Around the Hall is recommended reading from the Inside the Hall crew.

+ Senior night is players’ final chance to bid farewell {Indiana Daily Student}

+ Zach Osterman breaks down the improvement Kyle Taber has shown during his senior season {Indiana Daily Student}

+ The debut of the Terry Hutchens trivia challenge. Sorry boys and girls, no prizes. {Hoosiers Insider}

+ College basketball BlogPoll: Week 4. {CBS Sports}

+ Can Michigan State secure a No. 1 seed? {The Detroit News}

+ 25 years later, Michael Jordan still remembers UNC’s upset loss to IU in the 1984 NCAA East Regional. {USA Today}

+ Tipton senior and IU signee Derek Elston is shining in the spotlight. {Kokomo Tribune}

+ Brian Kernan writes that IU target Kyrie Irving may be the best player to ever play at St. Patrick’s. {NJ.com}

+ Jody Demling speculates that a commitment is forthcoming from Marquis Teague to Louisville. {CJ Recruiting Blog}

+ A scouting report on one of the top players in the 2010 class: Harrison Barnes. {Clone Chronicles}

Quotable: “I’m proud to have coached him, and I know we’ve got more time but when it is senior night you want to make sure that everyone understands. I’ve been demanding of him, as our whole staff has and I’ve been hard on him, as our whole staff has because we have always looked at him as being a very, very valuable part of what we are doing here. He has done that. I am proud of the way he has contributed, proud of the way he has continued to improve. And proud he is a part of Indiana Basketball.” – Tom Crean on Kyle Taber.

About a year ago today, I was at the Kentucky Hoop Fest in Louisville watching a bunch of different players including Derek Elston, Ray McCallum Jr. and Stephan Van Treese. In between games, I walked over to a court with a friend and we watched about half of a game involving a team from Iowa.

There was one particular kid who caught my eye. He was long, athletic and surprisingly polished for a 15-year old. He was making it look easy. After watching him completely dominate for about five straight minutes, I finally walked over to one of the parents to ask who he was.

“That’s Harrison Barnes,” the parent told me. “Iowa State is all over him.” The parent went on to explain to me that Barnes was from Ames and his Mom worked at Iowa State and his Dad once played for the Cyclones.

I continued to watch Barnes for a while longer and when I got home that night, I looked at the recruiting rankings for one service that had already evaluated the 2010 class. Barnes was No. 115. So much for the legitimacy of those rankings. If there were 114 better 15-year olds better than Barnes, I wanted to see them.

Fast forward to a year later and Barnes is one of the hottest names on the national recruiting scene. He’s in the top 10 nationally with both Scout.com and Rivals.com. USC, Kentucky, Kansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa State, Iowa, TCU, Duke, Maryland, Texas and Tennessee are among the long list of schools in pursuit. Indiana fans should be thrilled that the Hoosiers are in on this kid. Not only is he an outstanding player, he’s also a great kid.

Barnes is at the Hoop Fest again this year and Indiana assistant coach Tim Buckley will certainly be there watching him. As will Inside the Hall all day on Friday. We’ll get our first look at Bobby Capobianco, Jordan Hulls and another look at Barnes.