They’ve been kind of punking us the last couple years, especially here,” Oladipo said. “They’ve been out-rebounding us and just out-playing us, and I think this year, it was just kind of a mentality that we were going to come in here and take the first punch. We were going to play hard, and I think we did a phenomenal job tonight.”During the Crean era, the Hoosiers have struggled on the road in the Big Ten, and even last season, as the team broke into the rankings and the national spotlight, Crean’s squad went just 3-6 on the road in conference play.Oladipo said that starting off the conference season with a win, especially on the road, was a big accomplishment, and teammate sophomore forward Cody Zeller agreed.But he may have had it a little easier than the rest of the Hoosiers.Zeller said that his family, which includes his dad’s 11 brothers and sisters, held a reunion last night in the area in hopes that several of them could come to Monday’s game.He said his uncle bought close to 50 tickets for the Zeller clan, and it was great to have them amongst the Iowa fans, but he relishes getting to play in front of loud away crowds.“I love playing in big crowds, whether they’re cheering for you or against you,” Zeller said. “It get’s your adrenaline flowing. You want to play on the biggest stages. It’s a lot of fun.”Junior forward Will Sheehey, on the other hand, did not have a large block of fans cheering him on Monday.In fact, as the “Sheehey sucks” chants exploded from the Iowa student section midway through the second half, it appeared that Sheehey may have been the most hated man in Iowa City Monday afternoon.They began as he pleaded with the referees for a couple calls that didn’t fall IU’s way, and after that, the heckling began.“They were classy,” Sheehey said.He added that the boos and the derogatory chants are all apart of the Big Ten atmosphere.“Our fans would do the same thing, our fans would do the same thing, and to think that any team in the Big Ten’s fans wouldn’t be just as involved in rallying on their team, that’s just the way it works,” Sheehey said.
(12/29/12 1:20pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Senior guard Jordan Hulls said that when he grew up playing basketball in Bloomington, he learned to be a pass-first guard.But Friday night at Assembly Hall, as the Hoosiers took down Jacksonville 93-59 in IU’s final non-conference game of the season, those on hand were able to witness the fruits of what Hulls said his teammates have been challenging him to do his entire career: be more aggressive.Hulls took nine shots – all 3-pointers – during Friday night’s win, and in the first half, they seemed to come at crucial times when the Hoosiers needed a boost.IU was held scoreless in the first three minutes of the game, allowing the Dolphins to jump out to an early 5-0 lead as the Hoosiers missed their first four shots of the game – including two Hulls’ 3-pointers.As a team, IU would take 18 3-point shots in the first half, eventually making eight of them, but even for Hulls, they weren’t quite falling early.“It’s what they were giving us,” Hulls said. “We would have liked to get inside more, and we may have took too many shots on the outside, but it’s not like they were bad shots. They were open.”With 16:48 left, Hulls hit his first of the night to put the Hoosiers on the board. But even as the Hoosiers began to take form, Jacksonville kept the game close, though, with the help of three early buckets from beyond the arc and five total in the first half.Hulls would match that number himself.His second three of the half sparked a 9-2 IU run where the Hoosiers first brought their lead into double digits midway through the half. The Dolphins came back with a brief counter, but Hulls knocked down three 3-pointers in the span of 43 seconds towards the end of the half to account for nine-straight IU points and lengthen the team’s lead to 15 at halftime, 48-33.Hulls began the second half in similar fashion, knocking down another 3-pointer for the team’s first basket of the period. With that bucket, he finished with 20 points on a 6-for-9 shooting night from beyond the arc.And although Hulls did admit to taking his teammates’ wishes of seeing more aggressive play from their senior guard to heart, he and junior guard Victor Oladipo, who also connected on two early 3-pointers for the Hoosiers, said the credit goes to their fellow starting guard, freshman Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell.The freshman was often the man dishing the ball out to Hulls, Oladipo and the rest of his teammates as they connected from long range Friday. Ferrell finished with 10 assists to set a career-high as a Hoosier.“Not only has he gotten bigger – a little bit taller, but not really – but he’s gotten better as a player,” Oladipo said. “He gets better in games, and he gets better as days go on. It doesn’t cease to amaze me when he has nine or 10 assists. That’s just the player he is.“For someone so short, I don’t know how he sees the court, but he does a great job of it.”Hulls added that whenever he’s heading down court, he often tries to head towards the outskirts of the 3-point line, and he knows if he’s open from long range, Ferrell will likely find him.“I love it,” Hulls said. “He’s a great passer, and he finds guys right when they need the ball, so when I’m running the floor, I try to run to a corner and try to run off some screens, and he’s doing a great job of not turning the ball over and getting those assists and finding people at the right time and making the right plays.”And Ferrell did just that. To go along with his 10 assists, the freshman didn’t record a single turnover Friday night to go along with six points, two steals and two rebounds.Sophomore forward Cody Zeller followed Hulls with 16 points. Oladipo and junior forward Will Sheehey each added 14, and senior forward Christian Watford scored 11 as the fifth Hoosier in double figures Friday.Oladipo said that after the team’s loss to Butler on Dec. 15, he’s seen the Hoosiers become a lot strong on the defensive end with better communication, and that has been the reason for the stronger offensive performances like the one his teammates put on against Jacksonville.“We came together and realized what we had to do to improve,” Oladipo said. “I think we’re ready going into the Big Ten. We have leaders who have been through it, and we have young guys who are getting mentally prepared for it.“I’m looking forward to it.”
