Inside the Hall | Indiana Hoosiers Basketball News, Recruiting and Analysis

Indiana to meet Syracuse in 2013 Big Ten-ACC Challenge

by Alex Bozich in Schedule | May 8th, 2013

Indiana’s opponent for the 2013 Big Ten-ACC Challenge will be Syracuse, Inside the Hall has learned. A conference announcement this afternoon confirmed the Hoosiers will travel to the Carrier Dome on Tuesday, December 3.

Syracuse advanced to the Final Four last season after beating Indiana and Marquette in the East Regional at the Verizon Center in Washington D.C.

The Hoosiers will be looking for their third straight win in the event after beating North Carolina State and North Carolina the previous two seasons.

This will be the first Big Ten-ACC Challenge for Syracuse, which is joining the ACC this fall along with Pittsburgh. The Orange are a top 15 team in many of the preseason rankings that have been released for the 2013-2014 season.

Jim Boeheim returns two starters from the Final Four team — C.J. Fair and Rakeem Christmas — as well as key reserves Jerami Grant, Baye Moussa Keita and Trevor Cooney. The Orange also add the nation’s No. 6 recruiting class according to ESPN.com.

The full Big Ten-ACC Challenge schedule is available after the jump.

Tags: Big Ten/ACC Challenge, Syracuse Orange

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Edwards recruitment has Big Ten feel

by Alex Bozich in Recruiting | May 8th, 2013

050713cvx A little more than a year after receiving his first scholarship offer from Indiana, the recruitment of 2015 East Chicago Central point guard Hyron Edwards is centered around five Big Ten schools.

And that’s fine by Edwards, who said on Friday at the 2013 Hensley Memorial Spiece Run-N-Slam Classic that he can see himself playing in the conference that was the nation’s best last season.

The Indiana staff has continued to keep a close eye on Edwards as they watched him in both April evaluation periods — first in Dallas at the adidas Exclusive Run and then in Indianapolis at the adidas Spring Classic.

“I talk to Coach (Tom) Crean a lot. He just tells me to keep playing hard and keep fighting,” Edwards said. “It’s a great fan base and a great school. Coach Crean is a great coach.”

The other four Big Ten schools in the mix — Illinois, Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue — also seem to be serious about Edwards.

The Illini and Boilermakers have offered and the Wolverines, who won’t offer class of 2015 prospects until June 15, seem to be heading in that direction. He said he hopes to work in an unofficial visit to Bloomington when in town for the adidas May Classic and will be in Ann Arbor on June 1 for Michigan’s elite camp.

“(Assistant) coach (LaVall) Jordan has been talking to me about it,” he said of a potential scholarship offer from Michigan. “If I do get the offer, that would be pretty great.”

Edwards is again suiting up for the Mark Adams-coached Indiana Elite 2015 this spring and summer. After struggling a bit early on as it incorporated another lead guard in Jalen Coleman, the group flashed its true potential over the weekend as it won the 16-and-under gold bracket at Spiece.

The role Edwards takes on for Indiana Elite is much different than with his high school team at East Chicago.

“High school, I don’t really have a lot of threats on my team,” he said. “I have to go get it myself and do everything. On the AAU circuit, I have a pretty great team. I try to get my teammates the greatest shots possible.”

This past season, the 5-foot-11, 155-pound Edwards had a chance to experience the Indiana-Purdue rivalry up close as he was a guest of the Boilermakers in Mackey Arena on Jan. 30 when they were routed by the Hoosiers, 97-60. Edwards also visited Bloomington for Hoosier Hysteria last October.

Tags: Hyron Edwards

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Remy Abell narrows list to Xavier, St. Louis and St. Mary’s

by Justin Albers in Former Hoosiers | May 7th, 2013

Former Indiana guard Remy Abell is getting closer to choosing a new home.

As first reported by Inside the Hall on Tuesday, Abell has narrowed his list of schools to Xavier, St. Louis and St. Mary’s. Abell announced his decision to transfer from Indiana after two seasons last month.

Abell said on Tuesday evening that he was contacted by in-state school Butler and coach Brad Stevens, but decided it wasn’t the right fit for him.

“That’s a great school and program,” Abell wrote in a text message. “Things just didn’t work out.”

Abell said he will visit Xavier on Friday and St. Louis on Monday. He has not yet scheduled his visit to St. Mary’s, but said he is currently working to do so now. Abell plans to make a decision quickly after making his visits, likely within the next 7-10 days.

Per NCAA transfer rules, Abell must sit out next season and will have two seasons of eligibility remaining beginning with the 2014-2015 season.

Tags: Remy Abell

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2015 guard Jalen Coleman continues to build interest

by Justin Albers in Recruiting | May 7th, 2013

050713shxs Cathedral guard Jalen Coleman has been on Indiana’s radar for quite some time and the Hoosiers have continued to recruit him steadily since offering a scholarship in July of 2011.

The 6-foot-3, 180-pound guard continues to pick up interest from a number of programs around the country. Coleman holds offers from Cincinnati, Clemson, Illinois, Indiana, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Purdue and Providence and has interest from Duke, Michigan, Michigan State and others.

His interest in Indiana, the first school to offer him, remains high. Coleman was in Bloomington in February for Indiana’s ESPN College GameDay win over No. 1 Michigan, and he and his family have always been impressed with Indiana coach Tom Crean.

“I talk to them as much as possible, as far as what I need to work on and things I need to improve on,” Coleman said after an Indiana Elite 2015 pool play game at the Hensley Memorial Spiece Run-N-Slam last weekend in Fort Wayne.

