The Starting Five: Bumpy start for Hoosier senior class

When Bob Knight was at the helm of IU basketball, he coined the phrase “getting to the mic.”

It was meant to symbolize the honor of making it through four years of Knight.

Choked-up seniors addressed the at-capacity crowd at Assembly Hall knowing that it was the last time they would put on the candy striped pants. All they went through on Branch McCracken Court culminated into one moment.

IU’s five seniors never went through a Knight practice. They haven’t cut down nets after Big Ten or National Championships. But what these five seniors experienced in IU’s worst four-year stretch in program history has granted them the right to the mic.

When Kory Barnett, Verdell Jones III, Daniel Moore, Tom Pritchard and Matt Roth step up to the mic after their final game at Assembly Hall against Purdue, they will speak of a journey that no player in program history can relate to.

“I do think it’s a little bit about getting to the mic, especially for the five seniors for what we came into and how depleted the team was and how everybody just left,” Barnett said. “Anybody who saw any adversity left and the guys who are here stayed and we stayed through a lot. We stayed through a lot of tough practices, a lot of pain and a lot of sorrow. I think it makes it that much more special.”

   
Walk-ons, JUCOs and a Baseball Player

Thirty-six points.

The 2007-08 IU men’s basketball team averaged more than 36 points per half. Former

IU freshman guard Eric Gordon nearly eclipsed that mark in his first collegiate game when he dropped 33 on Chattanooga. Gordon and fellow All-American D.J. White combined for more than 36 points per game in 2007-08.

But that didn’t matter anymore.

All the 2008-09 freshman class had to rely on was 36 career points. Of those 36 points, 34 were from the three-year career of walk-on senior Kyle Taber. The two other points came from redshirt freshman walk-on Brett Finkelmeier.

The dismantling job by former IU Coach Kelvin Sampson’s cell phone scandal left the once-prominent program in shambles.

Gone was the thought of bringing in Indiana’s top prep talent in Jeff Teague and Tyler Zeller. Gone were the Armon Bassetts and Jordan Crawfords. Gone were the household names the IU faithful had grown accustomed to treating like
celebrities.

The remains included Pritchard, a 6-foot-9-inch, 245-pound forward out of Westlake, Ohio. A three-star recruit, according to Rivals.com, Pritchard figured to start opposite Taber.

“I really didn’t expect what was going to happen,” Pritchard said. “I really didn’t know. I knew I was going to get a lot of playing time, and that was something I was looking forward to and something I had. But I didn’t expect it to be like that.”

Jones, another three-star recruit, committed to new IU Coach Tom Crean instead of schools such as Kentucky, Minnesota and Tennessee. Crean salvaged another Sampson recruit in Roth, who set the Illinois high school basketball record for most three-pointers made in a career.

Crean then got another guard to stay on board, only this time it was because of him. Nick Williams, who had previously committed to Marquette, agreed to follow Crean to IU.

Malik Story joined IU after an offer in summer 2008 to round out the freshmen scholarship players. Crean roped in Moore, who already had a preferred walk-on spot from Sampson, and Barnett to help fill the depleted roster.

But that still wasn’t enough.

The team with two All-Americans a season prior was now so desperate to field a squad that it sunk to a new level. Crean decided to build from within and made room for IU baseball player and current Baltimore Orioles farm product Kipp Schutz.

IU had nine freshmen, eight walk-ons and 36 points. No amount of banners on the wall could prepare the IU freshmen for what was in store in 2008-09.


The Aerial Attack

The Demon Deacon rode onto the court on a motorcycle as black and gold flooded Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

No longer could IU rely on the comfort of Assembly Hall or the neutrality of a cramped Maui gym. The 4-2 Hoosiers faced their first true road test, an early December game against No. 15 Wake Forest in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge.

IU’s starting point guard was Moore, the 5-foot-10-inch freshman walk-on. Wake Forest’s starting point guard was Jeff Teague, the future All-American and current starting point guard of the Atlanta Hawks.

Unfortunately for IU, that was just the beginning of the NBA atmosphere.

While IU filled its starting five with three more guards and Pritchard, Wake Forest boasted three more future NBA players.

James Johnson is currently starting for the Toronto Raptors, Al-Farouq Aminu comes off the bench for the New Orleans Hornets and Ishmael Smith is a backup guard on the Orlando Magic.

“They had like three or four pros on the court, and we had like three or four freshmen starting,” Pritchard said. “It was just nuts.”

Wake Forest opened up a blitzkrieg of dunks. Steal, pass, dunk. That theme repeated like an assembly line for the Demon Deacons.

“We called it the aerial attack because they dunked on us like 15 times,” Barnett said.

It might have seemed like 15, but by night’s end, Wake Forest was only credited with 10 dunks — only.

In one instance, Smith was out on a four-on-one fast break after one of IU’s 26 turnovers. Smith threw an alley-oop pass. Teague and J.D. Williams both went up for a dunk and collectively slammed it home. Williams eventually got credit for the dunk that sent the Wake Forest faithful into a frenzy.

Wake Forest had two guys that dunked on one play. Pritchard represented IU’s only dunk of the night, which he missed, which happened on many occasions that season.

But getting dunked on was the least of IU’s problems in the ensuing historic slide.


The Sour

With the students away on winter break, the Northeastern Huskies strolled into Bloomington for a non-conference bout.

Now the Hoosiers had a chance for some home cooking at Assembly Hall, where they were 4-0 and pitted against a middle-of-the-pack team from the Colonial Athletic Association.

Somebody should’ve told that to the Huskies.

IU turned the ball over 21 times and received a spanking at the hands of a Northeastern team that didn’t go on to sniff postseason play.

“I can’t describe the feeling of walking off this court after losing to Northeastern,” Barnett said. “You just felt like you let down so many people.”

But rock bottom still hadn’t been reached.

Another mid-major team smelled blood. This time it was Lipscomb out of the Atlantic Sun Conference. Lipscomb hadn’t won a non-conference road game in nearly a year.
It played its first full Division 1 schedule in 2001, the same year IU began its run to the national championship.

For most of the first half, that theme proved true. IU was rolling, up 35-14 with 7:01 to play in the first half. The Hoosiers appeared to be back on their feet after the embarrassment of the Northeastern loss six days prior.

With the 2008-09 IU squad, no lead was safe.

The Bisons outscored IU 60-34 in the final 27 minutes and handed the Hoosiers their second-straight home loss to a mid-major.

IU wasn’t exactly building momentum heading into the Big Ten schedule. No one could’ve predicted the enormity of IU’s struggles in conference play.


All the Wrong Records

One win in 93 days.

That was how IU ended 2008-09. It was a 1-21 tailspin to end the season. The lone win came at home against Iowa on Feb. 4, thanks to a 27-point explosion from
Devan Dumes.

When it was all said and done, IU finished with its worst record in school history. The 1-17 Big Ten record was IU’s worst since the conference schedule expanded to 18 games. IU finished winless against the RPI top 100.

According to Barnett, rock bottom was the grind of that freshman season.
“The lowest low wasn’t after a game, to be honest with you,” he said. “Our lowest lows were in practice. There were times where we would just be running until we could barely stand up. There was a point to where we all just looked at each other and were like, ‘What are we doing?’”

That picture got even fuzzier when Williams and Story transferred following that
season.

Add the graduation of Taber, and suddenly a 6-25 squad was without the majority of its starting lineup.

But soon that freshmen class would add some necessary pieces to the rebuilding puzzle.

Help was on its way.