Coach Tom Crean and junior guard Jordan Hulls met with the media on Wednesday afternoon to preview Thursday’s game at Assembly Hall with Illinois. Watch both press conferences in high-definition quality video in the embedded media players below:
Quotes are available after the jump.
After a week with little movement, six teams are in a new position in week seven of our Big Ten power rankings. The changes come in the bottom half of the rankings as the top four teams in the conference have begun to pull away from the pack.
12. Penn State (10-14, 2-9) (LAST WEEK: 12)…They played with a good Wisconsin team at home for awhile, but the Nittany Lions just don’t have enough late-game options to compete in the conference. Penn State has lost four straight and seven of eight.
11. Nebraska (11-11, 3-8) (LAST WEEK: 9)…The Cornhuskers dropped two winnable games this week, one at Northwestern and the other against Minnesota. Uncharacteristically, Nebraska has given up 69 or more points in five straight games.
10. Northwestern (14-8, 4-6) (LAST WEEK: 11)…They needed a good week, and the Wildcats got one. Back-to-back wins — including one at in-state rival Illinois on Sunday — has closer to the NCAA Tournament bubble.
9. Minnesota (17-7, 5-6) (LAST WEEK: 7)…The Golden Gophers could have continued their climb in the power rankings had they held onto a sizable lead at Iowa. Still, they’re a team to watch as we get closer to the Big Ten Tournament.
This is what Indiana-Purdue is supposed to be: Two teams right in the thick of the Big Ten race, both desperately needing a win to put themselves in the best position for the postseason.
It’s been awhile since we’ve had this. Sure, there have been competitive games in football and basketball over the last few years, but Indiana has rarely had more than pride on the line. The Hoosiers competed, stayed in the game, and then lost.
It was hardly even still a rivalry.
But the Hoosiers are back, and Purdue still has plenty left to play for. The Boilermakers are the only Big Ten team without a win over a ranked opponent.
For Indiana, Saturday night’s game at Mackey Arena could be viewed as a “must-win.” With the Hoosiers’ struggles on the road in the Big Ten, a fifth consecutive loss away from Assembly Hall would all but kill this team’s confidence the rest of the way. They’ve still got winnable road games against Iowa and Minnesota left, but lose this one, and those two look a whole lot tougher.
Indiana’s incredibly slow start at Michigan on Wednesday gave it little chance to come back. The Hoosiers had a similarly slow start at Ohio State before playing a better second half.
If they want to beat Purdue and alter their recent fortunes away from Assembly Hall, they can’t afford to fall behind by double-digits before they find their rhythm.
“I feel like we just got rushed in the beginning,” junior Derek Elston said Friday. “A lot of the guys weren’t playing their game. We let the defense kind of dictate what was going on. After a TV timeout, coach just kept harping that we have to keep playing our game no matter what, don’t let them speed us up, keep playing IU basketball.
“I think in the beginning we were trying to make that home run play when we just needed to make the single.”
So what’s the key to starting faster?
Derek Elston’s impact was felt almost immediately.
He entered the game Sunday night against Iowa and promptly knocked down a 3-pointer from the right corner. The next time down the floor, he hit another jumper from the right side. Then after blocking a shot, Elston raced down the court and nailed a transition 3 from the left wing.
Eight points and a block in 68 seconds, and the Hoosiers were well on their way to a 103-89 win.
“Once I saw that first one kind of go down, that’s how it kind of goes for me shooting-wise,” Elston said. “If I make my first couple ones, I have the potential to have a good game.”
Elston, like Tom Pritchard, had a big game off the bench for Indiana. But Elston and Pritchard aren’t always such key contributors. Their success is usually determined by their confidence on a given day, and they seem to play with more confidence in the comforts of Assembly Hall.
In the No. 20 Hoosiers’ five Big Ten road games, Elston and Pritchard have combined for only 16 points and 16 rebounds. That’s an average of less than two points and two rebounds per contest for each player.
In Indiana’s five conference home games, however, the bench duo has combined for 34 points and 24 rebounds.
The difference? It seems simple enough.
There’s finally some consistency in the power rankings. The top eight teams stayed in the same order as last week, and only Nebraska, Iowa and Northwestern moved at all.
As the conference’s top teams start to play each other, there should be more and more separation. Or it could just remain a jumbled mess. Who knows.
Without further ado, the sixth edition of Inside the Hall’s Big Ten power rankings.
12. Penn State (10-12, 2-7) (LAST WEEK: 12)…The Nittany Lions are in the midst of the most difficult stretch on their schedule, and they haven’t fared well. After falling at Indiana and at Ohio State, Penn State now faces games against Wisconsin, at Iowa, and at Michigan State.
11. Northwestern (12-8, 2-6) (LAST WEEK: 10)…The slide continued with a home loss to Purdue on Saturday. The Wildcats have lost three consecutive games since upsetting Michigan State.
10. Iowa (11-11, 3-6) (LAST WEEK: 9)…The Hawkeyes surprised everybody with road wins against Wisconsin and Minnesota to begin the conference season, but they’ve lost five of six and are sinking fast.
9. Nebraska (11-9, 3-6) (LAST WEEK: 11)…They’re not flashy, but the Cornhuskers keep getting better. Their win at Iowa last week may have turned the Hawkeyes’ season in the wrong direction.
8. Illinois (15-6, 4-4) (LAST WEEK: 8)…The Fighting Illini were 4-1 after an upset of Ohio State, but they’ve dropped three straight with a game against Michigan State still to come on Tuesday.
Indiana’s wins against Kentucky and Ohio State remain the two best victories in the country this season.
But the Hoosiers didn’t need either of those wins in the way they needed their 103-89 victory against Iowa on Sunday.
The No. 16 Hoosiers had to prove they could step on an opponent’s throat as an overwhelming favorite. They had to prove they could break out of the funk they’ve been in. They had to prove that, to put it frankly, this isn’t the team that has missed the tournament in each of Tom Crean’s first three years in Bloomington.
They had to prove all of that to the selection committee and to the fans. But most importantly, they had to prove it to themselves.
This is a team full of guys who have been through the whole losing thing before. Lose to Iowa at home, and maybe those ugly nightmares start to come back. With road games against Michigan and Purdue coming next, this thing could have gotten away from Crean and Co. in a hurry.
But this isn’t the same old Indiana team. With their backs very much against the wall, the Hoosiers dominated an Iowa club that has owned them in recent history.
They scored 58 points in the paint, outrebounded the Hawkeyes 37-22, and scored 100 points in a Big Ten contest for the first time since 1995. Indiana built a big lead and then never let Iowa back in, something the Hoosiers have struggled to do at times this season.
The Kentucky and Ohio State wins put the Hoosiers back on the map. This one showed they aren’t ready to fall back off of it.
“Again, 17 wins, 17 different ways to win,” Crean said. “And I thought our team responded to the last couple of days. They were excited to play. They had tremendous energy and I think the energy of the crowd helped fuel them even more.”
Even more impressive than the win was the way in which the Hoosiers won it.
