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[PointGuard]

Week #14 (Feb. 12-18, 2043)

@#11 Indiana Hoosiers (20-3, 10-1)—80, Iowa State Cyclones (16-9, 6-5)—64 (Nicholson-22 pts, 4 reb; Mixson-12 pts, 3 reb, 3 ast, 2 stl; Giesen-12 pts, 4 reb; Serraville-9 pts, 11 ast, 2 stl;

@#11 Indiana Hoosiers (21-3, 11-1)—64, Oral Roberts Golden Eagles (11-12, 8-4)—48 (Nicholson-17 pts, 4 reb, 3 ast, 2 stl, 2 blk; Mixson-10 pts, 4 stl; Waterman-9 pts, 4 reb; Lubeck-8 pts)

Ramon Montez’ comments:

Our defense in both of these games was outstanding. It gave us wins against two of the better teams in Conference H. Nicholson is giving us consistently strong offensive production…Brian’s now averaging 14.2 ppg and has scored in double figures in 23 of our 24 games and he’s been our top scorer in 7 of our last 9 games. Zinn strained his knee…our athletic trainer says it’s likely to take a week to fully recover and we’ll just have to see if he feels good enough to play in our games this coming week. Partially offsetting that bad news, we got good news that we’d moved into the Top 10 in the polls at #9.

[PointGuard]

Week #15 (Feb. 19-25, 2043)

@Toledo Rockets (12-12, 7-6)—75, #9 Indiana Hoosiers (21-4, 11-2)—67 (Mixson-16 pts, 3 stl; Nicholson-14 pts, 4 reb, 2 stl; Lubeck-9 pts, 4 reb)

@Indiana Hoosiers (22-4, 12-2)—63, Rhode Island Rams (11-14, 5-9)—45 (Giesen-17 pts, 6 reb, 2 blk; Nicholson-13 pts, 6 reb, 3 ast; Mixson-13 pts, 4 reb, 2 stl; Serraville-10 pts, 3 reb, 10 ast)

Terry Morillo’s comments:


No excuse for losing to Toledo. We just played badly. We let them get a double digit lead early in the game but came back late in the half to take a one point lead to the locker room. Then it took us nearly 5 minutes in the 2nd half to score and by then we were behind by 15 points. We stumbled along for the next 7 minutes and then caught up and exchanged the lead several times, but let the Rockets hand us our lunch in the final 3 minutes. C George Zinn strained his knee late in the game, but that’s not the reason we lost. We just never got our act together. We returned home to take on Rhode Island, took the lead very early in the game, and then never gave it up. We played a very controlled game offensively and our defense shut down the Rams. Our loss to Toledo allowed Milwaukee to move within one game of us in the standings.

[PointGuard]

Week #16 (Feb. 26-Mar. 4, 2043)

#9 Indiana Hoosiers (23-4, 13-2)—75, @Wake Forest Demon Deacons (10-16, 4-11)—59 (Serraville-17 pts, 3 reb, 8 ast, 3 stl; Mixson-15 pts; Waterman-9 pts, 3 reb; Giesen-8 pts, 7 reb, 4 ast, 3 stl, 2 blk; Collier-8 pts)

@ #9 Indiana Hoosiers (24-4, 14-2)—71, Southern California Trojans (11-16, 9-7)—41 (Zinn-21 pts, 5 reb; Serraville-11 pts, 4 ast; Nicholson-10 pts, 6 reb, 2 stl; Friend-10 pts, 3 ast)

Ken Yamoto’s comments:

Good road win over Wake Forest…we shot well, were +7 on the boards, and made 7 less turnovers than the Demon Deacons and we had 28 points in the paint to 12 by Wake Forest. It was a rare off-night by Brian Nicholson, but Dwayne Serraville picked up the slack. Then we took on a stronger team (USC) and put together a combination of outstanding defense and solid offense to lead from start to finish. We led 49-20 at halftime and expanded our lead to as much as 40 midway through the 2nd half. George Zinn had his best offensive game of his 2 seasons of college ball…and he did it with his injured knee still not being 100%.

