BLOOMINGTON - For Indiana's youthful Hoosiers, it's about listening. Sounds simple, doesn't it? Tom Crean tells his guys he wants the ball to end up at, say, Point B. Only it isn't simple. The ball ends up at Point C. Or he demands they use the backboard for layups, and they don't.
Maybe, an emphasis on maybe, this would work if IU had steamrolled its way through the Puerto Rico Tipoff competition. It did not, in part because of not listening - specifically not implementing what Crean wanted.
Call it growing pains or inexperience or lack of concentration, but it has to stop, and fast. Saturday's game against Northwestern State would be a good place to start.
“One thing I can promise you is we spend a lot of time in practice on layups and making them with contact,” Crean said. “Obviously I am not doing a good enough job there because I either don't have strong enough guys hitting them or strong enough pads. That's going to change because we are not buying into how important that glass is.”
In case the Hoosiers miss - or dismiss - that point, Crean refers to Dwayne Wade, who once played for Crean at Marquette and who is now an NBA superstar.
“I have a guy who is going to make $100 million and he didn't have any trouble listening to me and figuring out how to get to the glass,” Crean said. “I sure am not going to tolerate anyone not listening now. I know it's not that they don't want to. A lot of it is that they just don't realize how important it is. It isn't ingrained into their minds yet.”
And then there's defense.
“We have some guys who do not sell out, defensively, the way they have to,” Crean said. “Our communication is still not as good as it needs to be.”
Welcome to the aftermath of IU's opening five-games-in-10-days blitz. It emerged with a 2-3 record, 0-3 in Puerto Rico and, perhaps, with a greater sense of what is expected and what is to come. No team they've played - Mississippi, Boston and George Mason were the Puerto Rico opponents - has the firepower of such upcoming teams as No. 21 Maryland (4-1), Pitt (4-1) and No. 5 Kentucky (5-0).
Northwestern State (2-1) isn't quite so formidable (it's beaten East Texas Baptist 77-54 and Houston Baptist 92-61, and lost at Texas Tech 94-75), but that's not the point. Crean is determined to get this thing right so the 2-3 start doesn't disintegrate into a repeat of last year's 6-25 disaster.
“I learned a lot about this team,” Crean said. “We have a lot of determinations to make, like how we really want to play. I am trying to play too many guys right now, but we are trying to get out and run. Are we going to go all-out after it and press more and shrink the bench? It's all about these guys really understanding the foundation we are building.”
Potential is there. Freshman guard Maurice Creek has scored in double figures in all five games and averages a team-leading 16.2 points. Freshman forward Bobby Capobianco had seven points and 10 rebounds in 17 off-the-bench minutes against George Mason.
Freshman forward Christian Watford had 10 points and eight rebounds against George Mason to just miss his third double-double of the season. He averages 11.0 points and 7.8 rebounds. Sophomore guard Verdell Jones averages 13.2 points and leads the team in steals (10) and assist-to-turnover ratio (15 to 8). Junior guard Jeremiah Rivers averages 8.8 points and 5.6 rebounds.
Still, after three straight losses, more is needed.
“We're not at the tempo we want in practice yet and I get mad at my own coaching staff for that,” Crean said. “I guess I've got to point the finger at myself. We're not getting the tempo we need on a consistent basis. We've got to learn to play through that fatigue.”
