Penn State may have taken a step back last season from a wins and losses perspective, but the rebuilding effort being led by Pat Chambers continues to move along at a program with little historical success on the hardwood. If there is such a thing as a competitive two-win Big Ten team, Penn State fit the bill a season ago. The Nittany Lions struggled to find their footing after losing Tim Frazier to a torn Achilles' tendon, but finished the conference slate with a home win over eventual national runner-up Michigan and a win at Northwestern. Penn State also played Wisconsin to a narrow 66-63 loss to close the regular season at the Bryce Jordan Center. With Frazier back in the rotation to go along with D.J. Newbill, Penn State boasts one of the league's best backcourts. Frazier was a first team All-Big Ten selection back in 2011-2012 and while he's never been particularly efficient, he posted a ridiculous assist rate of 45.2 (second nationally) while also averaging 18.8 points, 4.7 rebounds and 2.7 steals per game in his last full season.
Class of 2014 combo guard Robert Johnson has set a date to announce his college decision. As first reported by Paul Biancardi of ESPN.com, Johnson will pick from one of his four finalists and end his recruitment on Friday, Sept. 20. Johnson confirmed the date of the announcement in a text on Tuesday evening to Inside the Hall. Johnson, who has already taken official visits to Indiana, Virginia and North Carolina, has an official visit to Florida State scheduled for this weekend. According to the Twitter account of the Benedictine (Va.) guard, Tom Crean had an in-home visit with Johnson on Monday and North Carolina coach Roy Williams conducted an in-home visit on Tuesday.
One of Indiana's top recruiting targets in the class of 2014, Goodluck Okonoboh, will take an official visit to Indiana next weekend. It will be the first official visit for Okonoboh, a 6-foot-9 center who plays at Wilbraham and Monson Academy, which is just outside of Springfield, Mass.
One of the top young players in the class of 2016, Braxton Blackwell, is planning to visit Indiana next month for Hoosier Hysteria. Blackwell, a 6-foot-8, 215 pound forward who plays for former Vanderbilt standout Drew Maddux at Christ Presbyterian Academy in Nashville, Tennessee, is rated the No. 19 prospect nationally in the 247Composite. Indiana tracked Blackwell closely this summer as he was a standout playing at the 17-and-under level for the Atlanta Celtics in events like the adidas Invitational in Indianapolis and the adidas Super 64 in Las Vegas.
The Inside the Hall Mailbag is a collection of questions tweeted to us via Twitter (@insidethehall) and sent to us via our Facebook page. Submit your questions and we’ll answer as many as we can. Authentic Hoosier writes: How do you see Evan Gordon contributing to this year's team? Gordon will bring experience and a high basketball IQ. He's a bit undersized for a two-guard, but he's proven himself capable of contributing at the highest level of college basketball. As a junior at Arizona State, Gordon put together four games with 20 or more points. To get a better sense of his game, we talked to Doug Haller, the Arizona State beat writer for The Arizona Republic last spring.
Labor Day has come and gone, which means that college basketball preview magazine have started to hit newsstands. And as we mentioned earlier today on Twitter, Indiana is being touted as a preseason top 25 team by Lindy's Sports and The Sporting News. The Hoosiers are No. 20 in the Lindy's Sports preseason top 25, which has a regional cover featuring Indiana's Yogi Ferrell, Purdue's Terone Johnson and Notre Dame's Jerian Grant. And in The Sporting News preseason rankings, the Hoosiers are slotted in at No. 25. The Sporting News regional cover sold in Indiana features Indiana's Yogi Ferrell and Ohio State's Aaron Craft.
Victor Oladipo was an All-American in his junior season at Indiana and the No. 2 pick in June's NBA Draft. His meteoric rise was one of the stories of college basketball a season ago. So when Oladipo returned to Bloomington a couple of weekends ago to host Tom Crean's Basketball ProCamp, it was perfect timing for Indiana, which was in the midst of a huge recruiting weekend. One of the major guests was Robert Johnson, who was making his first official visit and receiving his first up close look at a program that has pursued him relentlessly for months. Oladipo's message to Johnson, a late riser from Richmond (Va.) in the class of 2014, was straightforward according to his father, Robert Sr. "Victor talked to Robert and I met with him and talked with him," Johnson Sr. told Inside the Hall. "He just told Robert how Indiana is a great school and gave him his blessing that if he decides to go there, he can wear No. 4."
All six Indiana freshmen – Collin Hartman, Devin Davis, Luke Fischer, Noah Vonleh, Stanford Robinson and Troy Williams – met with the media on Friday afternoon to discuss their progress since arriving in Bloomington earlier this summer. Among the topics ...
Devin Robinson’s rise from fringe top 100 to a five-star prospect nationally was one of the top recruiting stories of the spring and summer. Now, the Christchurch School (Va.) senior forward is ready to begin the next step of his ...
Indiana University announced the complete men’s basketball schedule for the 2013-2014 season earlier this afternoon. Nearly the entire non-conference schedule had already been revealed, but now the finalized schedule with all Big Ten dates is out. Start times, broadcast information and an ...
Robert Johnson returned home to Richmond, Va., from his official visit to Indiana late Monday night and on Tuesday afternoon, he provided a brief, but telling, comment on his first official visit. “It was one of the best experiences I ...
Indiana sophomore guard Yogi Ferrell will be on a regional cover of the 2013-2014 Athlon Sports college basketball preview that will hit newsstands around the state next month. Ferrell, IU’s second leading returning scorer, will be joined by Butler’s Khyle ...
Check out 10 photos by Kelly Kline and Under Armour of Indiana recruiting targets Isaiah Whitehead, Goodluck Okonoboh and Stephen Zimmerman from last night’s Elite 24 in Brooklyn in the embedded photo gallery after the jump.
Tom Crean, along with former IU standouts D.J. White and Victor Oladipo, are hosting a soldout camp this weekend at Assembly Hall and met with the media to discuss the experience. Oladipo also talked about his first couple of months ...
As a 25-year veteran of the grassroots basketball scene, Tony Squire has dedicated more than two decades of his life to helping young people achieve their goals both on and off the court. He’s coached future NBA Hall of Famers ...
We took an early look at the 2013-2014 backcourt on Monday and today, the focus shifts to the frontcourt, where Indiana is also faced with substantial changes. We’ll have comprehensive player-by-player previews this fall, but here’s an early look at some ...