Need a break from this long season?

Do you need a break from this long season? If so, you might want to check this out. Note: Treat this like a Bob Knight video clip....not appropriate for children or most workplaces (unless you have a private office or headphones).

IU 53 NW 75

Our theme for this year has been to take each loss with a grain of salt and try to find the positives for the future. Well, I have to admit that tonight's game had me pissed off. I'm calming down now, but this game had me pretty damn frustrated by the end. Maybe it's because I would love to see this team win one more lousy game and I thought tonight was the best remaining chance. Or maybe it was because I actually thought this team played like shit tonight and blew a chance to win a game. Regardless, it actually just comes down to the talent level. I think the quote in the picture says it all "When your best just isn't good enough". That's the bottom line. There just isn't enough talent for them to put together 40 minutes and win. Unfortunately, they were only able to put together 5 minutes of decent basketball tonight. Common themes led to tonight's failure -- it was 3-point shooting, FT shooting, and turnovers. I think the shooting categories really tell the talent story as well. The main object of basketball is to put the biscuit in the basket. Well, tonight, IU was 3-21 from downtown and 2-7 from the line that included Matt Roth of all people missing a front-end. You have to have guys that can shoot the basketball. Period. Tonight's game started out great with a 6-0 IU lead and a 15-7 lead 5 minutes into the game. The Hoosiers looked sharp by getting 6 early layups and a 3-pointer from Nick Williams to open up that 15-7 lead. But then NW went to a 1-3-1 zone and it got ugly from there. For the rest of the game, IU went just 2-20 from the arc and scored only 38 points in the final 35 minutes of the game. It was hard to watch. IU had 17 turnovers on the game. Of course, we have seen several games with more. However, Dan Dakich was in the studio at halftime and I thought he made a great point. I'll summarize his point and take it one step further. His point was that IU's passing was terrible even when they weren't turning it over. He said passes that are off the mark don't allow a shooter to catch and shoot before the defender arrives. This was very true throughout the game. And taking it a step further, you really need to have 2 or 3 or even 4 really good passes against a zone to ultimately get a good shot. Or you need 2 or 3 really good drive and kicks before getting a good shot. With each good pass or drive, you get that zone a little more off-balance until you finally get a good look at the basket. The problem with this team is that they simply are not capable of consistently stringing together a few good passes or dribble-drives. During some of the games, I will keep a pen and paper close by and occasionally touch on things that I either want to note in the blog or just to capture a moment that I think could possibly be a turning point. The one I captured tonight was definitely the beginning of the end. Now, before I get too far into this, I want to be clear that I am not trying to make the point that if this one single play would have gone IU's way, they would have won the game. That would actually be a ridiculous take if you saw how bad IU played the last 15 minutes of the game. Nonetheless, here was the situation -- IU had just cut the lead to 2 points and had the ball back with a chance to tie or take the lead. This was 5 minutes into the 2nd half and the crowd was on their feet for the first time since the opening minutes. Pritchard sets a solid screen and gets called for the offensive foul. A bad call and I thought to myself that this is just another example of a play where they just can't seem to get over the hump. It has happened throughout the year -- often times it has just been a case of IU not able to make the play and a few times it has been a bad call from the officials. So, since I was thinking that, I decided to jot it down to track what happened after that play over the next couple of minutes. Well, here's what happened -- NW comes down and scores, IU then turns it over, and then NW comes down and hits a 3. And just like that, it is back to a 7-point lead less than 1 minute later. Crean takes a time-out, but the Hoosiers never respond and play like dog-crap the rest of the way. In fact, from the point of that call on Pritchard to the rest of the game, the score was 34 to 14. I hate it when I am right about stuff like that. A couple other noteworthy stats of futility: * Dumes was 0-6 from the arc (with his last 3 attempts missing badly) * Jones had 7 turnovers (although he did at least have 6 assists) * IU missed their last 10 attempts from 3-point range The only positive from this one was that Taber has set career-highs in scoring in his last 2 games with 10 points at Purdue and led IU in scoring with 12 points tonight. Taber also led IU with 6 rebounds and 2 blocks tonight. Other odds & ends: * At one point, IU had a line-up of Moore, Finkelmeier, Roth, Lewis, and Pritchard. Breaking that down a few different ways, that's 4 white guys, 3 walk-ons, 4 freshman, 1 sophomore, only 1 outside shooter, and only 2 guys with any hope of scoring. * This game included one of the craziest loose ball scrambles I have ever seen. It was like one of those old football follies. I played it back a few times and counted over 20 times where a hand (sometimes by the same guy a couple times in a row) touched the ball but could not control it. * Did you see #1 get in the game at the end for IU for the first time this season? For a second, I thought it was Tome Earth. But actually, it was Santa (Michael Santa, that is) who is a student-manager on the team that Crean just activated. * Anyone notice that Crean is generally a jerk with the postgame handshake? He shakes hands and all, but he does so while walking about 15 miles per hour past the other coach. It just seems to be at odds with his personality. He would seem to be more the type of guy that would stop and congratulate the opposing coach on a good team, good luck in the future, etc. It hasn't been every game, but it has definitely happened several times where he just goes by full speed. * The IU staff made 1 extra phone call to Bawa Maniru in October (you can only make 2 calls a week to a player and IU made 3). IU punished itself by not making any calls for a week in December. Seems minor enough and sounds like it happens a lot and it sure as hell is not 577 extra phone calls. But it still made me cringe when Cook sent me that story earlier today. Anything other than a phone call! Actually, I should re-phrase that.....not anything other than a phone call, we need nothing. Absolutely nothing in the category of violations. Certainly nothing major, but we don't even want minor things hitting the paper. Not 1 extra phone call. Nothing. * Odd post-game quote from Crean: "Northwestern is a good basketball team and I wouldn't be surprised at all to see them in the NCAA Tournament." Ummm.....does he think that NW is going to win the Big Ten Tourney? Because that's their only shot at the NCAA tourney. Perhaps he meant to just say "the postseason" (meaning NIT)? Next Up: @ Penn State on Saturday

