Patterson scores 14 in tune-up game for Indiana-Kentucky Senior All-Star Series

For 17 minutes, basketball fans in southern Indiana caught a glimpse of what 2012 Indiana University basketball commit Ron Patterson can do.

“(Patterson) plays great defense,” fellow 2012 IU commit Yogi Ferrell said. “He’s got those long arms, he knocked some big threes for us, so when he came in ... that’s when things got turned up.”

Patterson scored 14 points on 6-of-9 shooting, including 2-of-4 on threes, to help the Indiana Senior All-Star team fend off an energetic Junior All-Star team 104-97 Monday at the Lloyd Scott Gymnasium in Seymour, Ind.

“I try to play hard any time I’m on the court and give it my all defensively and offensively,” Patterson said.

Patterson added three assists, four rebounds and two steals to lead the trio of 2012 IU commits on the senior team. Jeremy Hollowell struggled from the field, scoring just 5 points on 1-for-7 shooting. Ferrell scored 11 and grabbed seven rebounds but struggled running the point, committing six turnovers to only one assist.

“I felt like I was trying to force a lot, so I’m gonna have to do a lot of different things on Wednesday,” Ferrell said.

Indiana Mr. Basketball and Michigan State commit Gary Harris scored 19 points on 8-of-13 shooting and had three assists, none more impressive than when he found Ferrell during a 3-on-1 fast break.

With about 6:20 left in the game, Harris streaked down the middle of the floor to draw the lone defender and then dished a behind-the-back pass to Ferrell for the finish.
Glenn Robinson III, a 2012 Michigan commit, scored a game-high 21 on near-perfect 9-of-10 shooting.

For the junior All-Stars, 2013 IU commit Devin Davis had a double with 14 points (6-of-14 shooting) and 13 rebounds in 23 minutes. Fellow 2013 IU commit Collin Hartman scored five points with an inefficient 2-of-8 shooting performance but did have an emphatic stuff of Iowa commit Patrick Ingram with eight minutes left in the game.

Twenty senior team turnovers and a 30-12 juniors advantage in second chance points kept the juniors in the game. They rallied from a 19-point halftime deficit to get as close as 87-81 with a little more than 6:15 left.

“They played hard,” Ferrell said. “They definitely hustled. At one point I felt like they were hustling even harder than us. Those guys had a really good showing tonight.”

In a game that resembled a track meet — the seniors had 24 fast break points to 22 for the juniors — Ferrell was in constant attack mode. He regularly pushed the ball up the floor, looking to set up teammates with dump-off passes in the low post or kickouts to open perimeter shooters.

“I told them, always be ready to catch the ball,” Ferrell said. “I just wanna drive and find other guys because I just wanna be a facilitator.”

The up-tempo style of game figures to fit well in IU Head Coach Tom Crean’s offense, Ferrell said.

“I feel like when we get down there, he’s gonna want to push most of the time because we’re gonna be very deep,” Ferrell said.  

Ferrell became the first of the trio to arrive for IU basketball summer workouts when he moved into his dorm Wednesday. And he knows he only scratched the surface at open gym workouts with the team earlier in the year.

“Got a little taste,” Ferrell said. “It’s really physical. That’s one of the things I noticed. I’m definitely gonna have to get physically stronger, (work on) finishing.”

Hollowell said he had been to several open gyms and does not expect the upcoming workouts to differ much.

“I know it’s probably gonna be 10 times harder,” Hollowell said. “You just never stop running. They get up and down the floor. You find yourself winded, but they’re still running 100 miles per hour.”

Patterson graduates from Broad Ripple High School (Indianapolis) June 12 and will head to Bloomington to move in the next day, along with Hollowell, his roommate.

“It’s still too good to be true,” Hollowell said. “It still hasn’t hit me. It’ll probably hit me once I move into that dorm room and I get into a daily routine going to the gym.”

The feeling seems to have sunk in for Ferrell, who is eager to start team workouts.

“It definitely does feel real,” Ferrell said. “It will feel even more real when we get down there. We’re all gonna be workin’, especially with that preseason No.-1 (ranking). So, we’re not gonna take that lightly.

“I just wanna get in the gym and start working out with those guys and get a feel for how our team plays, so our first game we go into, we’re just rockin’.”

The two teams scrimmaged again last night at Pendleton Heights High School in Pendleton, Ind., following the Indiana Girls Junior-Senior All-Star scrimmage, which tips off at 6 p.m. Check idsnews.com Thursday for a recap of the scrimmage.

The Indiana Senior All-Stars visit the Kentucky Senior All-Stars on Friday at Freedom Hall in Louisville, Ky., with the girls scheduled to tip off at 5:30 p.m. and the boys game to follow. The annual series then concludes Saturday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. The girls tip at 5 p.m., with the boys game to follow.

For the first time, the Indiana and Kentucky Junior All-Stars will play a home-and-home series Friday, June 15, and Saturday, June 16.