Hoosiers' scrimmage a success

For the second week in a row, the IU men's basketball team opened its practice to the public. Not long after the end of the IU football team's loss to Iowa did the fans make the short trek from Memorial Stadium to Assembly Hall to enjoy a sports fan's dream day: A football game followed by an open scrimmage by the NCAA runners-up.\n"It's pretty cool," senior guard Tom Coverdale said after the scrimmage. "It's exciting to get out and play in front of the fans again. It's only been a week, and it feels like three weeks."\nUnder the direction of legit officials, the team, evenly split, played a 30-minute scrimmage. In front of six-to-seven thousand riled up fans, it was the Crimson squad that narrowly pulled out a 64-62 win.\nThe starters for the Crimson team were Coverdale, freshman forward Sean Kline, freshman guard Bracey Wright, junior center George Leach and senior guard Kyle Hornsby.\nStarting for the Cream team was junior guard A.J. Moye, senior forward Jeff Newton, sophomore guard Donald Perry, sophomore forward Mike Roberts and freshman guard Marshall Strickland.\nNot that the teams were set in stone. At various points throughout the scrimmage, players would switch jerseys and jump in for the other team.\nThe Crimson team leaped out to an early lead on the Cream players, going on a 14-1 run in the first three minutes of the scrimmage. But led by scrappy play from Moye and Newton, the Cream team was slowly able to lessen the gap in the score.\n"I thought (the scrimmage) was good," coach Mike Davis said. "Moye played well; Leach, Newton, Perry, all those guys had a good game. It gives the players an opportunity to play for a day and have fun. They worked hard. They worked real hard."\nThe big player of the game was Leach, who showed off what his hard work over the summer accomplished. Leach made his presence felt under the basket on both sides of the court.\n"I am more aggressive," Leach said. "I worked hard over the summer by lifting weights and shooting." \nBut what excited Leach more was his ability to stay out of foul trouble, he said. \n"I had four fouls today," Leach said. "My freshman year I had about twelve. Last year, I had eight or nine, and this year I had four. That's good for me. Four is the target for a game."\nWhile intended to be a serious practice, the team showed off some of their basketball prowess.\nLeach had more than one dunk on the basket, including a one-handed dunk after getting the ball from an out-of-bounds, possession-saving toss from Strickland.\nNewton also drew cheers from the crowd when he dunked over big-man Leach as the Cream team was making its comeback. On the following play, Coverdale tossed an alley-oop to Wright who put up the dunk.\n"It was nice," Kline said. "It was just like Midnight Madness. It was nice to get out there, and you get the adrenaline flowing. It's nice to be in front of a big crowd again"