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.