IU 67 Purdue 81

In the grand scheme of things, I was pretty happy with the way we played today. E'Twaun Moore came out on fire (and stayed that way) to give Purdue an 11-2 lead in the first 3 minutes of the game. Over the next 34 minutes, IU played Purdue dead even to still have this game in single digits with 3 minutes to go in the game (57-66). So, they played to a score of 55-55 during those 34 minutes. Pretty impressive considering this was the first trip into Mackey Arena for all these players and Purdue is ranked #21 in the country. IU never truly threatened in this game. They did get the lead down to 6 points at one point in the second half, but the lead was right around 9-11 points for almost the entire game. It was just good to see them play solid basketball after the slow start. Verdell Jones was outstanding again and is this team's best player right now. Jones had 16 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists. I'm really, really, really impressed with how Verdell has played the last 2 games. After struggling in recent weeks, it was good to see Tom Pritchard have a good game. 12 points, 8 rebounds, and 4 steals. He didn't do a whole lot to stop JaJuan Johnson, but he did seem to have his early season form back in this game. Some nice moves, nice tip-ins, and did a great job of stepping in passing lanes to grab 4 steals. Taber made a nice contribution with 10 points and 5 rebounds. Between Taber and Pritchard, they combined for 4 tip-in baskets in the first half alone to keep the Hoosiers in the game. Nick Williams was the benefactor of some good passes for some easy lay-ups, but other than that, he was not much of a factor in this game. He was in a lot of foul trouble and only played 17 minutes. Williams has not been doing a whole lot in the last couple of games, so I think he needs to step it up. Dumes did not start this game and was pretty erratic throughout the day. He could not seem to control the ball anytime he drove and he had some defensive lapses that allowed Moore to get good looks. Matt Roth was not much of a factor and was just 1-5 from the arc. Ever since his explosion of nine 3-pointers against OSU, teams have given him a lot of attention and have been able to shut him down. Story was up and down but finished with a nice contribution of 9 points and 4 assists. Once again, turnovers and FT shooting hurt the Hoosiers. IU had 16 turnovers and a lot of them were the bad variety that led to Purdue fast-breaks. From the line, the Hoosiers were a woeful 6-13. Purdue was terrible at the line as well and that helped keep IU in the game. For the game, Purdue was 18-33 but that final number was helped by Purdue finally hitting several FTs at the end of the game. Throughout most of the game, Purdue was also shooting under 50% from the line. I thought a key play in the game was in the 2nd half when Kramer got a steal and went in for a layup. On the play, it looked like Dumes not only slapped his arm but then also gave him a shove in the back. Kramer made the layup and went down hard due to the shove in the back by Dumes. It almost looked like a borderline intentional foul, but the officials didn't even call a foul. Unfortunately, this no-call really got the crowd into the game for the first time and Purdue ended up going on a mini-run with the crowd really into it. Another horrible piece of officiating came shortly after that play when a Purdue player clearly double-dribbled. There was no call and Purdue ended up hitting a 3 on that play. Big Ten officials really are a complete joke. In the end, it's another loss for the Hoosiers, but a pretty solid effort. Odds & Ends: * Faces in the Crowd: Mike McCarthy, Cam Cameron, and John Harbaugh (Crean's brother-in-law) were seated behind the IU bench (NFL Combine going on in Indy). * Wayne Larrivee referred to Malik Story as Malik Sealy once. * Robbie Hummel got "Verdelled" by a screen from Pritchard. I'm not real sure Hummel should even be out there with his back injury, but that's Purdue's problem if he ends up paralyzed. * Jim Jackson -- hated him as a player because he was so good at Ohio State, but like him as a commentator. He gave some props to Calbert. It's been nice to both see Calbert at Thursday's game and hear him talked about today. I consider him the greatest Hoosier of all time. Next Up: IU hosts Northwestern next Wednesday at 5:30pm CT. One of our poll questions currently has nearly unanimous voting that IU will not win another game. But if they are going to win one, Wednesday should be their best chance.

Yet Another reason to love the movie Hoosiers

Angelo Pizzo, writer and co-producer of the greatest movie of all-time, had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to attend The Oscars in 1987. The movie Hoosiers was nominated for best musical score and Dennis Hopper was nominated for best supporting actor. For a young film-maker like Pizzo, I'm sure an invitation to The Oscars was a dream come true. But Pizzo decided not to attend The Oscars. Why not? Because The Oscars were the same night as 1987 NCAA title game and Pizzo simply could not miss the game. Pizzo (a 1971 IU grad) does not regret his decision as IU won the title and Hoosiers the movie came up empty on Oscar night. Pizzo said he made the decision because he never would have written the movie Hoosiers if it were not for Indiana basketball. Well done, sir.

