Leading off

After long layoffs sandwiched around the Kentucky game in part because of finals, Indiana (7-2) now prepares for four games in the next seven days – including two in Las Vegas – and six games in the last two weeks of 2010.

SIU-Edwardsville, (2-9) a transitional Division I team, will lead off the game-heavy stretch, similar to the one that began Indiana’s season.

“I think we’ve already been through it a couple of times, which helps, which is one of the reasons we did it that way,” coach Tom Crean told the media Thursday, speaking about the early-season scheduling. He said his team’s mentality and practice production in the last week following the Kentucky loss was a positive.

SIU-Edwardsville (Friday) and South Carolina State (Sunday) will serve as warm-ups for a two-game run in Vegas right before Christmas. Then it will be home – Crean said his team will be together for the holiday – because Penn State comes to Bloomington on Dec. 27 to kick off the Big Ten season (check for something else on that below).

As for SIUE (Can I just call it that and no one hate me?), Crean expects to defend an offense that encourages a lot of movement, and one with plenty of scoring options. He compared them to Evansville in some of the things the Cougars will try to offensively, saying his team would need to focus on getting out on shooters.

“They have guys that can really shoot the ball,” Crean said. “You really have to guard everybody from 3-point range.”

But Crean and his players also talked at length about their own gameplan and improvement, which Derek Elston said started with being a more physical rebounding team inside. He said he and the other posts have worked most of the week on being tougher on the defensive glass, which in turn would feed another area of needed improvement, getting out on the break.

“Us bigs, we just have to get a little stronger, and that’s what we did all this week,” Elston said. “We feel real good about tomorrow.”

Jones still “day-to-day”

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