(12/16/12 12:27am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>With the help of a full-court press and a 3-pointer from freshman guard Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell, the IU men’s basketball team was able to overcome a seven-point deficit in the final two minutes to push the game against Butler into overtime.Unfortunately for the Hoosiers, though, they didn’t make the comeback that mattered most.Down 84-80 with less than two minutes remaining in overtime, the Bulldogs hit two-straight 3-pointers to take the lead for good, as they knocked off the No. 1 Hoosiers 88-86 Saturday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in the Close the Gap Crossroads Classic.Butler jumped out to an early lead in the first half, ahead 9-5, but the Hoosiers stormed back on the heels of junior guard Victor Oladipo.A run that began with two free throws from Oladipo, he would go on to dish in two layups along with one of his signature fastbreak dunks that brought the crowd to its feet. The junior scored eight of IU’s 10 points in a run that put the Hoosiers ahead 15-12 with 11:04 left in the half.With that run, Oladipo finished the half with 10 points to lead IU with 4-of-6 shooting from the field as the Hoosiers went into the locker room up 37-33.And early in the second half, it looked as though the Hoosiers would have ample opportunity to stretch that lead after Butler committed six fouls in the first 4:03 to put the Hoosiers in the bonus for the remainder of the game.But from there, the tables turned.IU went cold from the field, going 5:18 without a bucket as the Bulldogs pulled ahead with the help of a 16-2 run to take the lead 66-59.During this span, the Hoosiers allowed Butler to hit three 3-pointers, and IU Coach Tom Crean said his team’s poor perimeter defense allowed Butler to creep its way back.“We cost ourselves at the end of the game defensively, and they made the plays and, they get the credit for that,” Crean said. “But we made the mistakes that got them there.”Sophomore guard Remy Abell ended the drought with 3:42 left in the game to pull the Hoosiers back within four, but with four-straight points from Butler’s two big men Roosevelt Jones and Andrew Smith, the Bulldogs were ahead by seven and seemingly in control.The pair, though would both foul out in the next minute, and from there on, Crean put his players into a full court press that he said helped reenergize the Hoosiers to work themselves back into the game.“We didn’t waiver, and we felt like we could get up and pressure these guys,” Crean said. “We saw things that we felt we could really pressure them on, and it put us in the position and made us very aggressive.”But even as the Hoosiers clawed their way back, freshman guard Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell fell victim to the fast pace and urgency of IU’s offense. With 49 seconds left off a 3-point miss from senior guard Jordan Hulls, the ball bounced towards Ferell, but he fumbled it off his feet out of bounds.Crean said, though, that he wasn’t worried about the mentality of his starting freshman guard, saying he’s always been a “next play guy.”So Crean drew up IU’s final possession with Ferrell as an option to take the final shot, and with just six seconds left, Ferrell’s 3-pointer fell through the net and pushed the game into overtime to cap IU’s comeback.The momentum seemed to follow the Hoosiers into the extra period, as they took a four-point lead with just over two minutes left, but Butler pulled off a few late threes of their own to steal the win from the top-ranked team in the country.Oladipo and sophomore forward Cody Zeller led the five Hoosiers in double-figures with 18 points each as Oladipo excelled from the floor, shooting 7-of-10. Zeller was Butler’s most popular target to foul, shooting 14 shots from the line, and after missing three early, he finished 10-of-14 from the charity stripe.Ferrell grabbed eight rebounds to lead the team to go along with his late 3-pointer, but his six turnovers highlighted one of Crean’s main points after the game.He said his squad just didn’t have what it took to beat a determined Butler team.“We just didn’t play well enough to win, we just didn’t,” Crean said.
(12/13/12 9:21pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Since the evening of Nov. 6, many Hoosier basketball fans have had this Saturday’s game with Butler circled on their calendars. That night, news broke that freshmen center Peter Jurkin and forward Hanner Mosquera-Perea would have to serve nine-game suspensions handed down from the NCAA for recruiting violations.The NCAA upheld the suspensions after IU submitted an appeal, and so the players sat on the bench waiting for their college debut in the cream and crimson.And after IU has started its season 9-0, that day is finally here, as the Hoosiers take on the Bulldogs Saturday at 2 p.m. at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in the Boston Scientific Close the Gap Crossroads Classic.Associate Head Coach Steve McClain said that after playing the first nine games of the season without two of their incoming freshman, the team is ready for a new feel when Jurkin and Mosquera-Perea are on the floor.“Peter brings a length and a shot-blocker, and Hanner brings a shot-blocker who can also step out on the perimeter and guard a perimeter player and bring that length to the perimeter for you also,” McClain said. “They’re both kids who can rebound at a high level on both ends of the court and are both very skilled, so they bring a lot.”And this length and depth couldn’t come at a better time for the Hoosiers. Last Saturday, sophomore forward Austin Etherington suffered a fractured left kneecap in IU’s game against Central Connecticut State, and he underwent season-ending knee surgery Sunday.McClain also said that the team is still about one week away from seeing the return of senior forward Derek Elston, who is yet to play this season after tearing his left meniscus in the preseason.But with nine games under the belts of the rest of the team, McClain said it will take some time for both the freshmen and the coaches to get a feel of how best to work both players into the rhythm that the rest of the team has created thus far this season.“I think it’ll just be a game feel,” McClain said. “Coach has it in his mind of how they can be used, but a lot of guys get to have their first game be Coppin State, not Butler, so I think it’ll be a game feel.”
