IU 57 SIU 47

I don't care if it's ugly as long as it is a W. A solid win for the Hoosiers tonight as they knock off a pretty good Southern Illinois team. I have to admit that I was a little surprised by our poll results that had all 12 voters picking the Hoosiers to win this game. SIU came into this game at 7-1 and ranked #30 in the country. They are a team that returned all 5 starters from a year ago and have held their opponents to an average of 51 points per game. If you like defense, you would have loved this game. If you like offense, well, this one was pretty ugly. But if you're a Hoosier fan, you have to be happy. It looked like the free throw shooting might kill the Hoosiers. At one point, they were 10-21 and it looked like the poor FT shooting might cost them the game. Fortunately, as they made their run in the 2nd half, they hit 9 of their last 10 to keep the game out of reach. Clearly, the key point in the game was the 12-0 run that the Hoosiers went on after a 39-39 tie. This pushed it to 51-39 and IU finally started to hit their freebies to keep the game in double-digits the rest of the way. I had the pleasure of watching the game with my fellow Hoosier alums here in Milwaukee (Harrells, Prifogles, and Pearce/Wolf). We were calling for Wilmont to get in the game in the 2nd half. Even though he hadn't done anything until that point, it looked like the Hoosiers needed a spark to get them over the hump. Sure enough, Wilmont comes in and hits a big 3 and pulls down several boards and the Hoosiers were off and running. I don't know how big of a win this is, but I do know that a loss would have been devastating. Now, IU just needs to take care of business in their next 3 games and they can head into conference play at a respectable 9-3. Overall Team Performance: B+ Defense was outstanding. They won the rebounding battle again. They won the turnover battle -- not sure about final stats but IU was around an acceptable 10 turnovers and forced about 20 SIU turnovers. On the down side, the free throws were giving me heart failure. Also, I know SIU plays good defense, but IU's first half offense was ridiculous -- 6 points in the first 10 minutes of the game. I know Shaw hit a 3 on their first or second possession, so that means they only scored 3 points over the next 8 or 9 minutes. Of course, IU's solid defense kept them in the game during that horrible offensive stretch. D.J. White: D Only 4 rebounds in 36 minutes. 2-6 from the line. 4 turnovers (although a couple of those traveling calls were mysteries). Had 2 monster dunks on nice feeds from teammates, but only managed 1 other field goal. Also committed 2 bonehead fouls. Clearly not D.J.'s best night. Lance Stemler: D Talk about going cold. He is now gone "0-for" in his last 2 games. Roderick Wilmont: B+ By now, I am sure you realize -- I love this guy. I really think he is a game-changer and it is only a matter of time before he sparks an IU run. Tonight, he had 7 or 8 rebounds in only 19 minutes and had a big 3 to start IU's big 12-0 run. Joey Shaw: C- Hit a 3 right at the start of the game and then did not score again. Had back-to-back turnovers at the start of the 2nd half. One thing I like about Shaw is that he draws fouls. In the first half, I think he drew 5 non-shooting fouls. Unfortunately, on the one that got IU into the first half bonus, he missed the front end. Earl Calloway: B Did a really nice job taking care of the basketball tonight. Missed a point blank layup, that always drives me crazy. Even though Tatum for SIU had a big night, I thought Earl made him really work for it. Armon Bassett: B+ Not a great shooting night, but he created some things out there. In an ugly game like this, you need guys to make some things happen and Armon did that tonight. He also hit all 4 of his free throws. A.J. Ratliffe: B+ Again, on a night where nothing is going to come easy, you need guys who will step up and make some shots. Even thought he banked one in high off the glass from straight on, Ratliffe did manage to know down 3 out of 4 triples on the night. He did only go 3-6 from the line including a few that nearly gave me an aneurism. I think A.J. and D.J. combined for a 2-9 FT stretch. Xavier Keeling: B Keeling got some unexpected minutes and played pretty well. He didn't light up the place, but he was active and really showed some potential. Bendeman: no grade I had to check the box score because sometimes I think he didn't play but he actually played 25 minutes -- usually it's just the fact that he doesn't do anything, so I don't notice him. Tonight, he actually did not play. I know he had the flu when they played Kentucky, but that was 8 days ago. I didn't hear them say anything about him tonight, but Will & Drew were on a sugar-high from eating Xmas cookies, so we couldn't really here the telecast. 40 cent: no grade Looks like Mike White is back in the dog-house again. It also looks like he has been coaching the rest of the team on his FT shooting technique. Errek Suhr: no grade I'm glad to see that Sampson hasn't completely fallen in love with Suhr. I certainly like Suhr more than some (especially Cook). However, I certainly don't think he should be a starter or even get many minutes. I think he should come in the game occassionally to try to give the team a spark when nothing else is working. If this team wants to contend in the Big Ten and be a tournament team, they need Calloway and Bassett to step up and play well on a consistent basis. Again, I like Suhr and think he works his ass off, he just shouldn't be a starter or key reserve on a team that wants to get back to elite status. Kelvin Sampson: B+ I liked that Sampson looked absolutely disgusted when they were missing all those free throws. Even though they won by 10 and made 9 our of their last 10 free throws, you could tell that these guys are going to shoot free throws and run sprints all day long in practice. I also liked the move to the 1-3-1 defense in the 2nd half. At first, I questioned why change the defense when that seems to be the only thing that is going well. The man-to-man defense had only given up about 30 points in 30 minutes of play -- pretty damn good. But the move to the 1-3-1 forced some turnovers rather than just forcing difficult shots and that also played a part in the game-breaking 12-0 run. Poll Results: As mentioned earlier, all 12 voters kept the faith and accurately predicted tonight's victory. As for the Big Dance, 3 voters think the Hoosiers are a no-brainer, 8 voters think they're in as a bubble team, and 1 voter thinks they'll be on the outside looking in. I hate to look back to that Kentucky disaster, but 8 voters thought that IU's horrendous 3-point shooting was the key factor in the loss. 2 votes for easy baskets for KY, and 1 vote for the poor execution down the stretch. Next game is Wednesday evening against Western Michigan. Go Hoosiers!