Six Hoosiers heading abroad\nIU women's basketball coach Kathi Bennett has been selected to lead this year's Big Ten Foreign Tour team. The team will travel to Australia June 7 through 17 to embark upon the 12th Big Ten tour. Bennett is one of six Hoosiers heading down under. She'll be joined by junior All-Big Ten guard Jenny Demuth, senior forward Jamie Gathing, associate head coach Trish Betthauser, assistant coach Paul Nixon and trainer Wendy Poppy.\n"This is an opportunity I really look forward to," Bennett said. "To coach some of the top talent in the Big Ten and to represent the conference in Australia is an honor and will be a great experience for everyone involved."\nBennett and her staff were slated to lead last year's Big Ten tour, but due to world events, the tour was canceled. \nDemuth is coming off one of the best season's in IU history, becoming only the fifth player in school history to score 500 points in a single season. \nGathing's selection marks the second time she's been chosen to represent the conference. However, in 2000, she suffered an injury during training with the team and was unable to make the trip.
Football season opener time set\nThe IU football team announced the Sept. 4 season opener against Central Michigan will kick off at 6 p.m. The Hoosiers have won 16 of the last 18 home openers and are welcoming the Chippewas back to IU for the second time in three years.
No clear cut favorite for Derby\nLOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Friends Lake won the Florida Derby seven weeks ago, and he hasn't run a race since. Neither has Read the Footnotes, who finished fourth.\nBirdstone was fifth in the Lane's End Stakes six weeks ago, but missed the Blue Grass Stakes April 10 because of an elevated white blood cell count.\nWell rested, all three are ready to run in Saturday's Kentucky Derby. And all three will try to buck history that says it's not a good idea to come into America's greatest race off a long layoff.\nNeedles in 1956 was the last horse to win the Derby without a prep race in April. But that hasn't stopped trainers John Kimmel and Rick Violette from sticking to their plans and training their horses up to the Derby.\n"I'm very comfortable where we are," said Kimmel, who trains Friends Lake. "The layoff is not an issue."\nViolette said: "History and everything else aside, it's the best thing for Read the Footnotes."\nNick Zito, a two-time Derby-winning trainer, had no choice with Birdstone but points out his colt has performed well after an extended layoff.\nWhile all have been considered top prospects during a most unpredictable road to the Derby, the morning-line odds indicate a concern that the long layoff could compromise their chances in the 1 1/4-mile race -- a distance most 3-year-olds will be running for the first time.