(12/10/12 3:42am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>With just 5.6 seconds left, down by one at home to the No. 1 team in the country, it seemed like all hope had been lost.Then-sophomore guard Victor Oladipo, while driving to the basket, lost control of the ball, and Kentucky’s Doron Lamb picked it up. Oladipo put the quick foul on him, but Lamb was an 89 percent shooter from the line, and he had two shots ahead of him.“One of our roommates, Tom, was like, ‘The game’s over. We just lost,’” IU senior Zach O’Kyle said. “I said ‘Hold on, we still have a chance.’”Lamb missed the first free throw but wouldn’t miss two.Following the free throws, junior forward Christian Watford passed it in to senior guard Verdell Jones III, who wove around a pick from freshman forward Cody Zeller.Watford trailed Jones III by a couple of steps, and when the senior dribbled just inside the three-point line, he turned around and passed the ball to Watford.The junior caught it, pulled up from behind the arc and put up arguably the biggest shot of his career. Even if he missed, it would mean IU was back in the hunt of becoming the program it once was before former IU Coach Kelvin Sampson left the team in ruins.But as Watford held his follow through and the sold-out Assembly Hall crowd held its collective breath, the shot sunk through the net as the final seconds ticked off the clock.ESPN sportscaster Dick Vitale couldn’t believe it. A sea of red soon consumed Branch McCracken Court.It was just a single shot, but to the IU basketball program and Hoosier fans everywhere, it meant so much more.***O’Kyle has been a Hoosier fan since he was young. After receiving his acceptance letter during the winter of his senior year of high school, he quickly decided to attend.The IU basketball team had stormed out to a 22-4 record with freshman star Eric Gordon holding the reins. The Hoosiers were in the middle of Sampson’s second season, and it appeared he had the program on the right track.But just days after O’Kyle made his intent to attend IU official, bad news broke when Sampson was accused of improper recruiting tactics.Sampson resigned Feb. 22, 2008, and IU Coach Tom Crean was brought in after the season to try to rebuild the once-storied program.O’Kyle still bought season tickets as a freshman, but he knew he had several seasons of rough basketball ahead of him.“I remember when I was a freshman and sophomore, I had tickets, but I didn’t even go to a lot of the games, ’cause I didn’t want to see us lose,” he said.But O’Kyle was one of the 17,472 fans who came to Assembly Hall Dec. 10, 2011, as IU met the No. 1 Wildcats.“Going into the season, I was thinking ‘We’ll be a little better with Cody. I don’t think we’ll be that good, but we might make the tournament,’” he said. “Then, everything started clicking going into that game.”O’Kyle had seats in the balcony that night with a group of friends, but he said win or lose, they knew they were going to have fun later that evening.After winning trivia night at Kilroy’s on Kirkwood earlier that week, the group had access to free bottle service on a night of their choosing. They decided the night of the Kentucky game was perfect.“Our team was like ‘Let’s set it for Saturday, and if we win, it’ll be the craziest night ever, and if we lose, we’ll just drink our sorrows away,’” he said.The group was in for a wild evening.After the shot fell, O’Kyle and his friends decided instead of trying to get down to the court like most of the crowd, they would go back home, change clothes and head to KOK to celebrate.They arrived just minutes after the game ended, but mayhem was already beginning to brew in downtown Bloomington.As they began to down their first of many drinks that night, thousands engulfed the streets, piling onto cars, chanting and singing along to “This Is Indiana.”O’Kyle said that night was what he’d hoped to see when he decided to come to Bloomington.“It was the reason why I chose to come to this school,” he said. “I was waiting for a moment like that, and for it to happen my senior year with all my friends, it solidified my decision to come here.”***Just across the street, Susan Bright watched the evening unfold from inside Nick’s English Hut. Bright, the financial analyst at Nick’s for five years, normally works on game days only until the pregame crowd starts to file out an hour or so before tipoff.But she and her husband could tell this night was different.They decided to sit at the bar with some friends as the restaurant continued to fill past capacity. The normally quaint bottom floor became increasingly energetic as the game went on and the Hoosiers kept up with Kentucky.“It was so loud down here at the front of the bar that it was hard to hear yourself, which is unusual, ’cause this front room for over three-fourths of a century has been more of a quiet sit-and-talk crowd,” Bright said. “But that night became all about basketball.”When Watford’s shot went in, she wondered if the place would survive the eruption of the crowd.“It was wall-to-wall people,” she said. “People were standing on tables screaming, and I was like ‘Oh my gosh, this place is going to fall down’ because there was so much jumping up and down, and it was fun.” This wasn’t Bright’s first experience watching the streets of Kirkwood flooded with IU fans.She graduated from IU 1983 and was on-site in Bloomington to see the aftermath of both national titles in 1981 and 1987.“There was just this excitement that was there when I was in school in the ’80s,” she said. “I saw the ’81 and ’87 wins when everybody poured out onto Kirkwood, and they did the same thing. Everybody after the game just poured out onto the street, just a sea of people out there.”***For the NCAA tournamnet rematch with UK on March 23, Capt. Joe Qualters of the Bloomington Police Department said police made sure no destruction of cars or other property near Kirkwood.BPD cleared Kirkwood of all cars hours before the game and made sure to have extra personnel there in case anything did erupt.He said the first win took most of the country and Bloomington by storm because virtually no one expected IU to pull off the upset.Inside Nick’s, Bright said the place started filling up at 11 a.m. for the 9:45 p.m. tipoff. At KOK, then-IU senior Lauren Henderson said even though the bar wasn’t quite as full as it may have been for the first game against the Wildcats that season, the atmosphere was just as electric.“Going into the first game, it was kind of like ‘They’re the No. 1 team. What’s the likelihood we’re actually going to beat them?’” Henderson said. “I was like ‘We can do this. We’ve done it before.’ I think it just had everyone more on edge.”IU fell to UK 102-90.“I definitely think since we won the first time, it made it a lot more disappointing the second time,” Henderson said. “Everyone was just upset about it. You could see it on everyone’s faces as you were leaving. People just slowly trickled out of the bar and walked home, shoulders slumped, like they were visibly upset that we had just lost.”***Though Kentucky eventually cut down the nets in New Orleans, the Hoosiers are on top of the nation one year later.IU sits at 9-0 as the nation’s No. 1, and Kentucky has fallen out of the top 25.Their team unranked less than a year before being annointed No. 1, fans say a similar culture change occurred in the Hoosier fan base much before talks of a No. 1 ranking began.“You have a common aspect to share with everyone on campus,” said senior Justin Hillman, who watched the first Kentucky game from inside KOK. “You can ask someone else random ‘Where were you at the Kentucky game?’ and they’ll tell you. It’ll be something you can share with the whole IU community. I think it’s something that brought us closer together.”Henderson said she’s also noticed a change this year in the support of students at games.“I think people are taking their season tickets more seriously and actually showing up,” she said. “Like the preseason game, there were people in line at 7 a.m. for GA tickets, and it wasn’t even a game that mattered. Had it been last year, no one would have showed up that early. No one would have cared.“It doesn’t matter who we’re playing or if they’re any good. They’re excited to see us play, and they’re excited to see us win.”Brooks Chumley, an IU senior last year who had tickets to witness IU’s win firsthand, said although there certainly is an aura around IU basketball this season, this atmosphere as been building since he stood on the floor of Assembly Hall after storming the court last year.“We went into that game not expecting to win, really, but knowing that we had a chance,” he said. “It got everyone excited about basketball season, and it brought back Indiana basketball to something that everyone looks forward to. I feel like, especially with the fans, they’re kind of more or less expecting to win games now, where last season when we were playing UK, we weren’t expecting to get that win.”