Why did you come to IU?

From Indy Star:

IU 51 Wisky 68

Sigh. Not only did IU lose....again, but I also owe some schmuck at work a Friday Fish Fry (pictured) tomorrow. I took the bait to bet on the game with a 9.5 point spread even though I was thinking that 19.5 was the right number in my head. I guess I'm actually the schmuck. But if I'm the schmuck, then that Badger fan is an assface. I thought the Hoosiers played really well in the 1st half and especially the first 10 minutes. Right about the 10-minute mark, Dumes hit a 3 to give IU a 22-17 point lead. From that point, Verdell Jones was the only one that played well the rest of the half and Jones was able to keep the game close with the score at 31-30 at the half. But the second half was ugly. Wait, make that Ugly with a capital-U. Check out this stat -- IU had 2 made FGs in the first 17:30 of the second half. Unbelievable. Sticking with this year's tradition, I want to point out some of the positives in this one before I continue on with more grumblings.

• Verdell Jones didn't just look good at times, he looked outstanding at times tonight. There was the obvious stretch where he was taking it right at that robot they call Joe Krabbenbutch. But what impressed me most about Jones tonight was how he was pushing the ball up the floor. On several occasions he would call for the outlet, get the ball, turn and immediately push with a couple dribbles with his head up, then make a long accurate pass forward to get the break moving. This led to a couple layups by Story. There was another occasion where Jones got the defensive rebound himself, pushed the ball up to Dumes, Dumes returned it back to Verdell for an easy bucket. I think this ability to push the ball while maintaining great court vision is a strength of VJIII and it also is reflective of the style Tom Crean would like to run. Crean just doesn't have the horses to do it this year.
• Devan Dumes was 9-9 from the line. I guess all I need to do is call him out and he delivers. (see post below on FT shooting if you haven't already).
• Team FT shooting -- 15-19 is very good and that includes Jones missing his last 3 FTs in the final couple of minutes. In fact, I believe IU was 13-13 before Pritchard missed a front-end.
• Faces in the Crowd (real humans): Calbert Cheaney, John Mellencamp, Jordan Hulls
• Faces in the Crowd (big head cut-outs): Tiger Woods, George Clooney, Homer Simpson
• Did I mention Calbert Cheaney? That guy was so frickin' awesome that I still can't even believe it.
• I also really like the gorilla costume with an IU uniform on over it that has been at every home game.

Before I go into the grumbling portion, I also wanted to mention Bob Knight doing the commentary of the Puke game while we were waiting for our game to start. I'm curious as to what people think about The General and his announcing and analyst work on ESPN. I used to hate the nickname The General because Vitale overused it, but I think I like it now, especially since he shoots people and stuff like that. As for me, I just kind of have a mental block that Bobby coached IU and then walked on off into the sunset. In my world, Brett Favre never played for the Jets and Ricky Calloway never played for Kans....I can't even say it. With Knight, it has kind of been the same way. I never really followed Texas Tech and I don't really care what he has to say on ESPN unless he is completely undressing someone for no good reason. With all that said, Bobby said exactly what I hoped he would say when a certain topic was brought up tonight. In fact, he said exactly what I was thinking. The play-by-play guy mentioned how devastating injuries can be at this time of the year and I immediately thought about Alan Henderson in '92 when we were 15-0 in the Big Ten and the #1 ranked team in the country. As I was thinking it, Bobby spoke about it. I loved it. I loved hearing HIM talking about how WE had the best team in the country. Another observation -- did anyone see Devan Dumes throw another elbow tonight? I did. It was early in the second half and Hughes drove in for a layup. While that layup went up, Dumes was blocking out a player and then threw an elbow that missed. I didn't see it until they were showing the replay of the Hughes move, but it was clearly another elbow from Dumes. The announcers didn't mention it, but I think it will be interesting to see if anyone from IU or the Big Ten saw what I saw. Now for some grumbling..... I try really hard not to get worked up about the officiating, but I will still point out when I think the officiating was bad. I thought IU was getting hozed for the first 10 minutes of the 2nd half. With the lead starting to build, they certainly were not getting any favors from the referees. When it starts going bad for this team, it seems that it all goes bad including the officiating in tonight's case. Then, around midway through the 2nd half, IU got about 4 favorable calls in a row, but they were already down by 15 points and the game was over. Not intending to cry here, just calling it how I see it. I think the fans in The Hall would agree with me. Tom Crean has pretty much gotten a free pass on this blog because I think he has done an incredible job. In fact, I thought ESPN had a great graphic when they showed IU's Accomplishments this season and it included:

• Reconnected with former players & alumni
• Established standards & discipline
• Top 10 recruiting class

I don't think we can lose sight of the above accomplishments in a tough year like this one. However, I wasn't real impressed with the in-game coaching from Crean tonight. They came out and scored on the first possession of the second half tonight to have the lead, but then they just let the game get away. I felt like there should have been more time-outs. With this team, you have to use the time-outs. If you use them all in the first 8 minutes of the half, so be it. But if we are in a game, you just cannot let it keep slipping away, you have to do everything in your power to get the momentum turned back around. Continuing on the same theme, why not try a trapping defense or full-court press? And 2 FGs in the first 17 minutes of the second half is unacceptable. You have to have some bread & butter plays that you can go to. I think I will stop there. Next up: Yikes, less than 48 hours to prepare for Purdue in West Lafayette. You know how sometimes you look at a car accident or other wreckage because you are curious? But every once in a while, the wreckage is so bad that you just have to turn away? My suggestion: turn away for this one. Better days ahead, Hoosier fans.

