Sunday, November 09, 2008

IU Basketball exhibition

Although it was a glorified practice against a small D-III team, at least the Hoosiers took care of business and themselves a decent blowout. Tom Pritchard had a nice game, but until he faces a D-I frontcourt, let's not expect him to be Big Ten FOY. But he's got the makings of very good player down the road. Verdell Jones is doing better than expected and looks like a solid starter, and Devan Dumes will likely be our leading scorer for the year. But Matt Roth is a great shooter who needs to find his spots, which might be hard this year unless a great-low-post threat develops or someone turns into a very good point guard. It looks like Nick Williams will be a nice scrapper, and Malik Story ought to split some time with him at the four-spot, but unless Kyle Taber comes back really raring to go, I can really see some tough rebounding nights for the Hoosiers. Don't expect much help inside from Tijan Jobe this season other than spot-rest and foul trouble minutes.
I still expect the Hoosiers to be solidly last in the conference, with 1-3 wins, but it's nice to see that Crean's got some talent he can develop.

IU Men's Soccer probably sealed an at-large NCAA bid with its 2-0 win over Northwestern, wrapping up not only a 3rd place conference finish (it's not great, but looking at the Hoosiers were faring in conference play, it's the best they could've asked for) but also the top RPI spot. The Hoosiers will be a team noone wants to face in the NCAA's, but on the other hand, they've not been reliable enough to engender much confidence in their ability to get back to the Final Four. And coach Frietag's starting to get to a point where he could really use some postseason success.

IU Football's season is effectively now over as the postseason is now officially out of reach, and injuries have thrown the team into chaos. Only the possibility of a moral victory of a triumph over Purdue is left.

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