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 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."