Exactly How Bad is Tijan Jobe?

I want more Tijan Jobe! Look at that defensive position, it's perfect. Ok, maybe not perfect. The defensive stance is actually really good -- he's got his knees bent, he's low, he's ready. Some coaches might tell you that your palms should be up, but that's really not a big deal. There is one major flaw in his defensive position. Do you know what it is? It's the eyes! He is looking at the guy's head. All it will take is one little head fake and this white boy from Bemidji State will be driving right past my main man Tijan. I don't recall for sure, but I'm guessing that's what actually happened. Anyway, in such a miserable year, I have been highly entertained in two of TJ's last three appearances on the court. One game he had a nice blocked shot and waived his arms to get the crowd fired up. Another game, he was the point on a 1-3-1 defense and forced a turnover. Well, actually, a turnover just sort of happened somewhere near him, but he celebrated all the same. And I loved it! I want more! So, I ask you Tom Crean, where is Tijan Jobe? Exactly how bad is he? Is he really that hopeless? Seriously, he is 7-feet tall, has toned muscles, and is a pretty intimidating specimen just by his size and appearance. If someone like that can't even see the floor on a team where the only two guys over 6'5" that play are both 6'8" white guys that can't jump -- one of which is a true freshman and the other is a former walk-on. Really? We can't even find 3-4 minutes per game for Tijan just to see what happens? It begs the question of exactly how bad is he? When he does get the rare minute or two, I think we can see a little bit of why he may not be getting minutes. But honestly, I haven't seen enough to understand why he's not even an option after Pritchard gets in foul trouble. I know he is already a junior and you don't have the full 4 years to mold him. But you do still have another year out of him, so is there really no hope whatsoever? If there were any hope, you would think they would give him the opportunity to get a few minutes here and there. Unfortunately, the only answer is that he truly is really, really, really bad. I trust in Tom Crean, so that has to be the only answer. He must really be that bad in practice. So bad that you can't even imagine it type of bad. He must be one-half step above a manager holding a broom in the air as something to shoot over. Even so, I still think he should play just for some added entertainment value for us dedicated fans. If we are getting beat by 25 or more by Purdue or anyone else left on the schedule, I want me some Tijan Jobe dammit! All of this leads me to one of next year's recruits and that is Bawa Maniru. This has been a mysterious recruit all along. He was the last one to sign which meant IU was oversigned by one. Wait, maybe that's the other explanation. Maybe Tijan is on the way out to make room for an oversigned recruiting class. Just a conspiracy theory, don't run with that one. Now, back to Bawa. I think he scares some IU fans because the few reports that have come out about him remind you of reports on Tijan. Raw. However, I do think a key difference is that Bawa is coming in as a freshman and will have time to develop even if he is not ready on Day 1. Also, by all reports (including the link below), he is not Tijan-raw. It sounds like he is raw on the offensive end, but does have some shot-blocking and rebounding capabilities. I think the shot-blocking element could be huge because this team has absolutely no shot-blockers right now. Information has been very limited on Bawa, so I thought I would share this link from Inside The Hall. Go Hoosiers!

