by Ace Dad » November 20th, 2010, 11:54 pm
From newspaper article in Bloomington:
Indiana coach Tom Crean said Friday that he is pleased with how his team responded to playing three games in five days, and how they have practiced since that stint ended.
“They have a very good focus,” Crean said. “They’re locking into gameplans. They’re locking into what have to do to get better. But you have to do it everyday. That’s the sign of maturity: can you do it everyday and not just when you’re winning or in a span like this.
“To play the way they did and prepare the way they did in three games in five days says a lot about them in the first week of a season. But now it’s a whole other week and we got to make sure we keep taking it a little further.”
It’s not three-in-five, but Sunday’s 1 p.m. game against Evansville starts a stretch of three-in-six. Indiana will play North Carolina Central on Tuesday and then Northwestern State on Friday.
“We’ve tried to make sure that we understand we got another big stretch coming up, with a Sunday-Tuesday-Friday,” Crean said. “So we’re looking down the long range picture with that, a little bit. You stay in the short term with getting your team better everyday, but knowing that they’re really going to have to bring it over a three-game period of time.
“The most important thing is to stay completely locked in to playing Evansville on Sunday and I think they are very locked in.”
As far as Evansville goes, the Aces are 2-0 with wins against Oakland City and Texas-San Antonio. They’ve had four guys average double figures in those contests, led by 6-6 junior Kenneth Harris (15.5 points).
Sophomore Colt Ryan is a familiar face, having played for Indiana Elite with Hoosiers Jordan Hulls and Bobby Capobianco.
“(Indiana is) going to see more screens and more curls and more slips in one game than they have seen in three altogether right now and we are going to have to be prepared to deal with that,” Crean said.
There is no difference between basketball and life. Give both your best and ignore the "fans" on the sideline.