Around the Hall is recommended reading from the Inside the Hall crew. You can send us a link at tips@insidethehall.com.

+ Andy Katz talks to Mike Krzyzewski and the Duke coach says that Indiana should “celebrate” Bob Knight before he returns to Bloomington. {ESPN.com}

+ Dana O’Neil profiles the freshman class and gets a must-read quote from Bobby Capobianco. {ESPN.com}

+ Herald-Times sports editor Chris Korman and beat reporter Dustin Dopirak discuss Tom Crean’s focus on “Scoop Talk.” {The Hoosier Scoop}

+ Korman writes that Indiana players have decided they’ll need to become “nasty, scrappy dogs” to compete in the Big Ten. {The Hoosier Scoop}

+ LaMond Pope looks at the progression of Tom Pritchard, who Crean says has become more efficient offensively. {Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette}

+ Verdell Jones tells DaAntae Prince that IU practices are “like a war field.” {Indiana Daily Student}

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: Tom Pritchard.

Heading into last year’s campaign, there were a lot of question marks. How would this team of virtual unknowns look? Would IU lose every game? Does Tom Crean really drink that much Diet Coke? But early on, there was a question mark that was quickly answered: if nothing else, we had a guy down low that might not have the prettiest game, but he was going to try and grind and bruise his way to a double-double every night. This guy’s name was Tom Pritchard.

Now, Pritchard did disappear some games last season, particularly in Big Ten games where more experienced and skilled opponents knew to key on him because we didn’t have much else. But for a freshman on a team such as last year’s, the numbers are pretty good: five double-doubles, an average of nearly 10 points a game, and his 6.4 rebounds was good for eighth in the Big Ten.

As many of you are predicting, Tom Pritchard will likely get the starting nod to begin the season, though if he isn’t improving and battling, he might be unseated by Derek Elston or Bobby Capobianco when it’s all said and done.

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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.

… And we’ll be back Monday to begin breaking down the season that was in Bloomington as well as the NCAA Tournament.

The Indiana Hoosiers have not been an easy team to root for this season. In their 11-game losing streak and Big Ten winlessness, they’ve struggled to inspire much of anything in the way of interest, or intrigue, or emotion, really. (With the exception of the Michigan game, that is. That sucked.)

By far the most satisfying part of the season has been watching Tom Crean, watching him both on and off the court. Watching him handle his business, watch him coach every game like IU has a Final Four shot, watch him prod players along without showing even the slightest hint of frustration, watch him work a Chicago crowd into a veritable frenzy. All the while, his former team, Marquette, has been running roughshod over the best conference in college basketball; they might get a No. 1 NCAA Tourney seed. Until last night, it was a question as to whether or not IU would win a single game the rest of the season.

Ah, but win they did. Ryan predicted it (he downplays his predictive abilities, but the man has a gift), as did Devan Dumes and Tijan Jobe (whose new nickname should be “prophet.”) It felt like it was time, didn’t it? An awful Iowa team playing Indiana at home. Indiana seeming to, in its last few games, pull things together a bit more. Last night was the night.

It’s not about us, really, but I’m curious: After the game, how did you feel? Excited? Relieved? Anything? I’ll be honest and say that I wasn’t overjoyed or thrilled or cathartically relieved like I assumed. I thought I would be jumping up and down, or something. Instead, I was just kind of pleased — glad to know the Hoosiers won’t go the entire season without a Big Ten win, that Crean’s and his players’ hard work was rewarded, at least for one night. Not overjoyed. Just happy. That’s good enough.

Of course, though the result was the same, there was plenty about the game that had 2008-09 Hoosiers written all over it. Let’s take a look:

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The 11-game losing streak is over.

In a game that looked eerily similar to earlier contests the Hoosiers haven’t been able to close out down the stretch, Tom Crean’s club reversed the trend and fended off Iowa 68-60 in front of 14,247 fans in Assembly Hall. The win was the first since December 10 for the Hoosiers.

“It was a great win for us,” Indiana coach Tom Crean said. “As I said to the players late in the game and I said in the locker room, this will be the toughest win that they ever get. And it wasn’t just because it was game night, it was because we haven’t won in a while and I’m really proud of them.”

Indiana (6-15, 1-8 Big Ten) led by 13 at halftime and enjoyed a 20-point lead with 11:58 remaining. The Hoosiers, however, saw the gap close to 63-60 with 44 seconds remaining on a Jeff Peterson layup.

Crean then called for a timeout and Iowa fouled Verdell Jones, who hit 1 of 2 free throws to make it 64-60. IU forced turnovers on Iowa’s final two possessions on steals by Devan Dumes and Nick Williams. A layup by Malik Story and a pair of free throws by Dumes sealed the victory.

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In what has been a theme throughout this season of rebuilding, the inexperience of Tom Crean’s club shined through down the stretch as Indiana fell 67-63 to Minnesota at Assembly Hall.

The Hoosiers (5-13, 0-6 Big Ten) cut the Minnesota lead to 64-63 with 29 seconds remaining on two free throws by Nick Williams. Indiana immediately fouled Al Nolen, who knocked down two free throws to push the Golden Gopher lead back to three at 66-63.

Crean called for time with 21.8 seconds remaining, but the Hoosiers couldn’t get an open look and ultimately settled for an off-balance 3-point attempt by Devan Dumes that fell short. Minnesota’s Paul Carter grabbed the rebound, was fouled by Verdell Jones and knocked down a free throw to put the game out of reach.

“This is one of the tougher ones to swallow,” Crean said. “They all are. They are miserable for every coach and everybody that is a part of it.”

The loss was the fifth straight at Assembly Hall for Indiana, the longest home losing streak for the Hoosiers since the 1984-1985 season.

Dumes led all scorers with 19 points and was joined in double figures by Malik Story with 14 and Tom Pritchard with 10. Indiana hit 8 of 15 3-pointers, but hit just 11 of 21 free throws with eight misses coming in the second half.

“The numbers we chart in practice would astound you. But it is also an empty Assembly Hall,” Crean said. “It is just part of it. I don’t want to get frustrated with that. We just want to continue to put ourselves in pressure situations in practice. We were shooting 72 percent in the Big Ten going into today’s game.”

Damian Johnson paced Minnesota (17-3, 5-3) with 18 points. Ralph Sampson III added 13 points, eight rebounds and six blocks. The win snapped a two-game skid for the Golden Gophers and moved Tubby Smith to 10-4 all-time against Indiana.

“Every time they go out, they don’t give in, they don’t give up,” Smith said of Indiana. “It’s just a matter of sustaining it and consistency, and that’s what he’s getting from his kids. He’s getting a consistent effort. As he continues to recruit he’s going to have a very good team.”

+ Box score

+ Tom Crean audio

+ Devan Dumes audio

+ Malik Story audio

Up next: Indiana will travel to Evanston on Wednesday for a 8:30 PM EST meeting with Northwestern. That game will be broadcast by the Big Ten Network.

T-shirt promotion and $5 balcony seats a success?: Indiana announced a crowd of 16,539, making Sunday’s game the most attended of the season to date.