The Dreaded Free Throw

Free throws have been surprisingly horrendous for this year's Hoosiers. The freebies have literally cost them realistic opportunities to win 5 or 6 games this year. Turnovers have also been an achilles heel for this team, but you expect that with a bunch of freshmen that are completely overmatched in size, speed, strength, experience, and athleticism. But the free throw is just a simple 15-foot unguarded shot. It takes size, speed, strength, and athleticism completely out of the equation. Also, with IU playing so many guards and smaller players, I was hoping that Free Throws might be one of their strengths, but it is actually one of their biggest weaknesses. IU is shooting just 65% from the charity stripe this year. That puts them somewhere around 250th in the nation. 128 teams shoot 70% or better. These struggles from the line got me a little concerned and prompted me to check how some of Tom Crean's recent teams shot the 15-footers. Here's Marquette's FT % for the last 3 years: * 2008: 71% * 2007: 67% * 2006: 73% Here's IU's FT % for the last 3 years: * 2008: 76% * 2007: 71% * 2006: 69% So, it looks like one tough year ('07) out of Crean's last 3 years at Marquette, but no alarming patterns of consistently bad FT shooting. Although, if you include this year at IU, then Crean's last 3 teams have shot 65%, 71%, and 67%. Not too good. As I looked at some other stats, it seems you could make a nice easy benchmark for team FT shooting percentage at 70%. If you're below 70% as a team, that's pretty crappy. If you're above 70% as a team, you are at least holding your own and not shooting yourself in the foot. If you're closer to the 75% mark, you are a pretty good FT shooting team. So, let's get back to this year's Hoosiers and take a closer look: Roth 17-20 85.0% Williams 36-48 75.0% Jones 55-78 70.5% Dumes 54-78 69.2% Taber 12-18 66.7% Story 28-45 62.2% Pritchard 70-118 59.3% Moore 21-36 58.3% Scrubs 11-24 45.8% A few things jump out at me: * By far your best FT shooter (Roth) has the fewest FT attempts of any regular player (10% better than the next guy, but only 20 FT attempts) * One of your worst FT shooters (Pritchard) has by far the most FT attempts on the team (40 more attempts than the next guy) * Generally, you rely on your "shooters" to get it done at the line. Roth is holding up his end of the bargain, but Dumes is only 69.2% and Story is only 62.2%. * One of your primary ball-handlers (Moore) is only shooting 58.3%. * Almost 60% of the FT attempts are coming from 3 guys (Pritchard, Dumes, and Jones) where Jones is the only one over 70% and he barely is at just 70.5%. * And to top it all off, the bench-warmers come in and clang away at a 45.8% clip. Where is the opportunity for improvement? * Roth getting to the line more? No. Good in theory, but he just isn't the type of player that is going to get to the line frequently. * Pritchard improving his percentage? No. Hopefully, he can work on it and get better in future years, but my guess is that he is going to continue to struggle. * Verdell Jones? No. Jones is doing a good job of getting to the line and shooting at 70%, but again I think that is probably about where he is going to be. He doesn't have a great stroke and is not a great overall shooter. * How about Devan Dumes improving his percentage? Yes! Dumes shot 128-153 for 83.7% last year at Vincennes. He is one of our best shooters, he's getting to the line a fair amount, but he's the guy that sticks out to me that is not getting it done and performing way below his potential. * Another guy not getting it done at the line is Story. He's got a good enough stroke that he should be shooting way better than 62%. * Get Nick Williams to the line more? Yes. I'm a big Nick Williams fan and love his mid-range game. I would love to see more offense flow through him and have the coaching staff work with him on drawing more fouls. He's doing a nice job at the line at 75% but needs to get there more often. By the way, I think Jeremiah Rivers will add a lot to this team next year, but FT shooting ain't gonna be one of them. He shot just 54.3% as a sophomore and 44.4% (only 4-9) as a freshman. Hopefully the incoming class will be able to step up and knock down the freebies. It's really not that fucking hard. Sorry, I remained calm while typing all of this and then I let that one slip through. But it really isn't hard. You get a free shot from 15 feet and they will give you 1 point for each one you make. This is compared to having to run designed plays against in-your-face defense that is playing in the passing lanes and with their hand in your face just so you can try to get a shot at the basket. When you get a free shot, for God's sake, knock it down. Tom Crean referred to FT shooting as "one of the great wonders of the world". I like Crean and all, but that doesn't give me confidence that he will be able to figure out their FT shooting woes. Of course, FT shooting is one of those weird mental things. All you can do is continue to work on them and I am sure they shoot them before practice, during scrimmages, after running their ass off so they shoot them when they are dead tired, shoot them with consequences such as running if you miss, etc. A free throw is kind of like a 4-foot putt (2-footer for me). You should be able to step up and knock it in, but if you think too much about it or your read too much into it and especially if you don't stroke it with confidence, you will miss it. On second thought, maybe it isn't like a 4-foot putt because I could always make my free throws but I can't hit a 4-foot putt to save my life. On third thought, maybe FTs are like 4-foot putts because I always shot my FTs with confidence but 4-foot putts are completely a mental problem for me. If 4-foot putts are like FT shooting, Papa D is Reggie Miller and I'm Shaq. Well, that's my take on the FT situation.

