Ready for redemption

It's been 217 days since the Hoosiers' loss to Illinois ended last season. \nThat's 217 days for Hoosier fans to remember the worst men's basketball season in 34 years. \nAnd that's 217 days for the Hoosier players to replay the season in their heads, thinking about what they could have done differently.\nTonight at Midnight Madness, the 2004-05 Hoosiers will take to Branch McCracken Court in Assembly Hall at 12:01 a.m. for the official start of practice and begin to erase the memories of last season.\nThose 217 days have been enough.\n"I've been waiting all year to get Indiana basketball back to what it should be," said senior guard Ryan Tapak said.\nThe show will begin one minute after midnight, IU coach Mike Davis said, since that is the first time the entire team can practice as one unit according to NCAA rules. \nDavis said after putting everyone and everything together, it will probably take a week and a half to get things running on all cyclinders. \nUntil tonight, Davis said coaches were allowed to hold one two-hour practice a week with up to four players. In accordance with NCAA rules, Davis and IU put together a nine-week program that ends with the stroke of midnight tonight.\n"They can have some fun for one day and one night, but we start at 12 on Saturday," Davis said. \nThe fifth-year coach said the team has had a "great, great, great nine weeks" and has gotten bigger and stronger over the offseason. \nBut from Saturday until the team's first exhibition game Nov. 4 against Bellarmine, Tapak said the intensity is going to be turned up.\n"It's going to be tough, and deservedly so," he said. "But the harder we work, the (bigger) the payoffs."\nAfter missing the NCAA tournament for the first time in 19 years last season, IU is looking to its newcomers to spark the team. \nHelping right the IU train are 11 new faces, including seven freshman, two new coaches and two transfers to help fill the voids left by A.J. Moye, George Leach and former assistant coach John Treloar, among others. \nThe freshman class of D.J. White, Robert Vaden, A.J. Ratliff, James Hardy and late-addition Lucas Steijn is considered by many to be one of the best in the nation, and will be accompanied by walk-on freshmen Adam Ahlfeld and Kyle Taber. \nJoining the seven freshmen will be Auburn transfers seniors Lewis Monroe and Marco Killingsworth, both of whom must sit out this season because of NCAA rules. Besides the players, tonight will be the debut for two new coaches. \nIU associate head coach Kerry Rupp and assistant head coach Donnie Marsh joined the Hoosiers' coaching staff this summer after the loss of Treloar and former assistant coach Ben McDonald. \nThe fans will get their first taste of this year's young team with the slam dunk contest, which will start tonight's festivities. Following the dunk contest, one men's player and one women's player will pair up for the spot shot contest, which will be followed by the three-point contest. The top two men and the top two women will then compete to be the overall champion and will attempt to dethrone defending champion Cyndi Valentin, who beat senior Donald Perry last year. The evening will end with the men's and women's teams playing in their own 15-minute scrimmages. \nFor Vaden, who will be participation in his first Midnight Madness since witnessing Pat Ewing Jr.'s slam dunk championship last season on his official recruiting visit, Friday night will be the end of the fun and games.\n"Now, it's time to get down and serious," he said. \n-- Contact senior writer Josh Weinfuss at jweinfus@indiana.edu.