(12/07/12 11:25pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU men’s basketball team may be the No. 1 team in the country, sophomore forward Cody Zeller may be the Preseason National Player of the Year, a Preseason All-American and the Preseason Big Ten Player of the Year and the Hoosiers may have two former Indiana Mr. Basketball’s on their starting roster.Saturday night, though, as IU (8-0) hosts Central Connecticut State (4-3) at 6 p.m. at Assembly Hall, the Blue Devils can boast something that no other team in the country can claim.Guard Kyle Vinales is the nation’s leading scorer this season, averaging 25.9 points per game.The 6-foot-1-inch sophomore has scored 20 or more points in each of the last six games for CCSU, picking up right where he left off last year as the nation’s top-scoring freshman, with 17.9 points per game.He was named the Northeastern Conference Rookie of the Year, and his 520 points were the most-ever scored by a CCSU freshman.Luckily for IU, though, the team has had a full week to prepare for Vinales, and IU Associate Head Coach Tim Buckley said his players should be prepared to face the best scorer in the country.“I think he can score in a variety of ways,” Buckley said. “ He can keep up the dribble, he can go right or left, he can shoot the pull up and he has a step back to his game.“You’ve got to keep him outside the elbows, and you’ve got to keep your chest in front and give him no open looks.”Along with Vinales’s scoring prowess, the Blue Devils also boast the top free throw shooting team in the country, shooting 83.6 percent from the charity stripe.Yet even with Vinales’s shooting from the field and CCSU’s strength from the line, Buckley pointed out that the Blue Devils’ starting five carries the bulk of the load.All five players average at least 29 minutes per game so far this season, and each player averages at least eight points per game. The rest of CCSU averages fewer than 10-combined points per game thus far.Buckley said that in watching game tape to prepare for Saturday’s matchup, he is yet to see any of the Blue Devils get tired or winded, even the five who get 10 minutes rest or fewer each game.But Zeller said he looks forward to seeing if the Blue Devils can keep up against the Hoosiers Saturday night. He said his teammates like to think that they’re the most well-conditioned team in the country, and Saturday he hopes that a mix of running the court and utilizing the full-court press whenever necessary will start to slow down the efficient Blue Devil offense.“We’ll see how good of shape they’re in tomorrow, cause we always think that we’re the best-conditioned team,” Zeller said. “We’re definitely going to push the tempo and see if we can wear them down when they’re playing long minutes. We’ll see how it plays out tomorrow.”
(12/03/12 4:35am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>When the IU men’s basketball team started slow out of the gates, shooting 0-of-9 to start Saturday evening as the team faced the Coppin State Eagles at Assembly Hall, IU Coach Tom Crean said he wasn’t worried. He knew his team could adjust to the Eagles’ defense and own shooting woes on the court.Most fans would think of halftime as the period to make adjustments in defensive schemes and offensive sets, but Crean said he has learned from successful professional sports franchises and his brothers-in-law, Baltimore Ravens Coach John Harbaugh and San Francisco 49ers Coach Jim Harbaugh, that the time to make changes is during the action.“When I think of my brother-in-laws and the way they coach, and I think of the New England Patriots and the Green Bay Packers and the programs you watch closely, they don’t make adjustments at halftime,” Crean said. “Halftime is too late. They make adjustments the next series.“We talked about that today, and we have to become that type of team. If we’re just adjusting at halftime and making changes at halftime, it gets a little harder.”After falling behind 9-2 in the game’s first five and a half minutes and failing to score a field goal until 14:27 was left in the first half, Crean’s Hoosiers caught fire the rest of the way in, shooting 10-of-17, 58.8 percent, in the rest of the half as well as 21-of-34, 61.8 percent, in the second half to defeat the Eagles 87-51.Crean added the Hoosiers were getting off quality shots, but they just didn’t seem to fall at the beginning of the game. His players stayed focused, made a few adjustments and went on to play one of the best games he’s seen all season.“When we can adjust on the fly from a timeout and maybe a possession, but especially at a timeout, that’s where we’ve got to go, because you can have the greatest game plan in the world, but there’s gonna be something that comes up different in that game, and you’ve got to adjust to it,” Crean said.“If you don’t have a smart team, and if you don’t have a team that shares the basketball, if you don’t have a team that will cover for one another, that gets really hard, and this team is learning how to do that.”Crean also said he owes much of what he learned during his nine years coaching at Marquette before coming to IU in 2008 to former coach and ESPN analyst Rick Majerus, who passed away Saturday evening.Majerus started his coaching career at Marquette from 1983-86 before stints at Ball State from 1987-89 and Utah from 1989-2004. He then worked for ESPN as a game and studio analyst from 2004-07 when Crean said he often gave Crean, then at Marquette, secret advice.“He did a lot of TV games back when we were at Marquette, and he never wanted anybody to know he was giving me some tips and advice, but he was,” Crean said. “He was a brilliant guy. I could call, and he would give me a couple ideas, and it was good.”Crean said one of the most important things he ever took from the late coach was the importance of a mother’s love. Majerus resigned from a coaching job with Southern California in December 2004, just five days after taking the position, and would later reveal the true reason was so he could take care of his ailing mother back home in Wisconsin.“He said something one time that I’ve always used,” Crean said. “He was on a show back there on a Sunday night and said the last unconditional love you ever have is that of your mother. I never forget that. I always use that with our teams. He was a brilliant coach.”