[PointGuard]

Final Big West Conference Standings

Indiana: 14-2; 23-4; NET 12; Ranked #8
Oral Roberts: 12-4; 15-12; NET 127
Milwaukee: 11-5; 19-10; NET 31
New Mexico: 10-6; 19-10; NET 40
Rutgers: 10-6; 16-11; NET 58
Southern California: 9-7; 11-16; NET 158
Brown: 8-8; 14-13; NET 171
Iowa State: 8-8; 18-12; NET 111
Toledo: 7-9; 12-15; NET 168
Charleston: 7-9; 9-18; NET 285
Drake: 7-9; 12-15; NET 273
Rhode Island: 6-10; 12-15; NET 135
Wake Forest: 5-11; 11-16; NET 236
Colgate: 5-11; 13-14; NET 184
DePaul: 5-11; 9-18; NET 332
St. John’s: 4-12, 7-20; NET 335

[PointGuard]

Conference H Tournament

Quarterfinals

#1 seed, #8 ranked Indiana Hoosiers (25-4)—65, #8 seed Iowa State Cyclones (19-13)—62 (Waterman-16 pts, 3 reb, 2 stl; Zinn-8 pts, 7 reb, 2 stl; Giesen-7 pts, 9 reb, 2 blk)

Semifinals

#1 seed, #8 ranked Indiana Hoosiers (26-4)—70, #4 seed New Mexico Lobos (20-11)—53 (Nicholson-14 pts, 11 reb; Friend-9 pts; Serraville-8 pts, 3 reb, 8 ast, 2 stl, 1 blk)

Championship

#1 seed, #8 ranked Indiana Hoosiers (27-4)—83, #7 seed Brown Bears (17-14)—75 (Serraville-22 pts, 5 ast, 3 stl; Mixson-19 pts, 2 ast, 3 stl; Nicholson-12 pts, 6 reb; Giesen-6 pts, 12 reb, 2 ast, 4 blk)

Coach Mike McMillan’s comments:

This was a tough tournament. We trailed Iowa State nearly the entire first half. While we held a small 6lead throughout almost all of the 2nd half, the game was extremely close in the closing moments and could well have gone either way. Then the lead shifted between New Mexico and us for 30 minutes, but we shut them down in the final 10 minutes. In the championship game Brown stayed close to us for much of the game and made a late comeback that nearly caught us with our pants down. We need to step it up when we get to the NCAA Tourney if we expect to get anywhere.

[PointGuard]

Ron Storm, the AD at Indiana University

Exciting wins in the conference tournament kept our fans enthusiasm boiling. Following our being crowned as champions, both final polls had us ranked #6. Our NET Ranking was #9.

Here’s our top players this season:

PPG: C Brian Nicholson—13.4; PG Dwayne Serraville—10.6; PF Terrell Giesen—10.3; SG Walter Mixson—8.8; C George Zinn—7.6; SF Julius Waterman—6.8; SF Johnny Lubeck—5.0; PG Jason Friend—4.6; PF Jason Collier—3.7; PG/SG Steve Russell—2.3; SG Troy Henry—1.8; SF Jesse Deane—0.9

RPG: PF Terrell Giesen—6.0; C Brian Nicholson—5.1; C George Zinn—3.6; SF Julius Waterman—2.8; SF Johnny Lubeck—2.6; PG Dwayne Serraville—2.4; PF Jason Collier—2.4; SG Walter Mixson—2.3; PG Jason Friend—1.2

APG: PG Dwayne Summer—5.2; SG Walter Mixson—2.5; PF Terrell Giesen—1.6; SF Julius Waterman—1.6; PG Jason Friend—1.6; SF Johnny Lubeck—1.4; C Brian Nicholson—1.0; PG/SG Steve Russell—0.9; C George Zinn—0.7; SG Troy Henry—0.5; PF Jason Collier—0.4

Selection Show:

Although I felt we should have been a #2 seed, we were named the #3 seed in the South Region. But all of our co-head coaches were satisfied and they’re ready to take on the #14 UC Irvine Anteaters. Returning to the NCAA Tournament after so long an absence has the entire state of Indiana brimming with pride.

