“It’ll be a good test,” sophomore Tanner Thompson said. “They’ve got some big guys, they’re a physical team and they’ve got some technical ability in the midfield. They’re pretty comparable to a Big Ten team.”
The defending Pac-12 champions advanced to the Elite Eight in the NCAA Tournament after earning the No. 2 overall seed.
One bonus IU will have in this match is the return of junior forward Femi Hollinger-Janzen. Hollinger-Janzen was held out of the exhibition against Xavier for precautionary reasons, but IU Coach Toddy Yeagley fully expects Hollinger-Janzen on the field Saturday night in Ft. Wayne.
“Femi’s a big part,” Yeagley said. “He brings a scoring presence, he brings a physicality. Now into his third year, he brings an IQ of what we like to do and how to bring other players into the game.”
Hollinger-Janzen’s return should also free up other attacking players to move more freely, Yeagley said, including Thompson.
“He’ll be able to be an outlet for us, we’ll be able to move off of him,” Thompson said. “So it’ll really help us with outlets and moving up the field and getting balls higher up.”
One of Hollinger-Janzen’s main attributes is his size and strength. Yeagley said physicality is something he expects not only from Hollinger-Janzen but from the entire team.
“A lot of what we did this spring was being more physical,” Yeagley said. “Defensively and offensively, I think it’s starting to pay off. We’re seeing returners with a more physical presence.”
Another area in which Hollinger-Janzen can assist his teammates is his quality in the final third of the field. In Tuesday’s exhibition, IU outshot Xavier 13-6 but only put two of those shots on frame. Hollinger-Janzen’s five goals in 2013 tied him for the team lead.
Yeagley has also emphasized capitalizing on opportunities they get close to goal the past few days in practice, leading up to Saturday’s exhibition.
“A lot of today’s session we shortened the field to focus more on the final third or the back third,” Yeagley said. “A lot of things twenty-five and in, trying to get guys to read off one another, looking to go to goal and executing was a big part of today.”
Overall the picture is starting to become clear, Yeagley said. There are still some positions which remain wide open, but Yeagley said he believes he has more answers than a week ago at the first practice.
“We have less questions than we had when we started,” Yeagley said. “We’re over a week in and we have solved some things, we just haven’t gotten all the way.”
The only question which needs answering on Saturday, however, is whether IU can emerge victorious.
When Hollinger-Janzen was asked if a result was of most importance to the team on Saturday, his answer was to the point.
“Yes,” Hollinger-Janzen said. “Definitely. It’s not an exhibition match, it’s a serious game.”
