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BENNETT'S MINUTES: Big weekend doesn't disappoint
My two collegiate game experiences last weekend couldn’t have been more polar opposites.
One was a major blowout, the other was a one-point nailbiter.
I had higher expectations for Saturday’s Monon Bell Classic, which Wabash won 22-21, than the Indiana-Indiana State game on Friday night.
No one knew what to expect from Indiana, with a new coach in Archie Miller and basically the same team as last year (minus NBA rookies O.G. Anunoby and Thoma Bryant, and high-scoring James Blackmon Jr.).
Still, most observers figured the Hoosiers would win. Las Vegas oddsmakers made IU a 14-point favorite.
Indiana State limped to an 11-20 record last year, despite an upset win over No. 15-ranked Butler. The Sycamores do return senior guard Brenton Scott, who is the only returnee among the team’s first- and second-team all-conference squads of a year ago.
They have brought in a lot of new players, and having been an ISU fan for a great majority of my life we have all seen dozens of players underperform their billing over the years.
I remember going to Assembly Hall numerous times from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, covering a lot of games during the Bob Knight era. There was always an electricity in the air, and when the band would blare the “Lone Ranger” theme with the cheerleaders carrying the IU flags around the court, it would always bring goose bumps.
Friday was different.
The crowd was late in arriving, mostly due to lengthy construction delays on Indiana 37 between Bloomington and Indianapolis.
The result was a far less festive atmosphere than expected for Miller’s debut. There was no home court advantage on this night.
Indiana State has been pretty successful against its Bloomington neighbors, winning three of the last five games between the schools prior to this one before IU refused to schedule any more games.
After the Friday night beatdown by ISU, it may be a long time before they meet again.
Indiana State came out playing with a focus and tenacity absent for several years and just mopped the floor with the Hoosiers.
The Sycamores hit 17 of their first 22 shots from 3-point range, and IU had no answer. ISU wound up taking both a 90-69 victory and a $90,000 check back to Terre Haute.
The reaction from IU people was predictable, if not premature.
Fans at the game were already yelling anti-Archie Miller sentiments, and social media was worse.
I was neither a fan nor a hater of Tom Crean, Miller’s predecessor. Like many coaches, he did a lot better job when he had better players (Cody Zeller, Yogi Ferrell, etc.). Recruiting is a huge part of the equation, and Crean did not thrive in that area. Particularly with players from Indiana.
So here are my biggest takeaways from Friday night:
• ISU will not shoot that well very often, if ever again. The barrage of treys was unrelenting, and the Hoosiers never had a chance to get going.
• It’s incredibly too early to judge Miller on anything, other than on how he has coached Crean’s leftover players. That didn’t seem too good on Friday, but it’s early.
Perhaps more disturbing was IU’s 86-77 win over Howard on Sunday. It’s hard to complain about a victory, but Howard was a team rated in the bottom levels of Division I and was someone the Hoosiers should have beaten more soundly.
Then came Saturday.
It’s hard to jump into a rivalry when you don’t have a dog in the fight, but as a neutral fan it was going to be hard for the game to live up to the billing.
But it did.
Through the first three quarters, these seemed to be two really evenly-matched teams. Both had scored a couple of touchdowns for a 14-14 tie, but as the game progressed it became more difficult for each team to move the ball.
In a rare bit of forecasting accuracy, I wrote on Twitter something to the effect that someone was going to either have to make a big play on defense or a horrible mistake on offense in order for this game to be decided.
Turns out I was right on both counts.
Late in the third quarter, DePauw’s Chandler Nicholson intercepted a Wabash pass and returned it 52 yards for a touchdown.
The Monon Bell, which had not stopped ringing for a couple of hours, looked more like it was going to stay in Greencastle for another year.
The next few possessions produced little movement, and DePauw forced a punt with about six minutes to play. The Tigers fielded the punt around the 10-yard-line, with the receiver trying to scrape out yardage and was hit at the 5 — fumbling the ball with Wabash recovering.
The Little Giants then scored on the first play, and opted to go for a 2-point conversion.
Weston Murphy rolled out and threw a pass to Kirby Cox near the goal line and Cox carried the ball into the end zone for the winning points.
Video replays later showed that Cox’s knee was down before he caught the ball, meaning the conversion could not possibly happen since he would be down immediately upon catching the ball.
It wasn’t ruled that way, however, and Wabash running back Ike James didn’t care.
“He got in,” James told the Indianapolis Star with a laugh. “We’ll take it. Whatever was called on the field, however we can get it, we’ll take it. No matter what people saw, we’ll take it. ...”
DePauw was already down to its third quarterback this season, as freshman Chase Andries was injured in the opener and Matt Labus was hurt a few weeks after taking over.
Jake Lasky had directed the Tigers since that time, but he was injured in the fourth quarter.
DePauw coach Bill Lynch called upon wide receiver Nolan Ayres on the team’s next drive, and Ayres was potentially headed for another huge part of Monon Bell Classic lore.
How cool would it be for a non-quarterback to lead his team to the winning score?
Ayres, a tall lefty, came out slinging the ball and was effective in marching his team right down the field. Ayres took off on a quarterback keeper from about the Wabash 13 and made it to the 1 before fumbling, and DePauw’s chances were over.
The crowd of nearly 8,000 people was highly entertained, although Wabash obviously liked the outcome the most.