Men advance in NIT

IU's victory against Pepperdine Tuesday advances the Hoosiers to the second round of the National Invitational Tournament where they will face South Alabama at 8 p.m. Friday in Assembly Hall.\nThe Jaguars return four starters from last year's team that finished 20-10 and are led by senior center Virgil Stanescu who averaged more than 13 points per game en route to all-conference honors in the Sun Belt Conference.\nSouth Alabama defeated Marquette 67-54 Tuesday to advance. The Jaguars and Hoosiers have met twice in IU history, with IU winning both games.\nFormer players on the air\nDon Fischer, who started his 28th year of calling the radio play-by-play of IU basketball games, will have a new co-host adding the color analysis in each game.\nFormer IU player Todd Leary donned a headset and sat alongside Fischer during IU's 80-68 victory against Pepperdine. Damon Bailey, who played for the Hoosiers from 1991-94 is expected to test his announcing skills in the next few weeks, as is Bob Dro, who played on the Hoosiers' 1940 national championship team.\nThe rotation of color analysts is part of IU's celebration of its 100th season.\nContributions other than points\nJunior guard Dane Fife missed the two shots he took from the floor and three from the free throw line, leaving him scoreless in IU's 80-68 victory against Pepperdine.\nBut Fife was instrumental to IU's success in breaking down Pepperdine's trapping defense, and his stat line wasn't all zeros. He dished out five assists, pulled down four rebounds and made three steals.\nAfter the game, he was happy to have defeated Pepperdine, which bounced IU out of last year's NCAA tournament, in an unkind manner, according to Fife.\n"A lot of guys who got blown out by Pepperdine last year are back again this year, and we thought we owed them revenge," Fife said. "There were a lot of words exchanged during the game last year. We weren't too happy with the way Pepperdine treated us. They treated us like dogs. They kicked us and hammered us.\n"But they came into our backyard and I thought we handled them pretty well."\nCoverdale earns high praise\nSophomore guard Tom Coverdale, who played only 41 minutes last year, saw 33 minutes in Tuesday's game. He scored seven points, led all players with eight assists and earned high praise from interim head coach Mike Davis.\nCoverdale said he was happy with his improvement over two exhibition games.\n"Tonight (showed) the way I can play, and not like those exhibitions," Coverdale said. "I just have keep it up for the entire season"