(11/28/12 6:45am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The rumor at Assembly Hall before the IU men’s basketball team took on North Carolina was that 26 NBA scouts were in the crowd around Branch McCracken Court.Victor Oladipo must have known.The junior guard exploded with 19 points, including 13 in the first half, to go along with a thunderous dunk and block that kept the energy high in IU’s 83-59 victory against the Tar Heels in Assembly Hall.After sophomore forward Cody Zeller supported IU’s offense during the first three minutes of the game, scoring seven of his team’s first 11, Oladipo took control.He scored 11 of IU’s final 25 points of the half, a span in which the Hoosiers lengthened their lead to nine points from just two at 21-19.Both teams had traded baskets midway through the first 20 minutes, with UNC even taking a brief lead at 19-18, but Oladipo’s energy helped IU’s transition offense to match the Tar Heels brisk offensive pace.With just more than two minutes left in the first half, Oladipo helped continue a string of three-straight IU fast break dunks when he slammed one home off a steal from senior guard Jordan Hulls, finishing with his signature yell, chest pound and stare into the Hoosier crowd behind the basket.Oladipo’s slam followed an equally thunderous dunk from Zeller, both of which brought the packed house in Assembly Hall to its feet and continued a 28-6 IU run.At halftime, Oladipo tied Zeller to lead all scorers with 13 points, and though he didn’t quite keep up the same scoring pace in the second half, finishing with 19 points, he certainly left his mark.Oladipo opened the second half for the Hoosiers with their first bucket after he missed a layup to begin the half just 12 seconds in.Both the Hoosiers and Tarheels missed their next three baskets before Oladipo got IU out of a mini slump, stretching IU’s lead to double digits for the first time in the game.Minutes later in the half, after the Hoosiers had stretched the lead to 56-37 coming off an Oladipo tip-in, he jumped high to deny UNC forward James Michael McAdoo a bucket, sending the blocked shot into the stands and the fans in the crowd to their feet.Fellow junior, forward Will Sheehey, said with that block, along with Oladipo’s dunks and energy, the win against UNC was all his.“If you go back and watch the game film of this game, there was one guy that brought it tonight, and that was Vic,” Sheehey said. “From the get-go, he was going to the boards, he was getting deflections, he was getting stops. When you see one guy out there bringing it, you’ve got to bring it too.“When you remember this game, it was Vic’s game. He played phenomenal and really brought the energy on both ends of the floor and set the tempo for the game.”IU Coach Tom Crean took Oladipo out with four minutes remaining in the game to a standing ovation from Hoosier crowd. Before he took a seat, he had a message for Tar Heels and Hoosiers alike.“We some bad boys, we some bad boys,” he said.Oladipo said after the game that he always tries to be a positive person, and when he gets pumped after having a game like last night’s, he’s not afraid to let it show.“I was just so hyped,” Oladipo said. “Sometimes the juices get going, and the adrenaline is running, and things come out of your mouth you don’t even realize you’re saying.”He said it wasn’t just about his confidence, but boosting the confidence of his teammates.“We some bad boys, we some bad boys. Whatcha gonna do?”
(11/27/12 5:31am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Just a little more than two years ago, sophomore forward Cody Zeller had yet to decide which college basketball program he would grace his presence with.Two of his top three choices, Indiana, North Carolina and Butler, had been to the National Championship in the past two seasons, including a title for UNC in 2009. The Tarheels were also home to his older brother, Tyler Zeller, who had won a championship ring his freshman season.The younger Zeller decided to pave his own path, choosing to come to an IU program that would go on to win just 12 games that season and had won just 16-combined during the previous two years.Zeller said he saw an IU program that was on its way but needed some more time to develop into the team that is now ranked No. 1 in the country.“I had confidence in what Coach Crean was doing with the guys who were already here, and Remy and I and Austin who were coming in,” Zeller said. “Everyone was working hard, and everyone was improving constantly. It just hadn’t quite gotten rolling yet, but I had confidence that this was the best place for me.”For Zeller, the choice wasn’t easy. He said during his visit to North Carolina, he enjoyed meeting several of his brother’s friends, including Kendall Marshall, who he roomed with during his stay in Chapel Hill, N.C.But Marshall, along with Tyler and other fellow Tarheel teammates Harrison Barnes and John Henson, left for the NBA draft last summer, leaving the younger Zeller with few players he still knows well outside of fellow sophomore forward James Michael McAdoo, who Zeller faced off against in a few AAU games as well as the McDonald’s All-American Game during their senior year.“A lot of things have changed even since the last time I was down there with Tyler,” Zeller said. “Obviously the coaching staff, I have a lot of respect for them and how they treated me and Tyler.”Zeller added that he won’t treat Tuesday’s matchup against UNC any differently than any other game, even with his recruiting past and the time his older brother put into the program.“They were in my top three, and I have a lot of respect for everything they do,” Zeller said. “Their coaching staff is great. Tyler enjoyed his time there, but at the end of the day, I just thought IU was the best place for me, and I have no regrets from that.“At the end of the day, it’s about who scores the most points.”
(11/27/12 5:26am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Last season, before the much-hyped matchup featuring IU Coach Tom Crean’s men’s basketball squad and visiting No. 1 Kentucky, students began congregating four days early in front of Assembly Hall, tents and sleeping bags in tow, hoping to get the best seats for one of the biggest games in Bloomington in recent memory.During the game, IU’s raucous crowd often over-powered Assistant Athletic Director for Facilities Chuck Crabb, who was calling the game inside Assembly Hall. As Christian Watford’s last-second 3-pointer dropped as the buzzer sounded, giving IU the 73-72 upset victory, fans charged the court as a sea of red engulfed the floor.Last summer, IU and UK representatives weren’t able to continue the rivalry game for the near future, but Crean said he thinks Tuesday night’s game against North Carolina in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge will bring the same type of atmosphere to Assembly Hall.Crean said he arrived at Assembly Hall Monday morning to the sight of sleeping bags and fuzzy slippers at the general admission entrance. Students were already camping out for Tuesday night’s game against North Carolina. He said he knew Tuesday’s crowd would be special.“I think it will be unbelievable,” Crean said. “I think it will be incredible. I think it will be like the Kentucky atmosphere, but there won’t be the buildup because of the week in between.”Sophomore forward Cody Zeller said he knows since the schedule was released Aug. 30, students and fans have been eying this game against UNC as the marquee game of the non-conference season.This year, the Hoosiers enter this game as the top-ranked team in the country, rather than trying to knock off last season’s eventual national champions in Kentucky.Zeller said Tuesday’s game involves different preparation than last year’s big non-conference game. He added that for Crean and the players, this game is just another one on the schedule.“Obviously the expectations were a lot different,” Zeller said. “I think the fans and the students are all excited about this game kind of like they were for the Kentucky game. Everyone has had this game circled on their calendar, but for us, it’s just another game. It’s another game to improve.”But for the two freshmen currently playing for the Hoosiers, sophomore guard Remy Abell said this game will help them adjust to playing at the college level.Last season, when Abell was a freshman alongside Zeller, he said the game against Kentucky was a learning experience, but it helped him get used to the loud atmosphere that surrounds Assembly Hall during the Big Ten season and the Hoosiers’ trip to the NCAA tournament.“Playing against Kentucky last year helped prepare you for another big game,” Abell said. “But for the freshmen, I’m just going to tell them to go out there and have fun, play hard, and keep your composure.“It’s going to be an intense game, and there’s going to be a lot of emotions, but you have to trust in your teammates and play your game. I think everybody will be fine.”
