THE GOOD: THE START.

If there was anything Indiana needed to key on in this game, anything Tom Crean likely would be pleased to see, it was a good start by the Hoosiers. I know this is Bryant College, a team that’s only entering its third season as a D-I school, a team that’s now 0-13, but the Hoosiers’ good start — well, save for those six turnovers in the first 10:30 — was so crucial to this team’s overall makeup after their atrocious first half against Loyola (Md.) last week.

Heading into Big Ten play Thursday against Michigan, this young team needed a bit of a confidence boost, and going into the locker room with a 45-17 lead did just that. Jordan Hulls was solid in his start — I know Jordy has been playing well off the bench, but anyone else thinking Jeremiah Rivers’ rough game last time out had anything to do with him riding the pine to start? — and Tom Pritchard continued to return to form by bruising down low, getting fouled and getting to the line. He only hit 3-of-9 from the charity stripe, but it’s encouraging to see he got there that many times. He finished the game with 11 points and eight boards, and if he can keep up that kind of production, that starting spot should remain his. I love Derek Elston, but his energy is perfect in a sixth-man role.

IU also shot well from three-point land making 9-of-22 for 40.9 percent. And it was a team effort on the offensive end: four other guys scored in double figures besides Pritchard, as Christian Watford led the way with 15 points on 7-of-10 shooting. Verdell Jones also had 15, Devan Dumes added 12 and Hulls had 12 as well.

Other than that, it’s sort of hard to glean much out of this one. No offense to Bryant, but they were such an inferior opponent and it was so out of hand in the second half — IU did win by 48 points tonight, after all — what we saw might not be all that telling of how the Hoosiers are set up heading into Big Ten play.

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One of the questions that is most frequently posed in the comments early on this season is, “When is the handsome man in the tie going to play more?”

Well, today is your lucky day, friends. In today’s press conference (video of the presser here and here), Herald-Times reporter Dustin Dopirak asked the following question of Tom Crean:

“When will you know it’s time for him (Bawa Muniru) to get at least a few minutes here and there?

And here is the answer:

“Well, he did the other day. I don’t look at it like that. I think anytime you go into the game with a predetermined mindset of your bench, it’s usually not a 50-50 proposition. You’ve got to let the game play itself out. There’s different situations that call for different people inside of the game. But as he continues to progress and build his own confidence, then I think his teammates will continue to have more confidence in him. But he’s just not at a point yet where he’s laid it out on the line from what we need from him defensively. And it’ll come. You know, Tijan, he wasn’t anywhere close to it a year ago either. And I don’t use that as an example just because they’re both from a different country, but because of the learning process. The learning curve has always got to get adjusted for guys. And right now we’re not trying to inundate Bawa with too many things other than for him to really come out and be a presence for us defensively and get people open. But it’s not like we’re out there trying to teach him eight different moves right now or you do this as a counter to that. We’re not trying to do that. We’ll do that in our individual workouts. But we really want him to just get that confidence to where he can go in and apply some real effects defensively and on the backboards.”

To this point, I think Crean’s approach with Bawa has been spot-on. He’s clearly not aggressive nor polished enough to play at a high level just yet and not many situations thus far have warranted putting him in the game. I would expect that he could get a little clock here and there the rest of the season, but clearly, Bawa has a long road ahead to become a significant contributor.

Rejoice, Hoosier nation. This man is now eligible to play basketball for IU this season:

A few minutes ago, Tom Crean dropped this on his Twitter account:

Moments ago we just learned that Bawa is completely eligible. If you see his smile as wide as it has ever been you will know why.

So yes: the NCAA has decreed Bawa’s lingering high school coursework is in shipshape, and he’ll be able to participate in game action now. Anyone else interested to see how his game fits in with Crean’s more up-tempo style of play this season?

Hoosier Hysteria is on the horizon and it’s time for Inside the Hall’s player-by-player breakdown of the 2009-2010 Indiana Hoosiers. Today: Bawa Muniru.

Finding a potentially dominant big man at any level of basketball is not an easy thing to do. And even though he’d only been playing organized basketball for roughly five years, that’s exactly why high-major programs were lining up to recruit 7-0 Ghana native Bawa Muniru.

Muniru, who is awaiting word from the NCAA on his eligibility for the upcoming season, comes to Bloomington as somewhat of a mystery. He’s a solid 260 pounds with a physique that resembles a body builder more than it does a basketball player. At Madison Academy in Alabama, Muniru helped lead his school to three straight state titles before finishing his prep career at Mt. Zion Academy.

The key to Muniru’s development will be patience, hard work and persistence. Offensively, he appears to be very raw. The limited film available on him suggests he’s most comfortable receiving an entry pass deep enough where he can gather himself and go straight up for a dunk. On defense, he has the tools (a 7-3 wingspan) to become an excellent shot blocker and more importantly, a presence capable of locking down the lane.

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Given the situation inherited, the argument can be made that the 2009 recruiting haul made by Tom Crean and his staff was as impressive as any class in the country.