IU 52 Illinois 65

Well, the Hoosiers came out before a season-high sell-out crowd of 17,346 fans and looked like a steaming pile of freshmen. If you recall, IU fell behind 22-1 in Champaign after an early barrage of 3-pointers by the Illini. In today's game, it was not such a quick-hitting run, but more of a methodical ass-kicking. IU was outplayed on nearly every possession in the first half. Illinois was working the ball for easy 2-point baskets while IU was struggling to get a decent look at the basket on the other end. Illinois built a 34-13 lead. IU managed to scrape out a mini 8-4 run to make the halftime score 38-21. Ouch. Take a look at the horror we like to call first half statistics: * FGs: IU 6-22, Illinois 17-27 * IU: 6 made FGs, 7 of their shots blocked * IU FTs: 3-10 including two missed front-ends (so we'll call it 3-12) The start of the second half was more of the same with IU turning it over on 3 of their first 5 possessions and the score was 44-25 with 15 minutes to go. But then Matt Roth showed the power of the 3-pointer and what a crazy little thing called momentum (aka Big Mo) can do to a basketball game. Roth hits a 3, then Illinois quickly answers with a 2. Innocent enough, but then Roth hits another 3 and gets fouled. The crowd goes crazy and he converts the 4-point play. So, in a 30-second span, the lead goes from 19 points to 14 points and for the first time of the day, the crowd has something to cheer about. Another note on the Roth 4-point play was that Crean was basically standing right next to Roth as he shot it. The shot went in the air, Roth got knocked down, there was an immediate whistle, Crean had his arm in the air before the shot hit nothing but net, and the IU bench went crazy. The very next defensive possession, Jones deflects a ball and then Williams makes a diving effort to tap the ball forward to Jones who then had a break-away layup. Crowd goes crazy and suddenly it's a 12-point game. A little more back and forth before Story converts a traditional 3-point play to make it an 11 point game as IU is in the midst of an impressive 12-4 run. It looks like Brock quiets the crowd with a monster tip-in dunk but then gets a technical foul for taunting (cheap call, but we'll take it). Obviously, this kept the crowd riled up. Unfortunately, Roth only makes 1-2 at the line (making IU just 9-19 from the stripe at this point). IU gets sloppy for a few possessions and the lead goes back to 14 points, but then Crean goes to a triangle and two defense. At least that is what they called it on the telecast. To me, it looked like a bunch of IU freshmen that didn't know what defense they were in. Either way, it worked brilliantly. Moore stepped in for a steal and a left-handed layup to make it 52-40 and the stripe-out crowd was really into it. On the next Illinois possession, the triangle and two worked again and forced Illinois into a tough late-clock FG attempt that they missed. IU quickly came down and cut the lead to 10 points on a Taber floater in the lane. Then, on the inbounds, Moore cut into the passing lane to force a bad pass that was stolen by Story. Then Moore fed Jones in the post for a nice bucket and we had ourselves an 8-point game. Illinois answers with a 2 and then Story makes a great pass to Taber for an easy deuce to get back to the 8-point deficit. More good defense by IU leads to an Illinois miss. Story grabs the rebound and scarily goes coast-to-coast and laid it in to cut the lead to just 6 points! It looked like he was going to get it stolen a couple times, but in the end, it was an impressive coast-to-coast play. Tom Crean and the crowd were going absolutely berserk with 6:30 to go. IU again forced an Illinois miss and got the rebound. At IU's end, Verdell Jones had a 3-ball in the air that would have cut the lead to 3, but he couldn't get it to go down. Illinois hit a 3 on the other end and IU never threatened again. It was a very impressive 23-10 run over 8 1/2 minutes where IU made 10-12 FGs and got themselves back in the game. IU scored 23 points in that 8-minute span and only 29 points in the other 32 minutes. So, that stretch was clearly the only bright spot of the game. The only other positive note was that Nick Williams hit 2-2 from the arc (both very early) after he has been really struggling all year from long range. The free throws were a major problem throughout the game. IU finished just 11-24 that included 3 missed front-ends. Pritchard and Story were the biggest offenders with a combined 5-14 that included all 3 missed front-ends. IU was without Dumes again, who sat out his second game as part of an indefinite suspension from not only throwing multiple elbows in the MSU game but also another brush-up in another game (NW maybe?). They clearly miss him on both ends of the floor. So, hopefully he has learned a valuable lesson from this suspension and will come back even stronger. He had been playing great up until that MSU game. Tom Crean's post-game comments certainly made it sound like Dumes would be back for Thursday's Wisconsin game. Other odds and ends: * CBS showed Tom Crean's pre-game speech. Pretty cool. * After Daniel Moore got elbowed in the face, landed on, and hurt his leg, the IU crowd had a really loud chant going. Does anyone know what they were saying? * I'm glad that Kelvin Sampson and Bruce Weber are forever linked by the Eric Gordon de-commitment because I hate them both with a passion. Speaking of Bruce Weber and Eric Gordon. Who could forget Gordon's one and only trip into Champaign? It started with the punk-ass bump from Chester Frazier in the introductions and included things being thrown at Gordon's family. Of course, it ended with Gordon having the last laugh by banking in a 3-pointer that sent the game to overtime. IU eventually won in double-overtime. Another great part of the whole thing was then listening to Bruce Weber cry about the whole thing in the post-game conference. Another thing I hate about Bruce Weber is the girly, limp, wet-noodle handshake that he offers after the game. If he offered me one of those handshakes, I would give him one of these: Shake hands like a real man. Ok, I think I have gone off-course here, but that's just my way of coping with losing to the hated Illini. I also wanted to make some brief comments about the Minnesota game that I did not have a chance to post about due to The Man working my ass off. Anyway, here were some interesting stats from that game: * All 54 IU points were scored by true freshman (not hard to believe when you think about Dumes being suspended and Taber did not score). * Of those 54 points by true freshmen, IU's leading freshman scorer Tom Pritchard did not score a single point. * This also means that IU's top two leading scorers (Dumes and Pritchard) did not score a single point. * IU had 26 turnovers. * When you consider all of the above, it is pretty remarkable that they were even competitive in this game and only lost by 8 points. Next Up: IU hosts Wisconsin. Just two weeks ago, I circled this game as a good opportunity for a victory. Wisconsin had lost 6 in a row. Unfortunately, they have turned it around and have now won 4 in a row including wins against Ohio State, Illinois, and at Penn State. So, clearly they are playing much better basketball, but maybe IU will get Dumes back and be able to pull one out of the hat. Go Hoosiers!

Year-to-Date Statistics

I was taking a look at the Year-to-Date statistics and here are the ones that stood out to me:

• Three of IU's regulars have a FG % under 40% (Story 36.4%, Jones 38.6%, Roth 39.5%)

• One regular has a FG % over 50% (Pritchard 50.8%)

• Two regulars have a 3-PT % under 25% (Williams 12.5%, Jones 23.8%)

• In conference play, Roth is shooting 45.1% and Dumes 49.1% from the arc

• Matt Roth easily leads the team in FT% at 88.2%. Nick Williams is at 73.8% and the entire rest of the team is shooting under 70% from the line.

• In conference play, IU does have 4 players shooting over 75% from the line (Roth 90.9%, Dumes 78.1%, Story 77.8%, Williams 76.2%)

• Tom Pritchard leads the team in rebounding at 7.0 per game with Williams and Taber both contributing 5.1 per game

• Verdell Jones and Daniel Moore are tied with the team lead in assists with 3.2 per game. All other players are under 1.5 per game.

