Inside the Hall | Indiana Hoosiers Basketball News, Recruiting and Analysis

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.

Aaron Jordan has learned just how long and frustrating the recruiting process can be. A class of 2015 shooting guard from Plainfield, Ill., Jordan has gained major interest from colleges, including Indiana, in recent months as his stock rises. According to the 247 Composite, he is the No. 63 recruit and No. 13 shooting guard in the class. But to him, that heightened level of interest hasn't made his recruitment any easier.

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.

This contest is sponsored by Underground Printing. Visit them in Bloomington on Kirkwood or at UGPIUAPPAREL.com. Thanks to our friends at Underground Printing, we’re back with another contest for the 2013-2014 season. Your task? Predict Indiana’s regular season record for 2013-2014. ...

preseason breakdown of the top 25 players in the Big Ten for the 2013-2014 season. Our selection process involved much deliberation to arrive at a list that we hope will provide plenty of reaction and debate. The series will be broken into five parts (25-21, 20-16, 15-11, 10-6) and our final installment of players 5-1 is available below: 5. Glenn Robinson III, Michigan (6-foot-6, wing, sophomore) 33.6 mpg, 11 ppg, 5.4 rpg, 1.0 spg, 61.1 eFG percentage Robinson could be the first players picked from the Big Ten player in next year’s NBA Draft but he is fifth on our list because so much of his NBA value is based on potential. Robinson was the 10th most efficient offensive player in the country, and most efficient player in the Big Ten last season. At times his offense came so easy that it was taken for granted. He makes the game look simple because of his raw athleticism and the smooth nature of his game, but he averaged 11 points and five rebounds per game as a freshman on a team that made the Final Four. He did have the luxury of the nation’s best point guard setting him up and the majority of his production came from residual action. Two-thirds of his made field goals were assisted but Robinson still deserves credit for finishing whatever opportunities were presented to him.

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.

Following 2016 Foothills Christian (Calif.) power forward T.J. Leaf's unofficial visit to Indiana on Wednesday, Leaf's father, Brad, spoke with Inside the Hall on Thursday afternoon regarding the family's trip to Bloomington. During the visit, Indiana offered the No. 42 prospect and No. 8 power forward in the 2016 class according to the 247Composite, joining UCLA and San Diego State as other schools that have extended scholarship opportunities. Brad Leaf, who also is T.J.'s high school coach, grew up in Indianapolis and played basketball at Evansville from 1979 to 1982. The family now lives in the San Diego area, and Wednesday's visit was T.J.'s first-ever to Bloomington.

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."

Before 2016 Foothills Christian (Calif.) power forward T.J. Leaf planned his first-ever visit to Indiana University, he heard the hype from his parents. He heard the most about IU from his father, Brad, who grew up in the Indianapolis area and played at Evansville from 1979 to 1982. He heard how beautiful the campus was; how great the lifestyle was. "But once we set the visit, he kind of kept quiet and waited for me to actually go there to experience it," Leaf told Inside the Hall on Wednesday evening after finishing a one-day, unofficial visit to IU earlier in the day. His thoughts after experiencing the IU program for a day?

With the official start of practice less than four weeks away, Inside the Hall and UM Hoops have partnered to bring you a preseason breakdown of the top 25 players in the Big Ten for the 2013-2014 season. Our selection process involved much deliberation ...

With the official start of practice less than five weeks away, Inside the Hall and UM Hoops have partnered to bring you a preseason breakdown of the top 25 players in the Big Ten for the 2013-2014 season. Our selection process involved much deliberation to arrive at a list that we hope will provide plenty of reaction and debate.The series will be broken into five parts (25-21, 20-16) and our third installment of players 15-10 is available below: 15. Drew Crawford, Northwestern (6-foot-5, wing, senior) 31.8 mpg, 13.5 ppg, 4.6 rpg, 1.7 apg, 1 spg, 47 eFG percentage (10 GP)

Tyus Battle has visited Indiana twice already this year, most recently arriving in Bloomington last Tuesday and leaving last Friday afternoon. The Gill St. Bernard's (N.J.) sophomore shooting guard told Inside the Hall after his most recent visit that "They're definitely one of the leaders. Indiana is probably recruiting me the hardest right now, too." But that doesn't mean he is any close to a decision. As his father, Gary, noted, Tyus "is not in a rush to grow up."