Hoosiers defeat North Carolina Central for perfect non-conference record

In a season filled with accolades and accomplishments, the IU basketball team added another Wednesday evening.

Thanks to a relatively comfortable 75-56 victory against North Carolina Central University (14-13, 8-5), the Hoosiers completed the non-conference portion of their schedule undefeated for the first time since the 1989-90 season.

After the game, IU Coach Tom Crean said he had his coaching staff go around the room and tell the players where they were in 1989-90 to show the significance of the honor.

“I think that’s a big, big deal, and that’s something they can carry with them,” Crean said.

Going up against a much smaller NCCU lineup, the No. 23/24 Hoosiers (21-7, 8-7) outrebounded the Eagles 35-16 and had 16 second-chance points.

“It’s definitely one of our keys, is to get on the glass on the offensive end, as well as keeping them off the board on the other end,” freshman forward Cody Zeller said. “It’s just one of the little things we need to do to win.”

Crean shook up the starting lineup for the first time since the Purdue game, as sophomore forward Will Sheehey started for junior forward Derek Elston.

Sheehey hadn’t started since the Michigan game Feb. 1 but scored 12 points and pulled down seven rebounds Wednesday evening.

The move also paid off for Elston, who scored 10 points in 17 minutes off the bench.
Zeller was the catalyst in the scoring department, with 17 points on 6-of-9 shooting.
In the last six home games, Zeller averaged 21.5 points and shot 74.1 percent from the floor.

IU led by double figures from the 12:11 mark of the first half, with its biggest lead coming at 24 points with eight minutes to go in the
second half.

Crean was able to empty his entire bench Wednesday night, including freshman Austin Etherington scoring his first points since Dec. 22, 2011, against University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

This marks the first time in the Crean era that IU played a non-conference game during the Big Ten schedule. Even playing a team that has an RPI of 252 (compared to 18 for IU), the Hoosiers talked about the importance of a mid-week game following a 12-point loss at Iowa on Sunday.

“We game planned for this like we do for anybody else,” Crean said. “There were no preconceived notions ... you’re coaching to win the game. It’s about performance and you’ve got to keep getting better.”

NCCU was led by Kansas State transfer and NBA prospect Dominique Sutton, who had a game-high 21 points.

This game was supposed to be played Dec. 7, 2011, but due to IU having both its byes late in the Big Ten season, it was switched to February to keep from having three games in the past three weeks.

The move paid off for the Hoosiers, as the extra week to prepare for Kentucky led to knocking off the No. 1 team in the nation, and IU took care of business again Wednesday.

The Hoosiers will jump back into conference play Sunday, when they travel to Minnesota for a 1 p.m. tip.

Trying to fight for a higher seed in the Big Ten Tournament, IU will head back to conference play with a record few past Hoosier teams have.

“It builds our confidence a little bit because it’s a big win for us, undefeated in the (non-conference) regular season and things of that nature,” sophomore guard Victor
Oladipo said.

“It just keeps in that mentality of the next game, and we’ve got to turn right back around and play another game, and a road game at that.”