• Verdell Jones is averaging 4.0 assists per game in conference play

• Kyle Taber leads the team in steals with 24

• Team Pritchard leads the team with 19 blocked shots. Verdell Jones is second with 10.

• Devan Dumes is the only player averaging double-digits in points in conference play with 14 ppg

• As a team against their opponents for the year, IU is 5% lower in FG %, 4% lower in 3-PT %, 3% lower in FT%, and 3 more turnovers per game.

• Amazingly, this undersized team is outrebounding their opponents by 3.7 per game in conference play and .7 per game overall

• IU has a total of 47 blocked shots to their opponents 106

• Tom Pritchard has nearly as many offensive rebounds as defensive (73 & 80 respectively)

• Devan Dumes leads the team with 71 turnovers. But on this team, nobody has been immune to the turnover bug (Jones 58, Pritchard 58, Moore 52, Williams 46, Story 44)

• Devan Dumes and Nick Williams have the worst assist-to-turnover ratios at .4 and Daniel Moore has a team-best at 1.4

• In conference play, Dumes has a team-worst assist-to-turnover ratio of .3 and Daniel Moore has a team-best of 1.9

Go Hoosiers!

1987 Championship Game on Tuesday Evening

The Big Ten Network will show the 1987 Championship Game on Tuesday at 6pm CT before IU plays at Minnesota at 8pm CT. So go ahead and set the DVR to record about 5 straight hours of the BTN on Tuesday. Even though I have the '87 Title Game on tape and can watch it any time I want, I will probably go ahead and tune in and watch it again. What an amazing game -- Alford on fire from downtown in the first half and Keith Smart taking over and scoring 12 of the final 15 points with an absolutely amazing performance. And my two favorite plays of the game ended both halves -- the first half ends with Alford draining his 5th or 6th 3-pointer of the half from the corner and then he just jogs on into the locker room. And of course, "the shot" from Smart to win the national championship. Smart even stole Syracuse's desperation inbounds pass and threw it in the air in celebration as the buzzer sounded. Oh, the glory days. Here is the IU release:

CHICAGO - One of the most memorable contests in college basketball history will make its Big Ten Network debut at 7 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Feb. 10, on The Big Ten's Greatest Games.

Keith Smart's jumper in the final seconds of the 1987 NCAA Championship Game lifted Indiana to a 74-73 victory against a star-studded Syracuse team that featured Derrick Coleman, Rony Seikaly and Sherman Douglas. Steve Alford led Indiana with 23 points, and Smart's 16-foot baseline jumper became one of the most famous shots in college basketball history. The game also featured a pair of Hall of Fame coaches, Indiana's Bob Knight and Syracuse's Jim Boeheim.

The 1987 classic will precede the Indiana-Minnesota game at 9 p.m. ET. Dave Revsine and Shon Morris will call the action from Minneapolis.

Dumes Suspended Indefinitely

No surprise here, Tom Crean has suspended Devan Dumes indefinitely for throwing mutlitple elbows in the Michigan State game. It's the right move and probably a pretty easy decision when you are 6-16 on the year. Crean is sending the right message that this type of thing is unacceptable. Not sure what "indefinitely" will end up meaning, but my guess is a one-game suspension or maybe two at the most. Here is the release from IU:

Bloomington, Indiana - Indiana University men's basketball coach Tom Crean has suspended indefinitely junior guard Devan Dumes for his actions during Saturday's game at Michigan State.

"After coming home and having the opportunity to review the game film, I believe that discipline is necessary and deserved in this matter," said Crean. "A line was crossed that was unacceptable. However, Devan is one of ours and like with all of our players we want them to learn and understand what it takes to be successful."

Dumes will not play when IU visits Minnesota on Tuesday night.

"I truly regret my actions and I will learn from this situation," said Dumes. "I apologize to everyone involved for doing something that is uncharacteristic of how I play the game. I am looking forward to putting this behind me and being a better leader to my teammates."

Dumes will continue to practice and travel with the team.

IU 47 MSU 75

Well, not a whole lot to say about this one. Pretty darn ugly all around. Absolutely horrible on the offensive end with too many turnovers (21) and pathetic shooting (31% FGs and 3-16 3PTs). Surprisingly, IU was able to hang around in the first half even with a ton of turnovers and Dumes only playing 3 minutes due to 3 early fouls. Speaking of Dumes, talk about laying an egg after his stellar performance on Wednesday. In 19 minutes, he had 5 points, 5 turnovers, 0-3 from the arc, 3 thrown elbows, and an ejection. Dumes has kind of been a dirty player all year and today he got caught. The first elbow was pretty weak as he was just moving the ball and barely caught the defender in the face who flopped. However, the next one looked like an intentional elbow to Sutan's nuts as they were running down the floor. The refs reviewed and good ole Ed Hightower gave Dumes the benefit of the doubt that it was his natural running motion. But Dumes was not so lucky on the third one where he clearly intentionally threw an elbow under the basket. Once again, the officials reviewed and Dumes was ejected. It's kind of weird but I have seen this out of Dumes all year. It's almost like his natural reaction any time he is in traffic is to just start throwing elbows. It doesn't look pre-meditated, it just seems to be his reaction when he's in traffic and getting bumped. Anyway, back to the game, it was definitely ugly. I guess you would expect it when you go into the Breslin Center with MSU leading the Big Ten and ranked #14 in the country. However, besides being overmatched and inexperienced, IU played horribly in the second half. Michigan State was without Raymar Morgan and Kalin Lucas went just 4-15. So, MSU pretty much got nothing out of their two best players and they still blew us out in the second half. Hard to find many positives in this one. Oh well, I'm just going to forget that they played today and continue to enjoy Wednesday's win. Go Hoosiers!

