IU faces Hillsdale College in its last exhibtion game before season opener Friday

In the IU men’s basketball team’s first exhibition game Oct. 26 against Southern Indiana, it took the Hoosiers nearly midway through the second half to gain significant enough momentum to pull away from the Division II Screaming Eagles.

This evening the Hoosiers face their final exhibition test against Hillsdale College at 7 p.m. at Assembly Hall.

Lately the Chargers have been causing a few scares of their own in the top division of college basketball.

Against Valparaiso Oct. 26, Hillsdale lost by single digits 69-60. Last night, against one of the top teams in the Mid-American Conference, the Chargers took Toledo to overtime before a Toledo jumper at the buzzer lifted the Rockets to the narrow victory.

IU Coach Tom Crean said that after watching game tape of the Chargers in preparation for his team’s final exhibition game of the season, one of Hillsdale’s strengths is a very quick motion offense.

With a team as young as his, he said he’s been trying to keep the game plan simple for his players so not to get caught up trying to defend a quick team and get caught in a nail-biter.

“Motion teams for any team are usually very hard to defend,” Crean said. “For a young team it could be a nightmare, and that means that we don’t want to give them too much to do inside the game as far as game planning, but we’re not just going to come out and play. We’re going to come out with a real purpose.”

Crean said facing Hillsdale gives his team a chance to see a great shooting team that may mirror in some ways the sharp-shooting the Hoosiers will face against their tougher non-conference opponents and into the Big Ten portion of the schedule.

Crean said the young Hoosier squad struggled on the defensive side against USI.
He said some of his younger guys need to learn that playing stingy on defense will help create opportunities to get out and run and allow Indiana to average close to 80 points per game like the Hoosiers did a season ago.

But whether in transition or running the offense in the half court, the Hoosiers can’t afford quite the number of turnovers they gave up against USI, Crean said.

“My biggest concern going into tomorrow night is turnovers, far too many turnovers, far too sloppy play,” Crean said Sunday. “We’ve got to get that corrected, but at the same time, we’re trying to be fast.

“We’re trying to be very up-tempo, and so there are going to be certain turnovers that are going to come with that, but it can’t come from trying to do things that aren’t there.”

Two of the veterans on this year’s squad, sophomore guard Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell and senior forward Will Sheehey, turned the ball over four and five times, respectively, in the Hoosiers’ first contest, and Crean said he turns to an analogy to show his players why it’s so important to take care of the ball.

“Hit singles and not home run,” Crean said. “Let’s hit a bunch of singles and maybe throw in some doubles, and then those doubles look like home runs instead of trying to make plays that aren’t there, and then those home runs we thought we were throwing turn into strike outs.”

Follow reporter Nathan Brown on Twitter @nathan_brown10.