Hoosiers look to fill Dumes’ spot

A few stray elbows could end up costing the Hoosiers an arm and a leg against the Gophers.

With IU’s top scorer junior guard Devan Dumes suspended indefinitely, IU coach Tom Crean knows the Hoosiers (6-16, 1-9) will have a big void to fill tonight against Minnesota (18-5, 6-5). 

What he doesn’t know is whether Dumes’ absence will trickle down and take the punch out of an already shorthanded team.

On Monday, minutes after his team finished practicing, Crean voiced his displeasure with the way his players were responding to the suspension.

“It was almost like we were afraid to be physical,” Crean said of practice. “I don’t want that to happen. There is no one else in this league who is playing like that. I don’t want this instance to have us become gun-shy. I’m scared to death of that. At the same time, I don’t want us to cross lines.”

Questions revolving around Dumes and his infamous elbows against Michigan State dominated Monday’s media session. Crean repeatedly stressed to reporters that the matter would stay internal and accountability would continue to rule in his program.
Crean said part of his job is helping his players “understand what being a man is all about.”

“(Former NBA coach) Doug Collins had a great saying,” Crean said. “‘I don’t care if you don’t like me when you’re with me, I only care that you love me when you’re gone.’”

But IU’s first-year coach isn’t exactly kicking Dumes to the curb. In fact, the junior guard will continue to practice and travel with the team. Doing otherwise would be “counterproductive,” Crean said.

Crean will now lead the Dumes-less Hoosiers against a Gopher team that beat IU 67-63 in the teams’ first meeting on Jan. 25. In that game, Dumes led the Hoosiers with 19 points and helped IU almost pull off its first Big Ten upset of the season. 

But the Hoosiers had no answer for the giant Gopher duo of Damian Johnson and Ralph Sampson III, who combined for 31 points and 14 rebounds that evening.

IU now faces the daunting task of seeking revenge without its leading scorer and best on-the-ball defender. Crean called Minnesota one of the toughest teams in the conference and said he was well aware Dumes’ suspension was coming at a bad time.

“I hate when a decision affects a lot more than the person involved, and that’s what this does,” Crean said. “It affects everybody in the program. Good, bad or different, he’s our leading scorer. I can’t make it any clearer than that.”

While the Gophers have lost their last two games and have dropped from the college basketball polls, Crean said it didn’t make much of a difference,     adding IU still has to face “a team that was ranked yesterday.”

Without Dumes, Crean said freshman guards Matt Roth and Malik Story will be expected to carry some of the offensive load with one of the two filling the junior’s spot in the starting lineup.

Although the two freshmen have yet to show much consistency, they have had flashes of promise. Story scored 14 points off the bench against the Gophers on Jan. 25, and Roth’s memorable game against Northwestern where he scored a career-high 29 points is still fresh in many people’s minds.

The suspension shortens an already “relatively short bench,” but Crean said he’s not expecting his team to acknowledge the adversity in the game.

“We’re not going up frustrated or angry,” he said. “We’re going up to compete.”