IU 68 Iowa 60

Woo-hoo! I almost forgot what it felt like to win. I kind of like it. More please. It would have been really great if they could have taken that 20-point lead and continue to run away with it, but I'm not going to complain too much when it still results in a win. But I did start to feel sick when Iowa cut it to 3 points. The good news is that IU did make some key plays at the end to come away with the win. Dumes hit a big 3 at the end (more on this later), Dumes and Williams both had steals late in the game, and Williams and Taber both had some big offensive rebounds. IU was fortunate to be playing a horrible Iowa team without Cyrus Tate who had 22 & 11 in the first meeting against IU. Against any other Big Ten team, we probably would have been looking at another blown 20-point lead. And the biggest issue would have been free throws again. IU missed all 3 of their 2nd half front-ends from the charity stripe and also missed several others. This allowed Iowa to keep crawling back. But enough about how they almost blew a 20-point lead because they didn't. They won! So, let's focus on that and what went well. Before we get to that, I do need to mention Matt Roth's amazing 9-11 3-point shooting performance on Saturday. That was simply amazing. Ties Rod Wilmont's record for made 3-pointers in a game (some of us were at the Wilmont game at NW) and broke Damon Bailey's record for most points off the bench with 29. Nicely done. For tonight's big win, we have to start with a guy that I have hounded on this blog -- Devan Dumes. Double-D was absolutely outstanding tonight. In fact, he has really been playing great the last 4 games. But even in the midst of those games where he was shooting lights out, I still called him out for not delivering in the clutch. Well, tonight, he did it all and that includes delivering in the clutch. Dumes had 27 points on 8-9 FGs, 5-5 3-pt range, and 6-8 Fts. The perfect 5-5 from the arc ties an IU record for perfect 3-point shooting in a Big Ten game with Hornsby and Smart (Vaden has the overall record with a 6-6 effort against Ball State). As great as Dumes was all night, the most important time that the team needed him was in the final couple minutes. After IU built that 20 point lead with about 12-13 minutes to go, they then got outscored 27-10 to make it only a 3-point game. The team and fans had to have that "here we go again" thought in their head (I know I did). But in the final minute and a half, Dumes nailed a huge 3, had a steal, and went 2-2 from the line. And finally, my prediction of IU's first Big Ten win coming on a big night from Dumes comes true. A+ for Mr. Dumes. By the way, Dumes is now shooting 52% (27-52) from the arc in conference play. Another impressive part of this win was that they basically did it without Tom Pritchard. He was in foul trouble all night, played only 14 minutes, and had just 2 points. That could have been more costly if Iowa had Tate in the line-up. Another guy that was outstanding tonight was Taber. 7 points, 8 rebounds, and 2 blocks in 37 minutes. And even though those points were on layups, those layups came at some key times and layups haven't always been the most successful endeavor for Taber. But he had some nice lay-ins, some good rebounds, and just played a very good all-around game. The effort from Dumes and Taber in tonight's game is exactly what this team needs out of their Junior and Senior. The other guy that was pretty damn good tonight was Nick Williams. He had some great offensive boards. He finished just shy of a double-double with 14 points, 9 rebounds, 2 steals, and a block. And he was a perfect 6-6 from the line. Interesting stat on the FTs. Williams and Dumes were 14-16 from the line. The rest of the team was just 3-11 on the stat sheet. However, I believe it was Moore, Taber, and Roth that missed those 2nd half front-ends, so I really count that as 3 additional misses. What the hell is with 3 white guys missing FTs. I mean, if whitey can't even hit a FT anymore, whitey will be completely out of the game of basketball. Anyway, with those 3 missed front-ends, that puts the rest of the team at an abysmal 3-14. And I don't even remember if they missed any front-ends in the first half. Verdell Jones struggled shooting the ball (1-5 FGs, 2-6 FTs), but I think he continues to look better every game. An impressive 6 assists tonight. Matt Roth couldn't keep it going after the 9-11 3-point performance and was just 1-6 from the arc tonight. Daniel Moore comes in and does some good things, but good strong point guards can just overpower him and take him to the rack. Did anyone notice that he had 5 assists in just 7 minutes of play on Saturday? That was an interesting and impressive stat. Malik Story makes some bonehead plays, but I really like his offense coming off the bench. 9 points and 4 rebounds is pretty good for just 15 minutes off the bench. I'm really happy for these players to get a Big Ten win. Well deserved. I was also glad to see that they didn't go apeshit and celebrate like it was a national title. They should be proud of the win for sure, but I was wondering if they would go crazy. They didn't and just went and shook hands with Iowa, which I thought was the right way to handle it. Of course, I also think they were dead tired and in a little shock that they almost blew another 20 point lead. This was probably their best opportunity for a win, so it will be interesting to see if they will be able to get another one or two. It won't be easy any time soon as the next 3 games are at Michigan State, at Minnesota, and home against Illinois. Go Hoosiers!