Column: Scouting the Boilermakers
Even though IU is now securely in the NCAA Tournament, there is still a lot to play for Sunday. First and foremost, it is the chance to give these five seniors a win in their last game at Assembly Hall.
Even though IU is now securely in the NCAA Tournament, there is still a lot to play for Sunday. First and foremost, it is the chance to give these five seniors a win in their last game at Assembly Hall.
IU’s five seniors will throw on the candy stripes and play at Assembly Hall for the final time Sunday. This is the story of how five kids stuck out more downs than ups to bring IU basketball back from the dead. Click here for part 1.
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.
In Tom Crean’s early years as head coach, tickets weren’t moving as much. This year, however, Crean’s team is winning. This year, everyone wants to go to the games. And more scalpers want in on the profits.
Tom Crean was shorter than expected. That is what surprised senior forward Tom Pritchard the most on his first day at IU. Not the scandal that rocked the foundations of Indiana basketball to spawn an unprecedented rebuilding project. Not that the squad he would be playing on was bringing back a combined average of just 12.8 minutes and 1.6 points per game from the prior season in Kyle Taber and Brett Finklemeier.
For the third time this season, a top-five ranked team walked into Assembly Hall, and for the third straight game, they walked out with a loss.
The Hoosiers steamrolled No. 5 Michigan State by 15 points Tuesday, and the win proved something.
Christian Watford was nowhere near the 26-point outburst he had the first time IU faced Michigan State on Dec. 28.
Daniel Moore obviously doesn’t get it. He’s the shortest man playing for the Hoosiers, not even measuring 6 feet tall. At 175 pounds, he is the lightest scholarship player on the team.
The IU men’s basketball team defeated another top-five team.
In looking to knock off its third top-five team on the season, the IU basketball team leads Michigan State 41-27 at halftime.
Follow along on our live chat of the IU-Michigan State game by clicking here.
There’s a face behind the 3-pointers. It’s the face of an IU student who is from Illinois, but who found a new home. Senior guard Matt Roth has made Indiana his adopted home and developed a pride for the state and its basketball as pure as any homegrown Hoosier.
MSU Coach Tom Izzo’s squad is getting hot at the right time, riding a seven-game winning streak into Bloomington.
Tonight’s game against Michigan State marks exactly two months since IU’s 80-65 loss in East Lansing, Mich. The Spartans lead the conference standings heading into the final week of Big Ten play and top four statistical categories in the league.
IU men's basketball team moved up in both national rankings, from No. 23 to 18 in the AP Poll and to 20 from 24 in the USA Today/ESPN poll.
A week after not making a field goal during 46 minutes of action during a road loss to Iowa, IU veterans senior Verdell Jones III and junior Christian Watford made sure that wouldn’t be the case for their final road game of the season.
IU men’s basketball season has been a ball on a roulette wheel. Matters were no different in the Hoosiers’ 69-50 win Sunday in Minnesota.
The IU men’s basketball team entered Sunday’s game with two streaks behind them. One of those was losing Big Ten road games, in which IU was 2-6. The other was winning at Williams Arena, where the Hoosiers were 0-3 since IU Coach Tom Crean took over in 2008.
With four players in double figures, the No. 23/24 Hoosiers (22-7, 9-7) throttled Minnesota (17-12, 5-11) at Williams Arena, 69-50.