THE GOOD: FIRST FIVE MINUTES.

This is what this Hoosiers team can be. Running the break efficiently, not letting teams get set up on D, pushing the pace, getting controlled buckets in transition with Jeremiah Rivers and Verdell Jones leading the charge. It actually looked slow to me at points, because IU wasn’t trying to do too much — just simply taking what they were offered.

Rivers had a nice play during this stretch, as he grabbed an air ball and went coast to coast. But then Ole Miss turned up the pressure, started dominating inside, starting hitting shots, blocking IU’s shots, and IU began turning the ball over at an alarming rate. What was once a 20-11 lead quickly became a double-digit deficit.

Ole Miss just had too much to throw at the Hoosiers. They blocked a ridiculous 12 shots on both lines (starters DeAundre Cranston and Eniel Polynice had two each; Terrico White had one, while the bench picked up the remaining seven), and scored at will in stretches. They overpowered IU. The Hoosiers were able to make mini-runs here and there — something last year’s team would not have done — and had it to 69-61 with a bit over 5:00 to go. But after yet another turnover on a fast break (an errant Devan Dumes pass), that was basically it for their chances at a comeback.

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For seven minutes in Puerto Rico, Indiana looked capable of hanging with Ole Miss.

And just like that, the Rebels reeled off a 28-5 run en route to a comfortable 89-71 win in the opening round of the O’Reilly Auto Parts Tip-Off Classic.

“I thought our guys responded to Indiana coming out and being aggressive, which you would hope an experienced team would do,” Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy said. “We have some experienced guards and made some adjustments.”

Indiana had no answer on the inside for Ole Miss (3-0), which blocked 12 shots, out-rebounded IU 46-43 and shot 51.5 percent from the field.

Murphy Holloway scored a career-high 26 points and grabbed seven rebounds for the Rebels and Chris Warren had 16.

“We tried to get Murph behind the zone, because they got so extended on the perimeter,” Kennedy said of Holloway. “It opened up some opportunities behind the zone.”

The Hoosiers (2-1) committed 21 turnovers, 14 in the first half, and shot just 12 of 27 from the foul line.

“We made too many mistakes to win the game,” Indiana coach Tom Crean said. “They were more physical and we didn’t do a great job of playing through that.”

After trailing by as many as 15 in the second half, Indiana had a chance to cut the lead to six with 5:40 remaining. But an errant pass from Devan Dumes to Jeremiah Rivers on a 3-on-1 fast break ended IU’s 9-2 run.

Maurice Creek led three Indiana players in double figures with 18 points. Verdell Jones added 17 and Rivers had 14. The bench, however, contributed just nine points.

“A loss is a loss,” Jones said. “We just have to come back and improve and get tougher.”

Pick to Click: Jeremiah Rivers

Up next: Boston University at 6:00 ET on Friday.

Tough game for Watford: The freshman from Birmingham (AL) hit just 2 of 10 shots and scored five points. Watford was averaging a double-double in his first two games.

Off the mark from outside: The Hoosiers shot just 3 of 15 from behind the three-point line.

• Box score

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}

The season is almost here which means it’s time for video features from our friends at UWire (formerly The Palestra). Casey Richards has the story on the backcourt competition and the new up-tempo Hoosiers below:

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: Verdell Jones.

In a year of horrific gosh-they-just-play-so-hard basketball, Verdell Jones was a pleasant surprise. Whether he’s anything more than that — whether he’s a legitimate Big Ten point guard, or merely a seat-saver for the likes of Jeremiah Rivers — is the predominant question facing him in 2009-10.

But first, his 2008-09. Jones was second on the team in minutes in 2008-09, which, considering the frequency with which Daniel Moore played, is a testament to how bad the Hoosiers were last year; there were times when Jones and Moore actually shared the floor. Jones was second on the team in points per game to Devan Dumes, but he did it at a more efficient rate, with a slightly better effective field goal percentage than Dumes. (Dumes made more threes, though, so take that as you will.) But Dumes, as turnover-prone and erratic as he was, actually committed fewer turnovers than Jones, who gave the ball away over three times a game. That is not good, especially not from a point guard.

The real revelation with Verdell Jones comes in the eye test. He has the calm, casual manner of someone used to controlling games. He can hit outside shots and slash to the rim — his slash is more of glide, but you know what I mean — and his passing ability is probably his best attribute. Even with explosive recruits on the horizon, the Hoosiers still need scoring; if Jones can provide an extra threat, all the better.

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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.

‘That’s a wrap’ is Inside the Hall’s player-by-player postseason breakdown of the 2008-2009 Indiana Hoosiers. Today: Verdell Jones.

Final statistics: 11.0 ppg; 3.1 rpg; 71 percent FT’s; 45 percent FG’s; 21 steals

The transformation of Verdell Jones from a player battling walk-on Daniel Moore for playing time to the lead guard for the Hoosiers was one of the top story lines of the season. The freshman from Champaign (IL) averaged 14.5 points over IU’s last 11 games. Once Jones became acclimated to the physical style of the Big Ten, he used his length to get easy baskets inside and also showcased a pull-up jump shot that was unstoppable at times.

With the addition of Jeremiah Rivers and Jordan Hulls to the roster for 2009-2010, it will be interesting to see if the IU coaching staff shifts Jones to the two-guard. If he can improve his strength over the summer, the transition should be seamless and it would allow Jones to embrace the scorer’s mentality he found down the stretch.

Quotable:

“This season is definitely a learning experience. But I think the most we got out of this season is if you work hard and listen to what the coaches say you can improve by leaps and bounds. That’s definitely what we did this year.” – Verdell Jones after IU’s season ending loss to Penn State in the Big Ten Tournament.