[PointGuard]

NCAA Tournament

Round 1

#3 seed, #6 ranked Indiana Hoosiers (28-4)—79, #14 seed UC Irvine Anteaters (17-13)— (Nicholson-14 pts, 3 reb, 3 ast, 2 stl, 3 blk; Mixson-11 pts, 2 stl; Giesen-10 pts, 6 reb, 2 blk; Friend-9 pts, 3 reb, 4 ast, 2 stl; Serraville-8 pts, 2 ast, 2 stl; Zinn-8 pts, 2 blk; Collier-7 pts)

Ken Yamoto’s comments:

UC Irvine scored the first 9 points and went ahead by as much as 16 points midway through the first half. We finally got the lead down to single digits with 6-1/2 minutes to go and then got our first lead at 37-36 with 2-1/2 minutes left. When the half ended we were on top 46-40. Nicholson and Friend had combined for 19 of our points. UC Irvine’s PF O.J. Qualls hit all 5 of his shots and scored 11 points. The Anteaters outshot us 56% to 49% but we made 6 less turnovers. We were unable to pull away in the 2nd half. Although the game was tied on 2 occasions and our lead was a single point with just under 4 minutes to go, we never fell behind. We held the Anteaters scoreless the final 2 minutes and got a very hard-earned victory over UC Irvine who gave us all we could handle. Qualls had 18 points, 10 rebounds and 4 assists for UC Irvine. We’ll need to play better if we want to get further in this tourney.

Round 2 (Round of 32)

#3 seed, #6 ranked Indiana Hoosiers (30-4)—92, #11 seed Marshall Thundering Herd (20-10)—81 (Nicholson-24 pts, 4 reb; Serraville-18 pts, 3 ast, 2 stl; Mixson-13 pts, 4 reb, 4 ast; Friend-10 pts, 2 ast; Giesen-7 pts, 9 reb, 2 stl)

Terry Morillo’s comments:

Marshall upset #6 seed and #20 ranked Xavier 86-73 in round 1. So we needed to improve our play to get by the Thundering Herd. We got out on top immediately but Marshall got within 2 points midway through the first half. Our team responded by quickly opening a double digit lead and led 51-31 at the half. Our lead grew to as much as 28 points with 11 minutes to play. Marshall then began edging closer although they never were able to erase a double digit lead. The Thundering Herd outshot us 58% to 53%, but we won due to being +5 in rebounding and making 7 less turnovers. We played very well for 30 minutes but let up in the final 10 minutes.

Round 3 (Sweet 16)

#7 seed UC Santa Barbara Gauchos (23-11)—82, #3 seed, #6 ranked Indiana Hoosiers (30-5)—72 (Zinn-14 pts, 3 reb, 3 ast; Giesen-13 pts, 5 reb; Mixson-11 pts, 3 reb, 2 ast; Nicholson-10 pts, 3 reb, 2 blk; Serraville-9 pts, 3 reb)

Ramon Montez’ comments

The Gauchos got past #10 seed West Virginia 80-69 and then put together a great game to knock off #2 seed, #5 ranked UNLV 71-57. They came into the game with a lot of confidence and enthusiasm following their sparkling play in the first 2 rounds. 3 of their starters and very nearly a fourth are averaging in double figures.
Neither team was able to gain an advantage in the first half with the lead shifting back and forth. We came out of the half with a slim 42-40 lead. The first 10 minutes of the 2nd half were pretty much a repeat of the first half. There had been 17 lead changes in the first 30 minutes of the game. But we then incurred a power outage…having great difficulty scoring over the next 5 minutes. We gamely tried to come back during the final five minutes but were able to make a dent in UC Santa Barbara’s lead. Our downfall was that we pulled down 7 less rebounds in the game and scored 8 fewer points at the foul line.