(11/26/12 5:30am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>After yet another slow start for the IU men’s basketball team, the Hoosiers (6-0) pulled out another double-digit victory against Ball State (2-2), the team’s first of two in-state opponents on its nonconference schedule.With just a 10-8 lead six minutes into the game, the Hoosiers took over, beating the Cardinals 101-53.So far this season, the Hoosiers have either trailed or held just a two-point lead midway through the first half in five of their six games, yet IU has an average winning margin more than 30 points per game.Senior guard Jordan Hulls said he and his teammates simply haven’t been ready to play a full game yet this season, and in these first few games, he said it’s showed.“We’ve just got to get off to a better start,” Hulls said. “If we want to continue to win, we have to play the full 40 minutes.”Hulls himself started slow Sunday night, failing to take a shot until 5:35 left in the first half, where he said he played a little too cautious.But from there, the senior caught fire, scoring 12 of IU’s final 18 points in the half, going 5-5 from the floor, including 2-2 from beyond the arc.As a team, the Hoosiers ended the half on a 40-11 run to go into the locker room with a 50-19 lead.Even with the 31-point lead, the Hoosiers never let up, and that’s just the way the coaching staff has told them to play, Associate Head Coach Tim Buckley said.“In order to be a championship-caliber program, that’s the way you have to play,” Buckley said. “You can’t take any possessions off. Every possession is just as important as the last possession.”The Hoosiers continued to sprint up and down the court, sporting several unconditional lineups to allow guys deeper on the bench to gain some playing time and experiment with new roles, Buckley said.Ten of IU’s 13 players who saw minutes against Ball State scored at least two points, which Buckley said shows just how deep the Hoosiers are.“Guys that are coming in off the bench, whether they’re a couple rotations down, they know that that’s their time to get meaningful minutes, and that’s what we’re about,” Buckley said.Coming off the bench, junior forward Will Sheehey led all scorers with 19 points off an 8-9 shooting night from the floor.After missing his only three-point attempt with 10:06 left in the first half, Sheehey hit his final six shots, including several mid-range jumpers close to the baseline.Buckley said Sheehey, coming off two games in Brooklyn, N.Y., during the Progressive Legends Classic where he scored only eight total points, came back to Bloomington last week and spent a long time practicing, and it showed.“Will probably didn’t shoot it as well as he would have liked when we played in Brooklyn, and he got in the gym and he worked,” Buckley said. “He got shots up and shot free throws. He did all the things you have to do to try and get better, and that’s the only think we know is work.”Four other Hoosiers scored in the double-digits as well, including a double-double performance from senior forward Christian Watford, who scored 11 points to go along with 10 rebounds.Hulls scored 17 points, shooting 7-10 from the field. Sophomore center Cody Zeller, 15 points, and junior guard Victor Oladipo, 13 points, followed, each shooting 5-7 on the night.Yet, even with five players in double figures and the 48-point victory, Buckey said the Hoosiers still have room to improve in taking care of the ball and starting to play a bit too fast as the lead began to pile up. He said, that he enjoyed his team’s intensity even midway through the second half, which he said they need for a full 40 minutes if the Hoosiers are going to have success in Big Ten play.“I think the culture is such that every practice has the intensity of a game — everything we do has that intensity,” Buckley said. “I think our guys know they want to be great, and in order to do that, we have to push and continue to get better and better.”
(11/23/12 10:43pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The NCAA has ruled to uphold the length of freshmen forward Hanner Mosquera-Perea and center Peter Jurkin’s nine-game suspensions, the athletic department said in a press release on Friday.The NCAA ruled that the pair received impermissible benefits from an alumni, Mark Adams, who the NCAA considers an IU athletics booster after his ex-wife made donations totaling $185 over a six-year period starting in 1986.All payments were made before either player was born. Adams served as a legal guardian to both Jurkin and Mosquera-Perea after they immigrated from Sudan and Colombia, respectively.“Earlier today, we received notice that our appeal for a reduction in the withholding penalties for Hanner Perea and Peter Jurkin was denied," said Fred Glass, IU Vice President and Director of Intercollegiate Athletics, in the press release. "While we are disappointed with the denial, we are even more disappointed in the case summary as communicated by the NCAA public relations staff."This case continues to be about $185 in Varsity Club contributions over 20 years ago, notwithstanding the NCAA National Office’s troubling references to activities that are permissible or would have been permissible but for the minor donations. Having said that, we accept this as the NCAA’s final word on the case, and we will have no further comment on the matter."
(11/21/12 7:32am)
Cody Zeller and Jordan Hulls were named to the Progressive Legends Classic all-tournament team after the Hoosiers defeated Georgetown 82-72 in the finals Tuesday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.
