Southport guard Paul Scruggs, the No. 30 overall player in the Class of 2017, will be visiting Indiana tomorrow for the Ohio State football game. Scruggs has been to Indiana more than any prospect from that class and the Hoosiers appear to be in as good if not better shape than any program out there right now with the junior. Scruggs hasn't been making visits this fall as he's been busy playing football but will make time to make the short drive for the big game tomorrow at Memorial Stadium.
Speaking of that game, be sure to leave early as traffic could be a nightmare. Traffic info link.
If you're there early you can check out the Dakich Gameday set up located between Memorial Stadium and the westside of Assembly Hall. It will run from 12:30 to 2/2:30ish
Kickoff is 3:30 pm on the ABC Network.
By all accounts the visit to Indiana last weekend by De'Ron Davis went extremely well. There was never any sourced info that he might pop for the Hoosiers during or after the trip but it wouldn't have come as a big surprise if he had.
The indications still point to Indiana being the leader despite the news that he will visit Mississippi State on October 9th and Arizona on October 23. The fact that Texas has not set up a visit is a bit of a surprise.
So the tea leave may point to Arizona as being Indiana's biggest threat here. The Wildcats though have a lot of irons in the fire upfront. Head coach Sean Miller flew out to Finland recently to see 6-foot-10 Lauri Markkanen. He's supposedly a five-star, one and done level kind of guy who is down to UA, Utah and UNC, and will visit those three in the coming month. Markkanen averaged 18.3 points a game for his national team over the summer in the European Championships.
The Wildcats along with Kansas are the reported favorites also for Rivals150 power forward Mitch Lightfoot. He's from Arizona but used to live in the Kansas City area.
Indiana offered 2017 point guard Da'Monte Williams this past week per the Mac Irvin Fire coaching staff. He's the son of former Illini point guard Frank Williams and plays at the same Peoria Manual program that his dad played. While he has those strong Illinois ties, the talk is he's definitely no lock for Illinois, especially given the struggles of late for that program that are expected to last at least one more season.
Williams is ranked No. 56 in the class and also holds offers from Illinois and Bradley. Having seen him a few times, he has a lot of similarities to his father in that he's a bit of a bigger sized point guard who excels in the open court and has the versatility to move over to the other guard spot.
The Hoosiers checked in on another Illinois legacy this week when the staff traveled to Lincolnshire (Ill.) Stevenson to see Justin Smith, a 6-foot-7 forward currently at No. 11 in the Rivals150. The junior was also seen by Georgetown and Illinois and holds offers from DePaul, Illinois, Indiana, Northwestern, Purdue, Rice and Wake Forest.
Smith took an unofficial to Indiana in early August and the Hoosiers have a seem to have a serious chance here if they continue to prioritize him over the next year.
Indiana was expected to be in this week to see a player in contention for the top overall prospect in the Class of 2017 - point guard Trevon Duval. The Philly area native recently moved to Dallas to play at Advanced Preparatory International.
The competition for Duval will obviously be fierce but Indiana did get involved before he blew up to the No. 2 overall player in the Rivals150.
The Hoosier Hyesteria visitor list is continuing to grow. It will be held October 24th. Mario Kegler has scheduled his official visit to Indiana that weekend. Not a lot of buzz on that recruitment other than Arizona State and Maryland are in good with him. Indiana obviously too to have earned the precious official.
Malik Williams, Kris Wilkes are the headliner 2017 guys coming in that weekend. Does seem like the Hoosiers have put themselves in better position with Wilkes over the last couple months.
This weekend marks the start of full practice for Division I basketball across the country. With that in mind coach Tom Crean met with the media yesterday at Cook Hall.
Here are a few highlights.
On the health of the team:
"We don't have a team that's fully healthy, so we'll definitely make adjustments inside of practice, but everybody is ready to start practice.
"In the case of James, James has been going full tilt but he missed a lot, but he's out there ready to go full go, but he still has a ways to go in building his body back up, because he did a great job at getting stronger. He even did a great job at getting stronger when he was dealing with the injury.
"The one thing that we have not done a lot of is play some pick up games. We're not huge about 'let's be playing as much basketball as we can play' because what happens is a lot of those things become now you're taking away bad habits when the coaches aren't there. We want to build good habits and that's what the drills are for. You hope that's happening in the pick-up games, but we've done very little full-court since September 15 when we were able to put the whole team together. We've done a lot more smaller group workouts and only a couple of workouts when the whole team has been there.
