Back in the dark ages of journalism, (18 months ago) to find out if a promising prep basketball player had say, received an offer from a prominent in-state school, one needed to use archaic means, such as telephones and e-mail, to connect with said players and their coaches and confidants and confirm such news. Ah, the joys of social networking.

Translation: I follow Yogi Ferrell on Twitter, and just about 12 hours ago, he announced to the Twitter world (Tworld? Let’s make that happen) that he had, in fact, received an offer from IU.

“Got offered by IU,” Ferrell said via his Twitter account. This comes on the heels of a March 7 trip to Illinois to watch the Illini take on Wisconsin. That visit, according to Ferrell’s Twitter feed, (can’t you tell I’m enjoying this?) yielded an offer from Illinois as well. So according to Rivals, this brings Ferrell’s offer tally up to four, with IU and Illinois joining Butler and Purdue in the chase for the Park Tudor sophomore.

The 5-foot-10, 160-pound Ferrell, whose real first name, by the way, is Kevin, has been on the radar for quite some time. In fact, he was once considered the No. 1 player in the nation — in the fifth grade. I point you to this 2005 Indianapolis Star article, (in pdf format) which features Ferrell prominently in its exploration of what then qualified as a needs-to-be-explained phenomenon: basketball players getting attention from sportswear companies and other industry figures at an alarmingly-young age.

So add Ferrell, one of a number of talented 2012 prospects coming out of Indianapolis, to the list of prospects with a scholarship offer from IU.

I should probably take a solid two hours, calm down, maybe do some Yoga or some breathing exercises or go get a massage  … because I’m worried this will be an expletive-laden tirade about how angry and upset I am over this loss.

It’s not that the Hoosiers played bad. They didn’t. It’s not that this was a game they should have won that they let slip away. It wasn’t. It’s that after Bill Cole hit that three to tie up the game, Devan Dumes traveled on IU’s next possession and Mike Tisdale hit two free throws on Illinois’ next trip down the court to put them up two with 3:19 to go — I felt like that was it. The whole second half I kept waiting for the Illini to go on a run, grab a couple-point lead with just a few minutes to play, and for it to be pretty much over. This is how I saw the game going in my mind after tying it up at half : IU playing well enough for 35 minutes or so, but eventually succumbing to the Illini and their screechy coach.

I was OK with this outcome; the other Assembly Hall is an incredibly difficult environment to play in, and for these young Hoosiers to bring it for that long and stay that close — no matter how average this Illinois team has looked at times this season — it was commendable. It was not ideal, but acceptable. It was good enough for me in this season where IU is starting to gain their footing again in the Big Ten conference.

But the Hoosiers had to tease me. Had to make me think, if only for a fleeting instance, that they had taken another step in their maturation process: not just a win on the road against a team that had yet to win a game in conference this season in Penn State, but against a team that holds serve on their home court like few others in the conference.

Verdell Jones hit two free throws to tie it. Tisdale hit a jumper to put the Illini back up by two. Dumes air-balled a three, but the Illini turned the ball back over. Then IU turned it right back over on an inbounds play. Tisdale hit another free throw with a minute to play — on a questionable foul call on Jeremiah Rivers as both went after a rebound –  to put the Ilini up three. Jones hit two free throws to put the Hoosiers down one after getting fouled by Jeff Jordan coming off a pick. The Illini, up two with 46 seconds left, had to hold the ball, hit a shot late in the shot clock, and you come pretty close to putting it away. But Rivers came up with a huge steal off Demetri McCamey and was subsequently fouled by D.J. Richardson.

Tell me you weren’t on the edge of your seat. Here was Rivers, a kid shooting only 51 percent from the free-throw line heading into this pressure-packed situation, a kid that missed four free throws in the final three minutes against Loyola (Md), a game IU eventually lost by five. This was dramatic theater.

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A little over one year ago, I piled into a car with Matt Dollinger and Tom Kirby and headed west to Spaceship Assembly Hall for IU’s first post-Eric Gordon trip to Urbana-Champaign. Less than nine minutes later, Dollinger was begging me to go pull the car around.

I bring that up, because many of you have, at various points this season, asked for more visible improvement from the Indiana basketball team than what you’ve seen so far.

Well, I offer you this: Just 385 days after a 24-4 game-opening run begat a 76-45 pasting at the hands of the Illini, Indiana took what some considered an NCAA Tournament team inside the game’s last second — literally — before succumbing by just two points, 72-70 in one of the Big Ten’s toughest road environments.

No, this isn’t a moral victory. Moral victories are stupid. Really stupid. Annoyingly stupid. This was a loss, and surely a tough one to absorb.

But if you don’t look at this game and see the obvious improvement, then your eyes are closed.

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You know the drill by now, right? Picks are due by 1:45 ET on Saturday. Standings will be updated in the next few days.

Obviously, the one factor that stands out among the rest and is also dominating the postgame discussion – free throws.

The free throw rate of 84.8 percent for Illinois was the defining number when you dig into the four factors. In fact, a quick glance at the Pomeroy Game Plan for the Fighting Illini shows it was easily their best performance in that area this season. (The runner-up? 48.4 percent back on November 17 against Northern Illinois.)

Free throw rate, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, measures the frequency at which a team makes it way to the line. It’s calculated by dividing a team’s free throw attempts by its number of field goal attempts.

The theory behind the importance of this number, according to Dean Oliver, is that by simply getting to the line, a team dramatically increases it chances of winning. Free throw rate does not take into account making free throws. But over the long haul, Oliver notes, “just getting to the line frequently wins a lot more games than missing a few freebies will lose.”

And last night, this theory rang true. It wasn’t that Illinois was flawless from the line – they shot 69.2 percent – but by the Illini’s sheer volume of attempts, Indiana was out-scored by 17 at the line.

THE GOOD: CONSISTENCY, EXECUTION, AGGRESSION.

The Good Hoosiers showed up tonight in Bloomington. After the Bad Hoosiers lacked any sense of urgency in Columbus earlier this week, IU was a completely different squad this evening. They played like they wanted to win, like they deserved to win.

Perhaps this is just what we’re in for this season: a bit of deer-in-the-headlights-what-are-we-doing play on the road, while on its home court, Indiana plays with the utmost confidence. If the Hoosiers can give this kind of effort inside Assembly Hall every time out, they’ll be in most, if not all, of their home contests.

IU rattled off 41 points in the first half, and looked like a team on a mission. They were executing at both ends of the floor. One thing I want to point out during that impressive first 20 minutes: there’s a reason Jordan Hulls is starting alongside Jeremiah Rivers in the backcourt: his spot-up shooting ability. When Rivers is at his best on the dribble-drive and can draw help defense, Hulls stays at home on the wing or corner and has enough spacing to elevate and hit the three. And Rivers is athletic enough to take it all the way to the hole as well.

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