Hoosiers to open season against Valparaiso

Senior guard Jasmine McGhee walked with a big smile and rubbed her hands together in anticipation after finishing practice earlier this week.

She’s ready to play basketball games that count.

“I’m very excited,” McGhee said.

McGhee and the rest of the IU women’s basketball team open the regular season at 6 p.m. today with a game at Valparaiso.

“I think everyone’s pumped up,” McGhee said. “I think everyone’s ready. I think we’re going to go out there and just have fun and just play hard.”

Freshman guard Nicole Bell is one player first-year IU Coach Curt Miller will be looking to tonight to play hard.

With junior guard Andrea Newbauer still recovering from ankle surgery from the offseason, Miller said he plans to start Bell at point guard.

He said Newbauer is “day-to-day” and will be a game-time decision.

“She’s in a little bit more practice, but she was very sore in practice, so she did not do some up-and-down things,” Miller said. “We hope that we might be able to squeeze some time out of her just to see exactly where she’s at, but she’s less than 100 percent.”

Miller said he has liked what he’s seen from Bell during the preseason. She scored nine points, grabbed five rebounds and dished out a team-high three assists in last week’s exhibition game against Kentucky State.

“She’s had a really good preseason and understands our offense and is a really good leader out there,” Miller said. “But she’s a freshman, and the bright lights will be on, and we’ll see how a freshman handles her first collegiate game.”

Bell, while not expecting to start when she first came to IU, is ready for the challenge and thankful for the opportunity.

“It means a lot to me to be starting, but I’m really just excited to be playing with my teammates and playing for Indiana,” she said.

Miller had hoped the team would get some extra game preparation in a closed scrimmage with Illinois State on Sunday, but he said the Illinois State team “was ravaged with a contagious flu bug” and was unable to travel, thus canceling the competition.

“It hurt us that we didn’t have a second opportunity to play and scrimmage someone other than ourselves, but we can’t use that as an excuse,” Miller said. “We’ve got to turn around and be ready for Valpo.”

With tonight’s road game, it will make four consecutive years the team has opened up on the road.  Valparaiso will make three of the last five season openers against in-state teams.

Prior to losing last season’s opener at Central Arkansas, the team had won five straight season openers.

“(Valpo is) a very, very talented starting five and a team that is going to play really, really hard against us,” Miller said.