Fun is over; now time to get to work

As the 6-foot-5 sophomore received his introduction from Don Fischer, he skipped onto Branch McCracken court, turned and threw a T-shirt into the stands and did a 360-degree turn just inside the three-point line.

And as he jogged out to join seven of his teammates past mid-court, Verdell Jones couldn’t hold back his famous smile. It was going to be a fun night.

Friday night’s Hoosier Hysteria had it all, from the traditional 3-point and dunk contests and scrimmage to the return of the famed “Mop Lady” – albeit a new one – and the team scrimmaging and singing with a cappella group Straight No Chaser.
Even Jared “The Subway Guy” Fogle got in on the action.

Following the night’s events, as the remaining fans gathered on the court to get autographs and meet their favorite Hoosiers, IU coach Tom Crean spoke with the media and made it clear that the fun and games were coming to end.

“You want to have fun with it, but tomorrow we’re back at it – heavily,” Crean said. “It won’t be a dunk contest tomorrow. It will be, ‘Don’t let guys get layups, put him on the ground and make him shoot foul shots.”

It also wouldn’t be Bobby Capobianco getting off easy after failing to box out Tom Pritchard, who grabbed a rebound and easily scored. Devan Dumes wouldn’t be able to airball a 3-pointer without hearing from the coaches. And there certainly wouldn’t be any collective laughter if Bawa Muniru were to dribble another ball off his foot.

Saturday marked the first official practices for the Hoosiers. The team held an open practice at 4 p.m., not long after finishing their first one that began in the morning. On Sunday, it was another set of two-a-days.

The NCAA permits all teams to practice up to 20 hours per week. But since Sept. 15, the Hoosiers had been allowed just two hours of official court time with Crean and the coaching staff per week.

As excited as the team is to get back on the court, they now have less than three weeks before their Nov. 4 exhibition game with Grace College. That means just 25 days until their season opener against Howard on Nov. 13.

“This is the biggest part of the season right here, right before we start games and go into practice,” Pritchard said Friday at Hoosier Hysteria. “(We’ve) got to listen to Coach (Crean) and find out what we’re doing because he’s the head, he knows what to do and he’s going to lead us to some wins.”

Pritchard added that it will be “really crucial” as they enter practice to “work hard and do what’s right.”
While this year’s IU squad is taller, more athletic and simply more talented than in 2008-09, they are still very young by all standards.

Though they return last year’s leading scorer in Dumes and Georgetown transfer Jeremiah Rivers, a junior, it will be primarily freshmen and sophomores who make up the rest of the rotation.

And among the most difficult tasks in rebuilding a program is getting everyone to mesh together and play as a team. That’s not easy when there isn’t a core of juniors and seniors who have played together for two or three years.

In other words, the team has a lot of work to do in the next few weeks, and as Pritchard suggested, these first weeks of practice are critical.

“We’ll have growing pains, we’ll have tough days, but I can promise you there will not be days where we do not work and compete to get better,” Crean said, while addressing the fans during Hoosier Hysteria. “That’s a guarantee.”

While nothing else is guaranteed this year – not even wins against November opponents such as Howard, USC Upstate or Northwestern State – working hard now will pay off later.

So while practice might not make perfect this season, it should go a long way for these young Hoosiers.