Hoosiers to face Athletes in Action

After weeks of slamming against themselves in practice, men's basketball will finally face another team.\nThe Hoosiers' preparation for the regular season begins against Athletes in Action at 2 p.m. Sunday in Assembly Hall. IU will play a second exhibition game Nov. 10 against Marathon Oil before facing Pepperdine University in the first round of the National Invitation Tournament Nov. 14.\nSunday's game is IU's first opportunity to test its new offensive and defensive schemes against another team. When Mike Davis was named head coach, he instituted a new style of offense which the Hoosiers have been practicing for only a few weeks.\nInstead of a motion system, which returning players like juniors Dane Fife and Kirk Haston are used to running, Davis' team will operate a one-four set. It's designed to exploit mismatch problems, and get the ball inside to the post players.\n"We want to get the ball inside," Davis said. "We want to get the ball to guys who can do something with it."\nFreshman forward/center George Leach is one such player. In the Cream-and-Crimson scrimmage Saturday, Leach led all scorers with 21 points in only 28 minutes of play. It was a scrappy game in which the teams committed 26 turnovers. After the scrimmage, sophomore guard Tom Coverdale said he was looking forward to the exhibition game.\n"It will be better when we face other teams because we work against the same guys everyday in practice," Coverdale said. "It is easy to get lazy on defense because you know what the other guy is going to do."\nDavis said he was impressed with how well Leach played in the game. "He\'s struggled a little in practice," Davis said after the scrimmage. "But I guess when the lights went on and we actually had officials out there, that made a difference. George is coming on and that\'s good to see."\nLeach's performance could have moved him into the starting lineup, which is likely to consist of Fife, Haston, Leach and freshmen Andre Owens and Jared Jeffries. \n"Jared Jeffries is really good," Davis said. "He's probably our best passer, our best ball-handler, our best post-up guy. He\'s going to cause some problems for other teams. I don\'t want him to think he has to carry the team." \nBut it certainly isn't set in stone and Davis said he wants all of the players to learn each of the positions. Fife said he could play either point guard, shooting guard or small forward.\nAthletes in Action coach Chuck Badger said his team is both balanced and deep.\n"We have big guys who can score and perimeter players who can shoot it," Badger said in a press release. "We could probably put out as many different starting lineups as are mathematically possible"