Cream squad, recruits own "Night of the Living Red"

The IU men’s basketball team had just one scare this Halloween weekend.

Early in the team’s intrasquad scrimmage during the “Night of the Living Red” event Friday at Assembly Hall, sophomore forward Christian Watford drove hard into sophomore forward Bobby Capobianco. Watford drew a trip to the foul line but lay writhing in pain on the floor.

Fortunately for him, Watford simply had his wind knocked out, and he went on to score a Crimson- and game-high 24 points in a 65-51 loss to the Cream.

It was a somewhat surprising result, as Capobianco was the only Cream player with any starting experience last season.

Watford chalked up the loss to simple familiarity between the two teams.

“They overplayed us a little bit,” he said. “They know our plays, and I guess we realized too late that we’ve just got to play instead of trying to run plays.”

But it was the players whom the 7,847 in attendance weren’t used to watching who caught the attention.

Sophomore guard Maurice Creek, who missed the final 19 games last season with a knee injury, returned to the court after missing the Hoosier Hysteria scrimmage earlier in October.

He struggled to find a rhythm and ended with just 4 points on 2-of-8 shooting with 0-of-6 from the 3-point line.

“I think it’s very apparent this was Maurice Creek’s first time under the lights since December,” IU coach Tom Crean said. “He wants to be right back to where he left off, and that doesn’t work that way.”

Meanwhile, junior college transfer and center Guy-Marc Michel made some new fans with 14 points, 10 rebounds and four blocks. Fans chanted his name in appreciation, but he wasn’t the only recipient of the crowd’s love.

High-profile recruits Hanner Perea, Cody Zeller and Austin Etherington — the team’s only 2011 commit right now — were in attendance and were the focus of the crowd during breaks of the action. Zeller, the No. 4-ranked forward in the 2011 class by rivals.com, drew the most chants.

While the game was being played, the Crimson team struggled with its shooting, finishing 41 percent from the field. The Cream squad, led by Michel, dominated with points in the paint by a 38-12 difference.

The game had its sloppy moments with 17 turnovers by Crimson, six of which were from Creek. Crean said while improvements will obviously need to be made, he wasn’t all that concerned with the transition game.

“We have not gone up and down a lot,” he said. “We have not had a lot of scrimmaging per se, and I think that showed a little bit, because we’re really trying to get half-court defense right and try to gain some offensive continuity.”

Junior guard Daniel Moore led the Cream in scoring with 18 points, while junior guard Matt Roth scored 10 points on 4-of-7 shooting.

Junior guard Verdell Jones  and senior guard Jeremiah Rivers missed the scrimmage, with an ankle injury and a concussion, respectively.

Crean said he was happy to see players fight for their spots on the team, something he talked about since the spring.

“Everybody’s got adjustments to make,” he said. “But everybody is showing that there’s going to be real competition this year for minutes inside the program.”