From the bench to the spotlight

Four years ago, senior guard Tom Coverdale arrived at IU to play basketball, and promptly found himself on the bench. For the 1998 Mr. Basketball of Indiana and a player who averaged 25 points per game in high school, warming the bench was not good enough.\nAnd ask Coverdale what is the most embarrassing moment he's experienced during his entire career, and it's his first year at IU that is brought up.\n"Every team I played on I had been a starter, and then my freshman year I didn't play at all," Coverdale said. "I think every freshman goes through it, but when you are in that situation you always think the worst things of what people are thinking of you because you are not playing. It's just a real hard time to go through, and I think it's like that for everyone."\nHow things have changed since those early days on the bench. Coverdale has transformed himself from a freshman that played in a mere 10 games and scored just 10 points to a First Team All-Big Ten preseason selection. \nAs for the 10 points total his first year, Coverdale has evolved into a shooter that averages more than that per game. His sophomore season was his first chance to show exactly what he could do once he got into the game, but it was his performances last year that thrust him into the national spotlight.\n"If he's 90 percent, it's a different game because he's able to hit shots and play," IU coach Mike Davis said. "In that (NCAA) Championship game he wasn't himself because of the injury. If we had him it would have opened things up."\nAs the Hoosiers made their Cinderella run to the NCAA Championship game against Maryland, Coverdale was battling two ankle injuries. But this time, he didn't sit on the bench.\nThe first ankle injury occurred in the first-round game against Utah, and despite the injury to his left ankle, Coverdale played and scored a team-high 19 points.\nHe rolled the ankle again against Kent State, and still managed to score 14 points. But with the questions surrounding his ability to play on the ankle, Coverdale played in the Final Four game against Oklahoma and in the title game, but his game was limited because of the heavily wrapped ankle.\nBut ankle worries now behind him, a healthy Coverdale looks to step up his role on the team, and lead by example. \n"(Coverdale) has a lot of strengths," freshman guard Marshall Strickland said. "He's a real smart player, and that's what he uses most. Coverdale is consistent all the time, he works hard all the time, and he's really business-like on the court."\nBut even as a senior, Coverdale still needs to work hard at practice because of a guard-heavy team. He will be fighting to keep his substantial playing minutes.\nAnd Coverdale, a John R. Wooden Preseason All-American candidate, doesn't have amnesty from Davis' critiques. Prior to Midnight Madness, Davis expressed his unhappiness at Coverdale's alleged 11-pound weight gain. And what did Coverdale have to say about this?\n"As soon as it happened I went into his locker room and he was just laughing already because he knew why I was going in there," Coverdale said. "I weighed myself, and I'm at 199, so I got one more pound to go. I never weighed 207, I don't know where he got that. He just likes to kid around, and you have to take it the right way and not take it personal."\nWith his weight in check, his ankle feeling normal and a successful 2001-2002 season, Coverdale is ready to build on the past season's accomplishments. And he believes that the Hoosiers can make it back again, even if none of the preseason polls show that they believe it.\n"Last year, a lot of people didn't think we were very good, and we had to prove a lot of people wrong," Coverdale said. "So we are going to have to do the same this year. It is frustrating but preseason doesn't mean anything and we've learned that"