Cardinals might be only ones not surprised by their team's success

During Thanksgiving, people were talking about Ball State. And it wasn\'t because David Letterman attended the university. \nBy the end of the EA Sports Maui Invitational on Nov. 21, the Cardinals had squeaked past then-No.3 Kansas and blown out No.4 UCLA before losing to No.1 Duke in the tournament\'s championship game.\nAll of this in the first three games of their season.\nBut Ball State coach Tim Buckley expected his team to be successful from day one. So did his players.\n"They expected to play well and played with confidence," Buckley said. "We're developing great confidence in each other. I don't think the way we played surprised us. Maybe the end results did to a degree."\nNow, the No. 15 Cardinals come to Bloomington tomorrow for a 2 p.m. matinee against the Hoosiers (5-2) at Assembly Hall.\nThe way the Cardinals played in late November grabbed the attention of everyone who watched basketball. The Hoosiers were watching, too.\n"They're not going to creep up on anybody anymore like they did in Maui," junior guard Tom Coverdale said. "They\'re a good basketball team and definitely deserving of their top 20 ranking."\nThe Cardinals are a good team mainly because of their backcourt, led by senior Patrick Jackson and junior Chris Williams. Jackson leads the team with 20.8 points per game. Williams is second on the team, averaging 18 points.\nJackson and Williams both had big games in Maui. Jackson had 23 points in the wins against Kansas and UCLA. Williams had 24 points to help the Cardinals beat the Jayhawks, 93-91.\nBall State's main frontcourt presence is junior forward Theron Smith, who is averaging 17.2 points and 9.4 rebounds per game.\nLast year, the Hoosiers beat the Cardinals 65-50 to win the 26th Ameritech Indiana Classic. Jackson had only five points on 1-of-9 shooting. The loss extended IU's win streak against Ball State to 11.\nThings are different this year, though.\nBuckley is in his second season with the Cardinals, after leading them to an 18-12 record last year. He helped Wisconsin return to the NCAA tournament during the 1993-1994 season as an assistant coach before going to Ball State and serving as an assistant for five years.\nHe also spent the 1999-2000 season on Tom Crean\'s staff at Marquette. Wherever Buckley has gone, the one thing that's always happened is winning. \nNow, the winning is starting to happen more often at Ball State, and people are starting to pay attention to the Cardinals outside of the Mid-American Conference. Ball State's coming-out party on national television in November only helped matters.\n"Any time you get national exposure, that always helps," Buckley said. "Certainly it doesn't hurt. It gets the university in front of a lot of people, and it can help in lot of different areas.\n"I experienced similar things at Wisconsin, so I have experiences to look back on. When you have good players and a good staff, success follows."\nCoverdale and the Hoosiers had their hands full Tuesday against Notre Dame. After IU led by as many as 14, the Hoosiers held on for a 76-75 win. \nIU coach Mike Davis said he was looking forward to this game because his team had a chance to rest while staying at home all week. But Davis and Coverdale both expect a tough game tomorrow.\n"It's going to be a tough game, maybe even tougher than (Notre Dame)," Coverdale said. "We hope we can continue to improve."\nEven though it took the Cardinals traveling to Hawaii, Buckley said the university and Muncie as a whole has taken notice of his team. Now, Buckley said, there should be no more surprising wins, just expected ones.\n"It's been a great experience for the university and Muncie," he said. "We expected to get better and improve. The results shouldn't surprise you"