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[PointGuard]

Florida A&M Rattlers (2-4) @ Indiana Hoosiers (5-2)

Ramon Montez: No contest. We scored first and never looked back. We led by 19 at the half, increased our lead to as much as 30 points in the 2nd half and coasted at the end to knock off Florida A&M 74-51. We held the Rattlers shooting to 29%. We hit 48% of our FG’s and 47% of our 3’s. Julius Waterman—14 pts; Justin Holmes—12 pts, 4 reb, 4 ast, 3 blk; Brian Nicholson—12 pts; Kirk Reeves—11 pts, 4 reb; Chris Broussard—9 pts, 3 reb; George Zinn—6 pts, 11 reb, 3 ast. [6-2]

[PointGuard]

North Florida Osprey (0-5) @ Indiana Hoosiers (6-2)

Ken Yamoto: We took the lead for good at the 2 minute mark and by halftime were up 38-22. We continued our dominance throughout the 2nd half and surged to an 87-47 blowout victory. Brian Nicholson—21 pts, 11 reb, 3 ast; Dwayne Serraville—21 pts, 3 reb, 5 ast, 2 stl; Justin Holmes—10 pts, 5 reb, 10 ast; George Zinn—8 pts, 5 reb; Chris Broussard—8 pts, 4 reb, 3 ast. [7-2]

[PointGuard]

Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders (6-1) @ Indiana Hoosiers (7-2)

Mike McMillan: There were 11 lead changes in the first half, but the Blue Raiders got their offense flowing late to put us behind 47-38 at halftime. While we made a few runs to make it interesting, we couldn’t ever catch up in the 2nd half as Middle Tennessee’s C John Chambliss poured in 30 points. We ended up on the short end of an 80-71 score. The Blue Raiders hit 63% of their shots. We just didn’t do the job defensively. Dwayne Serraville—20 pts, 3 ast; Chris Broussard—16 pts, 7 reb; Kirk Reeves—15 pts, 5 reb, 3 blk. [7-3]

[PointGuard]

Ramon Montez

In practice today C George Zinn went down. I thought he’d just twisted his ankle, but xrays were taken and our worst fears were realized…a broken foot. The prognosis is that he will miss two months of practice and games. That’s a big loss for us. George had started all 10 games for us this season and was averaging 11.7 ppg and 5.4 rpg.
Initially we plan to now start Kirk Reeves at C. But an alternative would be to move Brian Nicholson back to C and start Jason Collier at PF. Johnny Lubeck and Greg Dye’s minutes are likely to increase in reserve roles.

[PointGuard]

Youngstown State Penguins (4-4) @ Indiana Hoosiers (7-3)

Ken Yamoto: We struggled early in the game. But led by SG Justin Holmes we overtook the Penguins with 6-1/2 minutes left in the first half and finished the half ahead 38-32. Holmes hit all 7 of his FG’s including 4 from beyond the arc and scored 19 points in the half. Four of our starters got tagged with 2 fouls apiece in the first half. PF Brian Nicholson, who only played 8 minutes in the first half due to foul problems, scored the first 7 points for us in the 2nd half and we opened an 11 point lead with 14 minutes remaining. By the midpoint of the 2nd half we were on top 56-36. From there we eased to a 70-52 beatdown of Youngstown State. Justin Holmes—21 pts, 5 reb, 4 ast, 3 stl; Brian Nicholson—15 pts, 6 reb; Kirk Reeves—8 pts, 8 reb, 4 ast, 4 stl; Jason Friend—8 pts, 2 ast; Jason Collier—6 pts, 4 reb. [8-3]

Announcement: Justin Holmes was named the Conference G Freshman Player of the Week.

[PointGuard]

Purdue Fort Wayne Mastadons (6-3) @ Indiana Hoosiers (8-3)

Terry Morillo: Midway through the first half we began puling away with some hot shooting. After hitting 64% of our shots we sported a 34-23 halftime advantage. Far too many turnovers (13) though. With 10 minutes to go in the game we led by 21 and finished with a solid 73-48 victory. Excellent D held the Mastadons shooting to just 32% and forced 19 turnovers. We scored 40 points in the paint. Brian Nicholson—26 pts, 11 reb; Kirk Reeves—12 pts, 4 reb, 2 blk; Chris Broussard—12 pts, 2 ast; Dwayne Summerville—6 pts, 9 reb, 6 ast, 2 stl. [9-3]

Announcement: Brian Nicholson was named the Conference G Player of the Week.

