IU 72 Cornell 57

I have to say that I am pretty excited by that performance. That was by far IU's best game of the year. This is a Cornell team that went 14-0 in the Ivy League last year and is returning 9 of their 10 top scorers. However, 2 of their top 3 players are currently injured. Even so, this Cornell team is a much better team than IUPUI or Chaminade that IU barely beat. This Cornell team also featured Randy Wittman's son, Ryan, who was definitely the real deal as a shooter. IU jumped out to an early 14-4 lead and they never relinquished the lead even though most of the game was played in the 4-8 point lead range. Several things really impressed me about our young Hoosiers today: * There was a very scary moment where Verdell Jones took a hard mid-court screen from Cornell's 7-footer. He laid on the floor for about 10 minutes before being carted off on a stretcher. As of the latest report from the hospital, it sounds like he is going to be OK. But it was a very scary moment and the looks of shock on his teammates' faces made me wonder how they would respond. But Tom Crean did a great job by huddling the team up and he was yelling in that huddle to try to get the energy back in the team. Then, Crean was literally waving to the crowd to get up and the Hoosiers responded by continuing to play well. * Late in this game, I just had this feeling that Cornell was going to make a run and bring this game back to even. But not only did that not happen, IU actually put them away in the final 6 minutes by building their lead up to 15 points. * They flat out played their ass off today. This team has hustled all year, but they took it to another level today and fought on every single possession. * As far as individual performances, Nick Williams and Tom Pritchard were outstanding. Sure, a couple poor decisions that led to turnovers, but other than that, they carried the team today. Daniel Moore also had a very good game. * IU built their lead early in the game with 3-pointers. However, when they stopped falling in the 2nd half, they didn't fall apart. Instead, they either drove into the lane to get better looks or worked through Pritchard. * FT shooting was much improved. As a team, they were 15-19 with Pritchard going a respectable 9-13 and the rest of the team was perfect (Moore 4-4 and Dumes 2-2). * They outrebounded Cornell 37-24 and a lot of those were pure hustle. It was Kyle Taber keeping a ball alive by tipping it or Daniel Moore chasing down long rebounds in the corner. Overall Team Performance: A Easily their best performance of the year. Tom Pritchard: A- Another very impressive performance from Pritchard. This time, he was going up against a 7-footer. He finished with 23 points on a perfect 7-7 from the field and 9-13 from the line. He also added 7 rebounds, 3 steals, and 2 blocks. The only downside was the 4 turnovers. His post moves and finishes were great today and I believe he had 3 traditional 3-point plays. Daniel Moore: A- 8 points on perfect 2-2 FG and 4-4 FT shooting and an impressive 6 rebounds. He also hit a key 10-footer with about 5 minutes to play when the lead was still only 6 points. Also led the team with 4 assists. Nick Williams: A- I think Cook already noted in his halftime comments that this was Nick Williams' coming out party and it sure was. He finished with 18 points, but 14 of them were in the first half where he was the key factor in IU building the early lead. He hit a pair of 3s, some mid-range jumpers, and also drove a couple all the way to the rack. He was also very active defensively. He did have 5 turnovers, but with the nice win today and Williams stepping up his overall game in a big way, we can look the other way today. One of his turnovers actually triggered what I thought was the play of the game. With 4 minutes to go and a 9 point lead, Williams lost the handle out front and it looked like a Cornell dunk would cut the lead to 7 points. But Williams hustled back and got a piece of the ball as the Cornell player went up for the dunk and the Hoosiers were off and running the other way. Moore did a nice job to find Story in transition and Story pulled up and drained the 3-pointer to build the lead up to 12 points. Assembly Hall went wild and this one was over. Verdell Jones: DNF Sounds like he will be OK, hopefully that will be the case. Devan Dumes: B Dumes continues his up and down play. Good play, followed by turnover, nice drive and bucket, followed by airball, and so it goes. I really thought Dumes did a pretty good job on Wittman defensively. Even though Wittman set a career high with 28 points, I thought Dumes made him work for it. And when Dumes was out of the game, I noticed it on the defensive end of the court. I still think we will see better things out of Dumes. He just needs some consistency and he'll be fine. Nice job with 6 rebounds. Matt Roth: B I thought I would probably just grade Roth on his 3-point shooting all year. So, in today's case, his 1-5 from the arc would generally get a lower grade. However, I thought Roth was making a difference in other areas with some deflections, steals, and rebounds. It was good to see. Malik Story: B Interestingly, Story was asked to play some point guard even before Jones went down with the injury. It certainly gives the team a different look and I thought he did a pretty good job. He was only 2-7 from the field, but I remember both of his makes clearly. The first was an impressive drive and a high-arching mid-range jumper that he softly kissed off the glass (Dumes made a nearly identical shot a couple minutes later). And then the other big shot from Story was the 3-pointer mentioned above. Kyle Taber: B+ Taber did exactly what we need him to -- hustle and get rebounds. He hustled his ass off and grabbed 8 rebounds. Nice job. Coming up: Well, it's not going to be a fun week for our Hoosiers. They play Wake Forest and Gonzaga this week. But, all we are looking for are positive signs for the future of IU basketball and there were plenty of them today. Go Hoosiers!