Sophomore guard wins 2nd consecutive three-point crown

Participants in the three-point and spot-shooting contests certainly had their work cut out for them at Friday night's Midnight Madness.\nThe high-flying, contortionistic dunks of freshmen Pat Ewing Jr. and Roderick Wilmont made the slam-dunk contest a tough act to follow, but luckily sophomore women's guard Cyndi Valentin was up to the task.\nValentin reclaimed her three-point crown, edging junior men's guard Donald Perry 9-8 in the final round.\n"It's an awesome feeling," Valentin said. "I was hoping to defend my title, but I just came out to have fun with my teammates."\nPerry shot the lights out in the first two rounds, sinking 15 and 13 threes, respectively, but was unable to steal the title from the readied Valentin.\n"She's the defending champ," Perry said. "She came out here and practiced, too. I saw her this morning with the racks and everything." \nPerry led all shooters with 36 successful attempts. \n"She beat me, but I made sure I gave her a run for her money," Perry said.\nWomen's coach Kathi Bennett said she was impressed with Valentin's performance.\n"When the pressure was on, Cyndi sure hit them when they counted," Bennett said. "She has worked hard this summer on her shot."\nValentin will be an integral part of the Hoosiers' offense this year, Bennett said, after a year in which she averaged 10.4 points per game, earning Big Ten All-Freshman laurels. \n"(Valentin) needs to have a scoring mentality," Bennett said. "We need to attack the rim more this season, and I think that is something that Cyndi can do."\nThe spot-shooting contest preceded the three-point shootout, and it also included men's and women's players.\nThe duo of sophomore guards Marshall Strickland and Brigett Branson was victorious over the freshman tandem of Wilmont and 6-foot-7-inch Sarah McKay. \n"It was really exciting to win," Branson said. "You never come in thinking 'I'm going to lose this,' but I was just hoping to make it out of the first round."\nBoth teams made it out of the first round with scores of 24, but Strickland electrified the crowd with his buzzer-beating three-pointer in the final round to give his team a 30-27 victory over Wilmont and McKay. \n"It was great to have all those people cheering us on," Branson said. \nWhile the men closed the night out with a 15-minute scrimmage, the ladies prepared for their first team practice of the season -- beginning at 1:30 a.m.\nBut Valentin wasn't worried about the late start.\n"I'm just ready to go play basketball and be on the floor with my teammates," Valentin said. "It will be hard but we have to just find the energy."\nBennett said she would be disappointed to find any of her players unexcited to play after performing in front of a 10,000-plus crowd.\n"You're not going to sleep after something like this anyway," Bennett said. "We might as well come out and be productive for an hour-and-a-half."\n-- Contact staff writer Ryan Cost at rjcost@indiana.edu.