(11/20/12 2:55am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>After 20 minutes Monday night, the No. 1 men’s basketball team in the country found itself in an unfamiliar spot.Not just behind. The IU men’s basketball team had trailed briefly in its opener against Bryant. But Monday, while shooting just 32 percent from the field during the first 20 minutes of the Hoosiers’ game against Georgia in the semi-finals of the Progressive Legends Classic at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., the Hoosiers found themselves behind for much of the first half and trailed 30-29 going into the locker room.Yet in the end, the final result was much the same, as IU pulled it together, stemming from a thunderous dunk from junior guard Victor Oladipo and a string of threes from senior guard Jordan Hulls, as the Hoosiers took down the Bulldogs 66-53.Hulls opened the first half with a 3-pointer, but from there, the Hoosiers went cold. IU missed its next six shots from beyond the arc in the first half, and along with the team’s shooting woes, foul trouble prevented IU from getting off to the quick start it had become accustomed to during the first three games of the season.Oladipo and sophomore forward Cody Zeller were called for two fouls each in the first 11 minutes of the game, limiting their playing time to just 17 minutes combined, and IU Coach Tom Crean said that sitting two of his starters, along with missed shots, were key to IU’s struggles in the first half.“We just missed some shots, we had different lineups, and the thing that hurt us was we had eight turnovers in the first half,” Crean said. “We could never get a rhythm, and we never got the pace going the way we needed to get it to go, and Georgia had a lot to do with that.“We just missed shots we normally make.”Luckily for the Hoosiers, though, Georgia struggled from the floor, missing nearly as many open shots, shooting just 34.6 from the field as neither team was able to gain much momentum. The teams traded buckets late in the half, but with just seven seconds remaining, Georgia’s Vincent Williams sunk a free throw, giving his Bulldogs the lead going into the locker room.Oladipo said going into the locker room, he couldn’t quite pin-point why the Hoosiers had struggled during the first 20 minutes, but Crean just told him and his teammates to keep running the floor and things would fall into place.And that they did.Early on in the second half, Georgia found itself with a four-point lead, but off an Oladipo slam dunk that brought the majority of the game’s crowd to its feet, the Hoosiers went on an 8-0 run to take the lead for the final time.“Victor is a huge energy guy on both ends of the floor, especially when he gets a nice dunk – it’s always good and gets us pretty riled up,” Hulls said. “But everybody came into the second half and played a lot better for us.”Georgia would inch within three points at 45-42 with 9:09 remaining in the game, but just second later, Hulls would bring the crowd to its feet once again, knocking down back-to-back 3-pointers, pushing IU’s lead to nine and the game out of reach.Oladipo said that even though he can always energize the crowd with one of his two-handed dunks, Hulls is the most important guy on the team when the Hoosiers need a boost.“That just shows you how much we need him. Without him, we can’t win,” Oladipo said. “That’s why he’s special – he’s one of the best players in the country, and he’s going to prove that. He’s one of the hardest-working people I know.” Crean echoed Oladipo’s sentiment, saying he sees NBA-type potential in his Bloomington-native senior guard.“With all the NBA people here tonight, that’s an NBA guard,” Crean said. “That young man is a huge winner who has a lot of skills, and he improves constantly.”Oladipo led the both teams with 15 points and eight rebounds, followed by both Watford and Hulls who added 14 each. Freshman guard Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell led the Hoosiers with five assists to go along with four points.Zeller, though, struggled against a Georgia defense that stuck two defenders on the 7-foot forward almost any time the Hoosiers had the ball. The sophomore scored only six points and pulled down just four rebounds Monday night, but he said going up against Georgia’s big men helped him prepare for both teams IU might have to play in the finals Tuesday night, either Georgetown or UCLA.“Either team is going to be good,” Zeller said. “Either team is going to have a lot of talented players, so we’ll take whoever we have to play.”
(11/16/12 5:13am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>After beating North Dakota State and Sam Houston State by a combined 80 points in the first two games of the Progressive Legends Classic, the IU men’s basketball team travels to Brooklyn, N.Y. this weekend for the semifinals of the tournament.Until the Hoosiers face UCLA or Georgetown on Tuesday, IU Coach Tom Crean will have to keep his players focused against another opponent much farther down in the depths of the NCAA.On Monday, the Hoosiers (3-0) will take on Georgia (1-2) at the newly constructed Barclays Center.The Bulldogs boast starting guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who has caught fire early in the season. After earning a spot on the Freshman All-SEC Team after last season, the sophomore from Greenville, Ga., has averaged 20.3 points in the team’s first three games.In those games, Caldwell-Pope also averaged four steals per game and six rebounds per game, both team highs.Georgia sits outside the top 100 in the latest Pomeroy College Basketball Ratings, sitting at No. 113, three spots behind North Dakota State, whom IU took down 87-61 Nov. 12.Besides the standout guard, Georgia’s offense has struggled. No other Bulldogs have averaged double-digit points in the team’s first three games, while Caldwell-Pope has provided one-third of Georgia’s offense.And with four Hoosier guards, who Crean said have really stood out during the first three games of the season, IU may be able to stop Georgia’s leading scorer altogether.“If (senior guard) Jordan (Hulls), (freshman guard Kevin) ‘Yogi’ (Ferrell), (junior guard Maurice Creek)Mo, (sophomore guard) Remy (Abell), if those four guys can guard, we’re just going to keep getting better and better,” Crean said.During the beginning of the season, before IU gets into the meat of its schedule, Crean said that it’s important his players keep focus and try to compete for the full 40 minutes of every game.After leading Sam Houston State by 27 at halftime Nov. 15, Crean said he told his players in the locker room to keep fighting because he doesn’t believe in going out and pretending the score is 0-0 for the final 20 minutes.On Nov. 19, when his team faces off against Georgia in IU’s first game away from Assembly Hall this season, he said continuing the momentum the Hoosiers have built during their first three games just comes down to practicing the way they’ve been playing.“Everybody works hard, but it’s the teams that compete time and time again who are the ones that separate,” Crean said. “They’re working hard, and they’re in the gym, and they’re spending their time at it, but it’s that passion on a daily basis that’s going to push them. It’s the time of their life.“Part of that enjoyment is looking at everyday like, ‘I’m dominating, I’m impacting, I’m winning, and I’m going to feel like I got a lot better today when the day is over.’”
(11/16/12 5:11am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>As the IU men’s basketball team moved one step closer to achieving the sixth banner in Assembly Hall Nov. 15 in a 99-45 win over Sam Houston State, Hoosier fans got a chance to reflect on the second group of Hoosiers who won the NCAA Championship.In spirit with the Progressive Legends Classic, IU honored its 1953 national championship team on the 60th anniversary of the team’s 69-68 victory over Kansas.IU Coach Tom Crean said having the 1953 team in the building before, during and after the game was special for both him and his players, and he hopes they can pick up on the tradition that those players developed during their time at IU.“Our guys are not as familiar with that team, but they’re familiar with the traditions of Indiana, and they walk in everyday and see that banner,” Crean said. “They see it in our locker room and in our arena.“It was beneficial for everybody because it’s such a tremendous tradition here. Any time you can have your players exposed to it, and they get a chance to rub elbows, there’s no question it could work the right way.”At halftime, Bobby “Slick” Leonard and the rest of the squad got another chance at a standing ovation from the IU crowd as they hoisted the 1953 trophy once again and reminisced about the night they captured the title.“I don’t think there were ever any more than three points separating us during that ball game,” Leonard said. “It was a good one, it was a good one.”Former IU Coach Branch McCracken’s “Hurryin’ Hoosiers,” as they’ve been known, went 23-3 that season, including a 17-1 Big Ten record, the first season the conference decided to play a round-robin style schedule.But the 1953 Hoosiers started their season far from strong, unlike this season’s squad, losing two of their first three games to Notre Dame and Kansas State by a combined three points. From there, the Hoosiers would lose just one more game, a two-point defeat by Minnesota, while avenging the loss to the Fighting Irish in the NCAA Regional Final before taking down LSU and Kansas.It was a memorable season, Leonard said, but before he knew it, his time at IU playing under McCracken was over.“Great times, lots of fun,” he said. “If I could tell these kids today anything, they’ll look back someday and say, ‘boy, that was the greatest four years of my life,’ and really, when you come in and make your grades, have fun and enjoy yourself, ‘cause it’s over in a heartbeat.”The following season, Leonard and the Hoosiers entered the season ranked No. 1, just as Crean’s squad this year, but for the 1953-54 team, their run at back-to-back championships ended bitterly, Leonard said.“We were like IU now, rated number one in the country, and we should have won back-to-back championships,” he said. “Notre Dame beat us on a very controversial call.”The Hoosiers lost that season in the opening round of the tournament to No. 6 Notre Dame, 65-64, on a pair of last-second free throws after Leonard had made what he thought was the game-winning basket.“It broke everybody’s heart, broke everybody’s heart,” he said. “We should have won back-to-back.”The former All-American said, though, he thinks Crean has put the Hoosiers back on the map, right where they need to be to make another run at a national championship, either this year or in the future, and become a yearly contender like his teams of Hoosier past.“Crean does an outstanding job, and it’s going to do nothing but get better,” Leonard said. “He’s got all the things it takes to put together a steady contender for a national championship. Maybe not this year, but it’s coming.“We’ll know in March, that’s when payoff time comes, in March.”
