Candy Stripes is an IU basketball comic by Shane Johnson Studios that appears bi-weekly on Inside the Hall. You can purchase prints or original artwork by contacting Shane at ShaneJohnsonStudios@gmail.com.

The Big Ten Network will stream tonight’s exhibition vs. Anderson College and it’s the only coverage fans will have for Tom Crean’s debut in Assembly Hall. We’re curious to see how well the streaming works, but one of the nice features is that fans will be able to hear Don Fischer, Todd Leary and Joe Smith on the call for both exhibition games (the game Nov. 11 vs. Bemidji State will also be Web only.)

Like Gus Johnson? Of course you do. Even at his most annoying, he’s impossible to dislike. The sort of enthusiasm he brings to even the most mundane of Sunday afternoon NFL games — third quarter drives full of screams and whoops and “ha-HA’s!” — it’s a beautiful thing.

So of course it was a pleasant surprise to hear that Gus Johnson is moving over to the Big Ten Network. Big Ten basketball can occasionally be a plodding affair. This year’s Hoosiers are going to be a struggle to watch. But at least we’ll have Gus shouting at us. More Gus is good for everybody.

If you were wondering just what channel and when you can catch IU’s non-conference schedule this coming season — which is not too far away now, may I add — you no longer need to wonder. This is because IU media relations has the docket for us. Here ya go:

DATE, DAY, OPPONENT, SITE, TIME, TV
Nov. 7, Friday, Anderson University (Exhib.), Bloomington, Ind., 7 p.m., BTN.com
Nov. 11, Tuesday, Bemidji State (Exhib.), Bloomington, Ind., 7 p.m., BTN.com
Nov. 15, Saturday, Northwestern State, Bloomington, Ind., 7 p.m., BTN
Nov. 18, Tuesday, IUPUI, Bloomington, Ind., 6:30 p.m., BTN

25th ANNUAL EA SPORTS MAUI INVITATIONAL
Nov. 24, Monday, Notre Dame, Maui, 5:30pm, ESPN2
Nov. 25, Tuesday, TBA, Maui, TBA, ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU
Nov. 26, Wednesday, TBA, Maui, TBA, ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU

Nov. 30, Sunday, Cornell, Bloomington, Ind., 4 p.m., BTN

ACC/BIG TEN CHALLENGE
Dec. 3, Wednesday, at Wake Forest, Winston-Salem, N.C., 7:15pm, ESPN

HARTFORD HALL OF FAME SHOWCASE (at Lucas Oil Stadium)
Dec. 6, Saturday, Gonzaga #, Indianapolis, Ind., 1:30 p.m., BTN

Dec. 10, Wednesday, TCU, Bloomington, Ind., 7 p.m., ESPN2
Dec. 13, Saturday, at Kentucky, Lexington, Ky., 4 p.m., CBS
Dec. 22, Monday, Northeastern, Bloomington, Ind., 9 p.m., BTN
Dec. 28, Sunday, Lipscomb, Bloomington, Ind., 6 p.m., BTN

One thing of note here: the Big Ten Network will be streaming all of IU’s exhibition games online, which I think is pretty neat. So if you’re stuck in the office late on Tuesday, Nov. 11, that Bemidji State matchup will be there to comfort you while you work on your Excel documents.

I know, I know, you heard rumblings that a deal could be close all of last season. Meanwhile, you grew tired of the posturing from both sides and got a dish or switched to RCN because you wanted to see Eric Gordon and D.J. White from the comfort of your living room instead of a bar stool. I don’t blame you.

According to a report late last night by Teddy Greinstein of The Chicago Tribune, a deal between Comcast and the Big Ten Network should be announced this week:

Comcast, which had been losing customers to DirecTV, the Dish Network and RCN Cable, will have video-on-demand features that will allow customers to access their favorite team’s greatest games and replays of condensed, “snap-to-snap” games, according to sources.

The BTN completed the deal without caving on its central demand: that the channel be placed on expanded basic, rather than a sports tier, in the eight-state footprint. Only Philadelphia will be excluded.

So not only will Comcast carry the Big Ten Network, they’re going to have some on-demand features and condensed games for your viewing pleasure. Probably not enough to get you to climb up on your roof and take down the dish, but for those of you still left in the dark due to this fiasco, this is good news. Better late than never, right?

In a partnership that will no doubt lead to decades of Big Ten athletic domination over lesser conference specimens (right), the Big Ten Network and Comcast appear to have reached a deal. According to the Sports Business Journal, Comcast will launch the network on expanded basic throughout most of the Big Ten area, while in some areas, like Philadelphia, the channel will be available on digital basic.

While it looks like Comcast is getting the win — after all, the Big Ten Network’s original pitch was that it deserved to be alongside ESPN and Comcast Sports Net as basic programming for everyone — the bottom line is that IU fans will be able to see games they’ve missed this year. That’s no doubt a good thing, even if you’re stuck paying for 12 or 14 extra channels you’ll never use once.

Those of you stuck in a Comcast-only market, I’m sure you’re eager to get your greasy paws on the BTN. Little do you know that all you’ll really be getting, besides the games, is a mess of boring production, blue graphics, Shon Morris, Dave Revsine, Tim Dolan, Big Ten’s Greatest Games (a feature not nearly as interesting as its name) and various women’s competitions. So, you know, get hyped.

Here are video highlights of IU’s 85-82 win over Northwestern, courtesy of the Big Ten Network:

This probably shouldn’t be called The Morning After, since it’s coming in the afternoon; my apologies. A weekend visit from the brother and Dr. Martin Luther King Day pushed this back on the list of priorities, but here it is. Also, I’m planning a midseason report some time in the near future. Keep your head on a swivel for that. Onward:

– As much as I pride myself on taking in — and caring about — every game the Hoosiers play, it was hard not to feel apathy yesterday. After two tight, well-contested wins (a big road win at a revitalized Minnesota and a blood-feud victory over Illinois), it was pretty hard to ratchet up any emotion for Penn State. Minus Geary Claxton, the Nittany Lions are on paper arguably the worst team in the Big Ten, which is saying something.

But the Nittany Lions shattered that early yesterday. Not only did they push the Hoosiers to the limit on defense, they were somehow consistently effective on offense, hitting threes and slicing to the hoop and exposing a truly light IU defensive effort.

If I may use a Simmonsian analogy, the game reminded me of an open gym performance between a team of high school buddies and a bunch of out-for-the-exercise scrubs. Playing with friends at the SRSC or the HPER, it was easy to get trapped into games playing against kids who looked like they’d never touched a basketball before. Within one or two possessions, you know you’re going to kill this group of band geek-looking dudes; why try too hard? So you lay off on defense. You take goofy bad shots on offense. You try to flex ability rather than play to win, and before you know it the scrubs start making a few ugly chucks here and there and the score is tied at 10-10. What the hell just happened? Usually, the better team wakes up, says “Let’s go” about a hundred times, and runs the idiots off the court. Sometimes the damage is already done and the scrubs win. Fortunately, the Hoosiers finished with the former yesterday.

Right around the ten minute mark, you could actually read Jamarcus Ellis’ lips as he screamed “Let’s go!” after a defensive stop. You could feel IU realizing the urgency of the moment. They proceeded to pick up the pace on defense, tighten things up on offense, and won going away. The way good teams do.

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