[PointGuard]

Duquesne Dukes (7-3) @ Indiana Hoosiers (9-3)

Mike McMillan: We came out on fire, hitting our first 7 shots to go ahead 16-5. Our lead expanded to as much as 19 points. We finished the half on top 49-34 lead with Nicholson and Broussard combining for 24 points, but Holmes and Collier had 3 fouls apiece. We went ahead by 21 midway through the 2nd half but the Dukes cut the margin to 10 with 5 minutes to play. We held on to score an 88-76 victory. We scored 44 points in the paint. Brian Nicholson—19 pts, 6 reb, 3 stl; Chris Broussard—18 pts, 3 reb, 3 ast; Dwayne Serraville—11 pts, 6 ast, 3 stl; Kirk Reeves—8 pts, 4 reb, 3 ast, 2 blk; Johnny Lubeck—8 pts. [10-3]

[PointGuard]

Ramon Montez

OK! Our pre-conference play has concluded and we’re ready and excited to begin conference play. We travel to take on the Dayton Flyers for our opening game this coming week. Let’s take a look at what our team’s done thus far this season:

Team:

Overall Record: 10-3; Home Record: 8-1; Away Record: 0-1; Neutral Court Record: 2-1; Net Rank: 53

We’ve averaged 76.2 ppg compared to 63.3 ppg by our opponents. We’ve hit 49% of our FG’s and 35% of our 3’s.

Player Stats:

Scoring: Nicholson-14.0; Zinn-11.7; Serraville-10.2; Holmes-9.8; Broussard-9.0; Reeves-7.8; Mosley-4.2; Waterman-3.9; Friend-3.7; Lubeck-3.6; Collier-1.6

Rebounds: Nicholson-6.6; Zinn-5.4; Broussard-3.6; Reeves-3.5; Holmes-3.2; Serraville-3.1; Lubeck-2.0; Collier-2.0; Lubeck-1.7; Mosley-1.0

Assists: Serraville-5.1; Holmes-4.5; Broussard-1.8; Lubeck-1.7; Zinn-1.2, Reeves-1.2; Friend-1.2; Mosley-1.1; Nicholson-1.0

Steals: Serraville-1.6; Holmes-1.2; Broussard-1.2

Blocks: Reeves-1.0; Broussard-0.8

Now that Zinn is out due to injury until very late in the season, our starting 5 is Serraville at PG, Holmes at SG, Broussard at SF, Nicholson at PF, and Reeves at C.

It looks like 10 or 11 teams in Conference G could make a run for 1st place. Vermont has the best pre-conference record at 10-2 but Louisiana-Lafayette has the best NET Rank at 29. We’re the consensus pick by the media to win the crown…with Dayton, LSU, Tennessee, Louisiana Tech, and Purdue following us.

[PointGuard]

Indiana Hoosiers (10-3, 0-0) @ Dayton Flyers (6-6, 0-0)

Ken Yamoto: Dayton’s supposed to be our principal challenger for leadership within the conference so taking them on in Dayton could be tough. Two of their losses have been to ranked teams. Here’s what happened: The first half was a combination of excellent O and D for us. After Dayton scored the first 2 points, we scored the next 6 and led by Broussard and Holmes, we never trailed again, finishing the half ahead 38-26. We continued our dominance of the Flyers in the 2nd half until we went flat and Dayton came alive in the final five minutes. The Flyers ended up putting a scare into us by closing fast and coming within 2 points. But we won 59-57. Justin Holmes—17 pts, 4 reb, 4 ast; Chris Broussard—10 pts, 5 reb, 8 ast; Jason Collier—10 pts, 2 ast; Brian Nicholson—7 pts, 14 reb, 3 ast, 2 stl. [11-3, 1-0, 1st place tie]

[PointGuard]

Vermont Catamounts (11-2, 1-0) @ Indiana Hoosiers (11-3, 1-0)

Ramon Montez: As in our previous game, we burned up the net with hot shooting in the first half and led by 21 with 7 minutes left til halftime. We hit 69% of our shots in the first half and held Vermont’s shooting to just 30%. It would have been easy to say we had the game sewed up with a 49-26 halftime lead, but we after letting Dayton come back so strong late in our last game, we knew we had to keep the pressure on. And we did exactly that…holding onto a big lead the entire final 20 minutes and finishing with an easy 81-55 blowout win. This was Kirk Reeves best game as a Hoosier. Chris Broussard—20 pts, 3 reb, 3 ast, 2 stl; Kirk Reeves—16 pts, 10 reb; Brian Nicholson—16 pts, 9 reb, 2 ast, 2 stl; Justin Holmes—12 pts, 5 ast, 2 stl. [12-3, 2-0, 1st place tie]

Announcements: The Indiana Hoosiers are now #22 in both the Media Poll and Coaches Poll. In addition Chris Broussard was named the Freshman Player of the Week for Conference G.