(11/15/12 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Today against Sam Houston State, for the first time this season, sophomore forward Cody Zeller will have to pick on someone his own size.In IU’s first two games this season, wins against Bryant and North Dakota State, the 7-foot Zeller has yet to face an opponent within three inches of his height. The Bearkats, though, boast Michael Holyfield — a 6-foot-11-inch, 255 pound sophomore center who figures to be Zeller’s primary opposition in the post.“He poses challenges with his girth and his strength,” Assistant Coach Kenny Johnson said. “He runs the floor a lot better than you may think he would. I know he made strides last season when they had some injuries. We’ve been watching him on film, and he’s a great screener, he contests shots and he did a great job of rebounding the other night.”Through two games, Holyfield is averaging only 5.5 points a game, seventh on the team, but he leads the Bearkats with nine boards per contest.Like IU’s first two opponents, SHSU relies heavily on perimeter shooting, though Johnson said Holyfield’s presence and a more up-tempo offense pose a different challenge for the Hoosiers.“This team is a tad bit faster paced overall, and the perimeter is going to be surrounded with shooters,” Johnson said. “They are going to have shooters at all four spots, no matter who is in the game opposite (Holyfield). With us being probably a tad more spread out and him having more space to operate, he can pose a little bit more of a threat.”Perhaps the most dangerous shooter for SHSU is guard Darius Gatson, who leads the team with 14.5 points a game and 60 percent shooting from 3-point range while also commanding the offense at point guard.“Darius Gatson really pops out on film when you watch him,” John said. “You can tell a floor general when you see one, and he makes that team go.”He’s far from the only threat IU must watch for from three, though. SHSU averages 25 three-point attempts a game, with five players each averaging at least two.“I think they have a team with maybe five or six guys that I consider to be shooters,” Johnson said. “A lot of times on film when you are preparing for a scout, you can identify one or two guys that you can key in and say, ‘We want to make sure we run this guy off the three point line,’ but they have a team full of guys that are capable of knocking down shots.”Today’s matchup, the first ever between the two teams, is IU’s third game in a seven-day span to open the season. The rapid succession of games could pose a challenge to the freshmen, junior forward Will Sheehey said.“They’ve just got to take care of their bodies and, most importantly, take care of their minds,” Sheehey said. “If you play well, you keep the mindset, and if you play bad, you forget about it and move on to the next play.”
(11/13/12 5:34am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>After losses in three of the team’s previous five games to end the season, the IU men’s soccer team looked anything but strong heading into the NCAA tournament selection show Monday night.With a loss to Michigan State in the first round of the Big Ten tournament last Wednesday, IU’s RPI dropped to No. 16, and all signs pointed to a first round game to start off the team’s NCAA tournament run.But as the team sat around several tables laden with half-eaten chicken wings and quesadillas Yogi’s Grill and Bar just after 5:30 p.m. Monday, the players, coaches and fans let out a loud roar of excitement and surprise as it was announced IU had secured a No. 16 seed and a first-round bye.“We’re very pleased,” IU Coach Todd Yeagley said. “When we saw the RPI today and saw us at 16, we know it was going to be really tight.“I think it was well deserved, and we know it gets us an opportunity to rest and get ready for a really difficult matchup Sunday, whomever it might be.”With the No. 16 seed, the Hoosiers will face the winner of the Kentucky-Xavier game that will take place 7 p.m. Thursday in Lexington, Ky. The Hoosiers will play the winner 1 p.m. Sunday at Bill Armstrong Stadium.This road to the College Cup isn’t an unfamiliar one. Last season, the Hoosiers secured the No. 16 seed in the tournament, and they took down unseeded Old Dominion 3-0 in Bloomington in the second round before falling to eventual tournament champion North Carolina 1-0 in overtime in Chapel Hill, N.C. With the first round bye, the Hoosiers will have gone 11 days without any competition, a period which sophomore forward Eriq Zavaleta said will help him and his teammates get back on track with what had given the Hoosiers so much success earlier in the season.“I think we need to go back to where we were at the beginning of the season, giving up no goals or one goal,” Zavaleta said. “I think we need to do better defensively. We’ve got to finish our chances that we have. We’ve created a lot of chances — I don’t think that’s the problem.“If we can get a team effort to keep goals out of the net and put goals in the net, that’s how we’ll win games.”If the Hoosiers have some success in the first couple of rounds of the tournament, it will be against teams they know fairly well. Yeagley’s squad took down Kentucky 4-1 on Oct. 3 in Lexington, and IU also faced Xavier last year in a preseason game.If IU was to win its first game, it would face a Notre Dame team that was one of only three teams this season to keep the Hoosiers scoreless in a 1-0 loss Sept. 26 in Bloomington.Yeagley said playing familiar opponents might be a little more difficult, but if he and his players perform like they have earlier this season, he likes his team’s odds.“Sometimes you don’t always want to face a team you’ve played one or two times, but usually you see a familiar face in the first or second round,” Yeagley said. “Our guys feel very good about our performance against Kentucky, and we’ve played Xavier in the preseason, and we know what they’re all about.“We’ve just got to be really focused on what we need to do.”