Coverdale's injury inspires late run

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- When junior Tom Coverdale stepped on Kent State's Eric Thomas' foot and crumbled to the floor, there was 9:35 left in Saturday night's game against the Golden Flashes. The Hoosiers had just put the finishing touches on a 19-9 run and had built a 59-41 lead.\nEverything was fine, until Coverdale couldn't get up from the floor without help from team physician Dr. Larry Rink, Tim Garl and teammate Mike Roberts.\n"(Coverdale) got hurt, and I heard a lot of people going 'Oh, here we go. We're in trouble.'" Dane Fife said.\nThe search was on for someone to pickup the slack. The Golden Flashes saw an opportunity.\n"We identified that he went down," Kent State coach Stan Heath said. "When Coverdale went down, we wanted to take advantage of the freshman point guard they had out there."\nKent State went on an 11-0 run over the next three minutes to get back in the game. The crowd stirred, and Mike Davis looked to his bench.\n"Donald Perry has been playing well for us," Davis said of the freshman guard. "One game before the Final Four, so he was a little nervous. Once they cut it back, I told Donald to relax and play."\nPerry did that and helped squash the Golden Flashes' rallies in the second half and the Hoosiers finished off tenth-seeded Kent State, 81-69 in the South Regional Final Saturday night.\nPerry finished with six points, two assists, two steals and a turnover in 17 minutes Saturday and helped the Hoosiers adjust to the Golden Flashes' full court trap they used to disrupt IU.\n"Once we were used to it, it wasn't a problem," Perry said of the trapping defense.\nLeading 59-52, the smallest lead the Hoosiers had in the second half, Perry got the ball up the floor to sophomore Jared Jeffries, who found Fife on the wing for a much-needed three-pointer to get the lead back to 10.\n"Being a senior, shooting as well as I was, I fired it, it went in and that swung the game back in our favor until the end," Fife said. \nThe bucket started a 13-4 run by IU that would give the Hoosiers a 72-56 lead with 2:45 left. At the same time, IU was forcing three Kent State turnovers and Perry was driving to the basket for a layup, grabbing a rebound and a loose ball and setting up junior Jeff Newton for a dunk.\nThe run took Kent State out for the final time. Trevor Huffman, who was held under 10 points for just the fourth time this season, got off a dismal seven shots in 40 minutes. He missed a three-pointer down the stretch and his ineffectiveness hurt the Golden Flashes down the stretch.\n"It seemed like every time we made a run, they'd knock down a three and get a foul and go to the line to stop our run," Kent State guard Andrew Mitchell said. "That's what great ball clubs do. \n"Indiana has some guys who have been in this situation before, and I could see it every time we came back on the court -- looking in Fife's eyes and Coverdale's eyes, it was like 'We're not going to lose this one tonight.'"\nIt was a far cry from the loss the Hoosiers suffered to Kent State last year in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Coverdale went down in that game, too, but IU couldn't respond and lost, 77-73. The Hoosiers had led 43-34 at halftime.\nSaturday night, the Hoosiers found a way.\n"To do it against Kent State, they caused a lot of hard times at the end of last year," junior Kyle Hornsby said. "It did make it a little bit sweeter."\nAside from the fact that this game was played in the Elite Eight instead of the first round, the Hoosiers said they are more experienced than last year. They weren't going to let Kent State end their season this year.\n"Last year's team would have panicked. We weren't panicking," Moye said. "We play like seniors. We've been winning games on will and defense all year"