Preseason schedule tips off

Following a losing season featuring many breakdowns, the IU basketball team starts its first of two scheduled tune-ups tonight against Bellarmine, an attempt to get the Hoosiers started and running for the upcoming season. The exhibition game's tip-off is set for 8 p.m.\nThe tune-up will not fully be completed Thursday night because of a few missing parts. Freshman Lucas Steijn will not play because of disciplinary action resulting from a September citation for illegal consumption and senior Donald Perry is still indefinitely suspended for team rule violations. \nOn the injury front, senior Sean Kline missed most of Tuesday's practice with a sore knee. Freshman D.J. White is nursing a sore ankle and is questionable for Thursday's game but is likely to play. \nIU coach Mike Davis said after practice Tuesday he wasn't sure yet whether the Tuscaloosa, Ala., native would see the floor.\n"He was hopping around (Tuesday) but he was able to go," Davis said. "I'm not sure how serious it is."\nIn a typically more optimistic assessment from the player's perspective, White said he should be ready to go Thursday and is very anxious to start his collegiate career in front of the home crowd.\nA player who made his Assembly Hall debut last year looks to have a spot on the showroom floor in 2004. Sophomore Errek Suhr has been a sparkplug and leader for the Hoosiers in preseason workouts. Davis has said the Bloomington native is in the top-eight of his playing rotation and is routinely listed among the possible candidates for a team captain role. \nThe captain announcement, which was tentatively scheduled for before the start of exhibition play, has been pushed back by Davis. Possible candidates include Suhr and junior Marshall Strickland, among others.\nSuhr said his preseason climb into the playing rotation is a credit to his hard work.\n"I think the coaches start to see it," Suhr said. "If I see some time this year that'd be great, and if not it's nothing to get your head down. It's a Big Ten, high profile school. For me to get playing time, that's a dream."\nDavis said Suhr has really improved a lot from last year.\n"He's making all open shots," Davis said. "This year he's been really consistent in the offseason program leading up to the first day of practice."\nAs far as playing time goes for the regular season, Davis said it's hard to say what the rotation will be, but it'll be no more than eight or nine players. The Hoosiers outside that eight or nine will have to compete to get in it.\nWhile everyday practice is evaluated, how the Hoosiers perform under the lights in an exhibition game might be an even more important factor in determining which players will be in the rotation. \nDavis said he's looking for execution on the offensive and defensive ends during the team's first test drive before the real race of the upcoming season.\n"I want to be a disciplined team and see what carries over and what doesn't from the past three and a half weeks (of practice)," Davis said.\n-- Contact sports editor John Rodgers at jprodger@indiana.edu.