Before ever coaching a game at Indiana, Crean held on to a verbal commitment by Derek Elston given to the previous coaching staff and received commitments from five other players. Three of those players, Maurice Creek, Jordan Hulls and Christian Watford, were ranked among the top 50 prospects nationally by Scout.com.

When it was all said and done, IU signed a consensus top ten class last November in the aftermath of major violations less than a year before.

So it should be no surprise that Crean would sing the praises of the young men that he believes will, collectively, be the cornerstone of the rebuilding process in Bloomington. And last night, Crean did just that in these comments released by IU Media Relations:

Jordan Hulls

“That kid never accepted that he wasn’t a college player, or that he might be a Division II player, and that he might be a low-major player, and that he might be a mid-major player. I don’t think he ever accepted that. Something’s telling me that kid always had his sights set pretty high.”

Derek Elston

“The other guy that hasn’t gotten nearly enough attention nationally is Derek Elston. That guy is one of those people, if he hadn’t been injured out on that AAU circuit, there would have been a lot more things written about him. He’s good, he’s tough. And he wants to be really good.”

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You may remember this post about Bawa Muniru with a similar title from last fall. We’ve had some second-hand reports of Bawa being spotted around campus in a shirt and tie and even in a suit. This picture, dropped by Tom Crean on Twitter today, confirms that Bawa may be the best dressed player in Indiana history before ever taking the floor:

Welcome to Bloomington, young man.

New Herald-Times IU beat reporter Dustin Dopirak is wasting no time getting himself acclimated to the workings of Hoosier athletics. Dopirak was on hand for Wednesday night’s IU Tailgate Tour stop in Indianapolis with a pen and notepad in hand. Here are a couple of items Tom Crean addressed for IU fans (complete transcript here):

The eligibility of Maurice Creek and Bawa Muniru: “There’s some technicalities with it. We’re looking forward to them being cleared very soon. We don’t have any reason to believe that they won’t be. it’s just a matter of it getting done. The paperwork that goes into it, it’s all there. Hopefully we won’t have to revise their schedule at all. Right now I can’t tell you exactly what we’ll do there. We’re going to wait and hope we hear something by the end of this week or the latest hopefully by the beginning of next week, I’ll be disappointed if we don’t hear something by then, that they’ll be cleared and ready to go.”

On Bobby Knight’s induction to the Indiana Hall of Fame: “I was all for it. It’s just a matter of looking out and saying ‘Let’s get it done.’ I think it will be fantastic to be able to walk into that building and have people walk into that building and know that their coach is honored with all of the other greats at Indiana, because certainly it’s one thing to have him in the Naismith Hall of Fame, but with everything he did at Indiana, the shelf’s not full yet. Let’s get the shelf full and get him in there.”

Crean’s comments are a good indication that from the IU perspective, Creek and Muniru have completed the necessary requirements to be declared eligible by the NCAA. Unless there’s more to the story, it looks like all six freshmen will be ready to roll come October.

As far as the comments on Knight, both Crean and Fred Glass should be given kudos for attempting to bring him back to Bloomington. The gesture to induct Knight into the Hall of Fame and put on the full court press for his return is a brilliant move. If Knight shows up, many of the fans who are still angry that he’s gone (they still exist, believe it or not) are suddenly back on board. And if he doesn’t, the finger can no longer be pointed at the university for turning it’s shoulder and not acknowledging Knight’s accomplishments. Sounds like a win-win.

If you’re following us on Twitter, you know by now that Bawa Muniru is in Bloomington and Maurice Creek should be there shortly. And if you’ve browsed the various IU message boards, you may have read some reports of Bawa and the rest of the IU team playing pickup at the HPER.

What you haven’t read is the following report from Inside the Hall reader Bryan, who told us via tips@insidethehall.com about his encounter with Bawa and also details the physical transformation of Tom Pritchard, Devan Dumes and Verdell Jones.

I know there was a story run in the IDS about Bawa being at the HPER playing with all of the guys. Just to add to that story, I saw him today and offered him a ride. He was incredibly nice, smiled, and politely shook his head. I then told him to get used to ridiculous things like people stopping in traffic on the bypass. Yeah, that’s another thing, he was walking on the bypass. At the Dunn intersection. Weird. His face even has defined muscles, it’s quite ridiculous.

I thought it might be a good idea to run a small piece on the progress of players over the course of the summer. I’ve seen a lot of players everyday over the course of the summer and some of them have undergone incredible body transformations. Tom Pritchard is a big-fat-for-instance. At the beginning of June I saw him and he looked like a wad of cookie dough. I saw him today and he looks like he’s lost at least 20 pounds. He looked really lean. Devan Dumes looks bulked up, and the stories about VJ3 hitting the weight room hard have to be true because seeing him last year and then this year yields a glaring difference. I’m a monstrous 6′2, 165lbs and I used to look about the same frame-wise as he did, but now he has some muscle to go with those 7ft. arms.

So there you have it. Bawa’s face has ridiculous muscles and Pritchard, Dumes and Verdell are making strides in the weight room. We’re a Maurice Creek sighting away from a full roster in Bloomington. And that should happen next week. Only 63 more days until Hoosier Hysteria.