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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