Around the Hall: Las Vegas aftermath

  • 12/24/2010 9:52 am in

LEXINGTON, KY - DECEMBER 11: Tom Crean the Head Coach of the Indiana Hoosiers gives instructions to his team during the game against the Kentucky Wildcats on December 11, 2010 in Lexington, Kentucky. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)Around the Hall is recommended reading from the Inside the Hall crew. So go ahead, get your read on.

+ Not a link, but worth mentioning: Tom Crean was asked about Derek Elston’s playing time in the second half — only two minutes — in his postgame press conference and here was the response:

“There was no decision that really went into that other than I was giving us the lineup that gave us the best chance to be in the game. So that’s the bottom line. I think Derek was spent after last night. This is a little bit of a fallback on a guy that has been injured, missed some time and now is back going full speed. And so he wasn’t his normal self. But it really wasn’t about positions. It really wasn’t about personnel. It was about having pressure on that ball. And transition defense was a problem for us throughout the game. So we had to get that corrected. Like I said at one timeout, ‘we’ll figure everything else out when we get home. Let’s go win the game.’ And they could have easily packed it in down 19 and our guys brought it all the way back to three, but we made some mistakes defensively that hurt us at the end and allowed them to build out a margin. Because if that doesn’t happen, we win the game. You saw the same game I saw. The pressure was bothering them and all we had to do was keep it on. And they made a couple of big plays at the end.”

+ This is not something we’d traditionally put in this space, but since it’s two of the guys who cover the team best reacting to IU’s play in Vegas, I recommend giving ScoopTalk a watch.

+ Rick Bozich of The Louisville Courier-Journal writes that it’s a season on the brink at Indiana:

Before the season started there were four non-conference games away from Assembly Hall that were likely to shape the arc of Tom Crean’s third basketball season at Indiana: At Boston College. At Kentucky. Northern Iowa in Las Vegas. Then either Colorado or New Mexico in Las Vegas.

To show substantive progress, Indiana needed to split the four games — the only Top 100 teams on the Hoosiers’ non-league schedule. One win was the minimum requirement for an upgrade over last season.

0-for-4? Expect a long, cold winter in Bloomington in the unforgiving Big Ten.

+ Jeff Goodman of FoxSports.com fired off a few tweets last night. Here they are:

Indiana getting smacked around pretty good by Colorado. That’s a Buffs team I watched get smacked by Harvard. Not a good sign for Hoosiers.

Tom Crean is getting it done recruiting-wise right now, but next year could still be key whether he remains in Bloomington long-term.

Crean needs to get results ON the court next season. Period. And it’s set up for him to do so with the huge turnover in the Big Ten.

+ Terry Hutchens of The Indianapolis Star weighs-in with ten things he learned in Vegas.

+ Pete DiPrimio of The Ft. Wayne News-Sentinel has a clear message: Indiana isn’t Big Ten ready:

First, the Hoosiers are not Big Ten ready. They can’t win away from Assembly Hall, they don’t play good enough defense and they lack the toughness necessary against good teams.

Northern Iowa and Colorado are decent teams, but they aren’t the caliber of what IU will face in the Big Ten. These were winnable games, so win them.

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