Added Piankhi Lands, Coleman’s father: ”Crean is cool, he’s super cool. He gave me some good information the last time I saw him. I asked him what some of the things were that he needed to improve on and he gave me some good information. He’s solid in our book, man, he’s definitely solid in our book.”

Coleman has visits to Michigan and Michigan State planned for early next month and Duke has also piqued his interest after they had a chance to see him play last high school season.

“He was really coming to see Trey Lyles, but he was really impressed with Jalen and kind of mentioned that he wanted to start recruiting him,” Lands told Inside the Hall recently. “He wanted to see what his grades were gonna be like at the end of the semester, but said that he would be out to look at a couple of his games. I didn’t believe him at first until they called the coach the following day and said they were really interested and wanted to know what AAU team he was going to be playing on.”

Duke has not offered a scholarship, but his grades have held up to this point. Lands said his son currently has a 3.0 GPA, but at this point, it sounds like Coleman is still early in the process.

“[I'm] analyzing schools, taking things apart, seeing what they have to offer,” he said.

Tags: Jalen Coleman

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2016 guard Vijay Blackmon making his own name

by Alex Bozich in Recruiting | May 7th, 2013

050613shcx The easy on-court comparison for class of 2016 guard Vijay Blackmon is his older brother, James, who committed to Indiana back in the fall of 2010 and is a member of the program’s 2014 recruiting class.

They share similar builds and can do many of the same things on the floor.

But it might not be the best comparison off the court according to their father, James Blackmon Sr., their high school coach and a former McDonald’s All-American who played at Kentucky.

“It’s so funny, you can have three or four kids and they can have different personalities,” Blackmon Sr. said over the weekend at the Spiece Run-N-Slam in Fort Wayne. “James and Vijay are totally different. Vijay has some qualities that James doesn’t have. James has some qualities that Vijay doesn’t have.”

“I’d say I’m more of a laid back type of guy,” James Blackmon Jr. says. “Vijay is always talking when he gets home about his games non-stop.”

As a freshman at Class 2A Ft. Wayne Leurs, Vijay joined his brother in the starting lineup and helped lead the school to a sectional crown. He averaged 12.5 points, 3.4 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.4 steals per game.

Next year, he’ll play at Class 4A Marion, which recently hired Blackmon Sr., an alum, to rejuvenate a program that hasn’t had a winning season since 2008-2009. It’s a challenge the whole family is looking forward to.

“It’s a good opportunity for my dad and I want to play for him,” Vijay noted. “So I’m going to go with him.”

“It’s going to be an emotional feeling having your own kid play in the same gym that you played in,” Blackmon Sr. said. “Within that atmosphere and that environment, I knew how it was when I played. We had 6,000 people in that gym and the tradition was really strong. Marion is a little down now. If we can generate some energy back in there, it will be pretty exciting.”

The growth of Vijay’s game could be a big factor in just how far the Giants can come next season.

At 6-foot-2 and 165 pounds, adding strength in the offseason is an important goal for him and one that his older brother says he’s attacked head on so far in the offseason.

“He’s been developing ever since the high school season got over, working on his shot and working on his strength,” Blackmon Jr. said. “I think he’s gotten a lot stronger as you can see out there.”

Vijay got the opportunity to travel with the Spiece Elite Youth Basketball League (EYBL) team for the April evaluation periods to gain some experience in that environment, but was back on the court last weekend at the Spiece Fieldhouse playing with his 15-and-under team.

Tags: James Blackmon Jr., Vijay Blackmon

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HD Video: Caleb Swanigan at 2013 Spiece Run-N-Slam

by Alex Bozich in Video | May 7th, 2013

One of the top young frontcourt players in Indiana, class of 2016 Homestead forward Caleb Swanigan is attracting early interest from schools like Georgetown, Indiana, Michigan State, Ohio State and Purdue.

We’ve compiled a minute and a half of high definition quality video of Swanigan from pool play games from this past weekend’s Hensley Memorial Run-N-Slam at the Spiece Fieldhouse in Fort Wayne in the embedded media player below:

Tags: Caleb Swanigan

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2014 five-star guard Dion Wiley talks Indiana offer

by Alex Bozich in Recruiting | May 6th, 2013

050613sncx Indiana scouted class of 2014 Potomac (Md.) guard Dion Wiley in last summer’s July evaluation period, but the Hoosiers hadn’t been mentioned with the five-star guard in recent months.

That’s because the word on Wiley had been that he didn’t want to go far from home for college, which is no longer the case.

“There was a point where I didn’t want to leave (home),” Wiley told Inside the Hall on Monday afternoon. “But then I see that being away would probably be a good thing to do, too.”

With that bit of information, Indiana has firmly entered the mix for Wiley, the No. 22 prospect overall in his class according to ESPN.com. Tom Crean offered him a scholarship on Sunday.

“The main thing they talked to me about was they didn’t want me to think they were just now coming aboard,” he said. “They wanted me last year, but the rumor was that I wanted to stay home.

“My relationship with them isn’t that strong, but it’s going to build.”

As a junior, he led Potomac to the Maryland 3A final and averaged 17.9 points, 8.3 rebounds, 6.4 assists and 3.2 steals per game. He shot 52 percent from the field and 76 percent from the free throw line.

His hot shooting has carried over into the spring, where he’s hit 30-of-60 of his 3-point attempts in Nike’s Elite Youth Basketball League for 9-0 Team Takeover. He credits his efficiency to teammates.

“The percentages part is from having great teammates who find me when I’m open and get me the ball for high percentage shots,” Wiley said.

Wiley said five schools — Cincinnati, Florida, Georgetown, Maryland and Miami (FL) — have recruited him the hardest to this point, but he expects Indiana to make a strong push.

Tags: Dion Wiley

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