[PointGuard]

Mike McMillan

While we were unhappy to not have gotten deeper into the tournament, when we look back over the season, it was tremendously successful and a huge improvement on how the team had done in many years prior to the four of us joining together to lead the Hoosiers. By coming in first in Conference H, we achieved a major goal to be promoted to Conference G this coming season.

I also believe we’ve set a very good foundation for continued success. Although 4 members of our team are graduating, just 2 of them are starters (SG Walter Mixson and PF Terrell Giesen). And between our existing reserves and our incoming freshmen I’m sure we will find solid replacements at those positions…and possibly even greater depth than we had this season. Being a member of Conference G will mean we have tougher competition, but I’m confident that we will be up to the challenge.

C Brian Nicholson was named to the Conference H 2nd Team All-Conference. A well-deserved honor.

The Board of Directors for Indiana University approved our request for a facilities upgrade. When completed it will up our facilities grade from B- to B+.

[PointGuard]

2043-2044 SEASON

Ron Storm, the AD at Indiana University

We’re ready for “Reemergence 2”: the second year of the comeback to prominence of Indiana Hoosiers basketball. “Reemergence1” was a total success with addition of some excellent transfer players, landing of a great recruit class (rated as the 20th best in the nation), and the team being crowned conference champions, making it to the Sweet 16 in the Big Dance, winning 30 games, and getting promoted to a higher ranked conference. And all the credit goes to our 4 co-head coaches.

The facility upgrades have begun and should be completed by the beginning of the coming season. Our co-head coaches are extremely excited about getting improved facilities since they feel it will help with recruiting, make it easier to develop our players, and give us an improved home court advantage this season. They were surprised when their request was approved, but I reminded them that the administration was committed to our “Reemergence”.

[PointGuard]

Co-Head Coach Terry Morillo

The Transfer Portal opened. We expected we would have one or more players transfer. The most likely suspect was SG Troy Henry. Last season he was a freshman and we felt he would develop into a strong player. But he wasn’t ready to crack our starting lineup. We got him into quite a few games but he didn’t get a lot of playing time in each one. He wasn’t happy about that. And true to form, he opted to transfer away from us. But a second player also transferred away…PG Preston Fein. We redshirted him. While he didn’t indicate he was upset by that, in hindsight it’s not all that surprising that he decided to look for greener pastures. Neither of them were likely to be starters for us this season, but their departure significantly decreased our depth at the guard positions. Troy moved on to Buffalo and Preston was picked up by Georgia. It will be interesting to see how they fit into the picture for both of those teams and how they do in their forthcoming 3 seasons of collegiate ball.

So we had 2 open scholarships we could fill with transfer players. We initially went after a high-flying SG who scored nearly 20 ppg as a freshman. It turned out to be to no avail as he chose another college. So our sights moved on to two very good players and got them interested and then pretty quickly landed them both:

PG Brett Mosley, 6-1 Soph who transferred from Texas A&M where he played in all games averaging 8.1 mpg, 3.7 ppg, 1.0 apg, and 0.8 rpg and hit 41% of his FGA’s, 52% of his 3PA’s and 82% of his FTA’s. Right now we see him as a backup at both PG and SG this coming season, but he’s a guy with a lot of potential since he’s good defensively, tough, a great worker, and has a good personality.

C Kirk Reeves, 6-10 soph who transferred from the University of Portland. As a freshman he started every game and averaged 30.8 mpg, 11.0 ppg, 7.4 rpg, and 1.8 apg. He knocked down 64% of his FGA’s and 87% of his FTA’s. We like his inside and midrange shooting as well as his rebounding and defensive abilities. We think he will be a strong backup at C and PF this season.

These two guys definitely improve our depth. We now look solid at all 5 positions and have a variety of players whose flexibility will allow them to play multiple positions. I think we have 11 or 12 players who could perform well on the court for us this coming season. A problem may be giving some of them enough playing time to keep them happy.