"But with James and with the other guys, it's a matter of building them up. It's a long season. It's a long process. We're taking it everyday for what it is and having great communication with Tim Garl, with Dr. Rink, Dr. Ahlfeld and planning accordingly. But nothing different than what we've done in the past. Sometimes this guy will go this long, sometimes this guy will only do half court, and the whole goal is to get them as healthy as they can be as we get ready to start the season.
"We will have a full team. Nobody will be standing on the sidelines not being able to participate tomorrow other than Josh Newkirk, and we've tried to be extremely creative in our workouts with him. Even though he can really only move in a short space, hopefully he feels like his fundamentals are getting a lot better in spite of that. We'll be anxiously awaiting him to do more as every week goes on. Him coming in and getting better, improving his game, building his leadership already, those things have been good for us. So he'll be the only one who won't be able to go all the way."
More on Blackmon recovery:
"He lost a little bit of the fundamentals with how quick he has to be with the basketball. It's in his hands a lot in workouts. When we work out, we are playing anywhere from ½ to ¾ court where it is live. So it is not just start the offense from the top of the key and let's go make a pass and cut. It is the same thing when we have gone up and down. We want to apply pressure, we want them to be able to deal with pressure, and I think that is one of the biggest things he has to make the jump on. The decision making with speed and under pressure if he is going to have the ball in his hands more. But I think he is getting better at different things we are trying to do with creating space off screens and off the handoff.
"His shot has been not normal James Blackmon shooting at this point. I think that is a product of him being out as long as he was, but I don't have any concerns about that. He has come back with no fear. He has come back on the attack. It is really the mental part of playing through things and the decision making that needs to come through for him as we start getting into live day-to-day practice.
"The biggest thing is going to be how he does on defense. He has an awareness, more and more, right now. It has been in shorter pockets of time. It hasn't been over game-to-game or day-to-day yet. I am hopeful he understands that will have a lot to do with his playing time this year. The decision making and the defense will have a lot to do with all of their playing time. I am not big on who has done what to earn playing time and predicting starting lineups, because really it is very irrelevant. It is fun to talk about, but in theory it is a fluid deal."
On absorbing loss of Holt:
"Our young guys in the case of Thomas Bryant, Juwan Morgan and O.G. Anunoby, those guys have to be able to help us, especially with the loss of Emmitt (Holt). Emmitt was a guy that would have been at least a top 8 situation and a potential starter, based on what he did last year. He was having a great spring and summer, so with that being said, that pushes the freshmen up the ladder that much quicker in a sense of them having to really get an understanding."
More on Juwan Morgan and OG Anunoby:
"They have made tremendous strides. I think Juwan went up 130 pounds in the squat area, at least 80 pounds in the bench area, and increased his vertical by three inches. O.G. had the second strongest legs on the team, made the biggest jump of the summer, and is also learning to play more away from the basket. Those two are really hard workers.
"O.G. fits into that Oladipo, Sheehey, Hulls mode of really being around here a lot to work on his game. We have to make sure they continue to play versatile. We recruited them to play versatile, and now that becomes part of the deal. They have to be able to guard different people. Athletically they are there. When you are working out for two hours a week for basketball you are going to get great intensity. They have been fantastic at conditioning and strength training. They have really jumped in and done all of that. But now the weeks go from eight hours, and whatever you do extra, to 20 hours, and whatever you do extra. You have to be able to keep that same level of intensity, that same level of endurance, and that same level of desire and determination to get better."
On what areas Robert Johnson is showing he'll be better:
"Decision-making. Better speed with the ball. Getting it up the court quicker. Playing without the ball may be even bigger than that. Playing without the ball underneath the elbows and being able to cut and move with it because he was a 39 percent 3-point shooter last year. And he was a guy who I didn't think shot nearly as good as he's capable of shooting. He's made a lot of strides in his improvement of shooting, especially the way he lands because he's a jump shooter, and a lot of times jump shooters have a tough landing spot. He's really worked on landing in the right place, which is really just a little bit forward.
"We work a lot of both feet, work off both hands, drop both shoulders, all those types of things. In that case, being better with his left hand is going to be big, but being able to decipher situations, concepts, decision-making even quicker at an even faster pace if that makes sense. Play even faster. Also having him be able to play equally as well without the ball so he can get into situations where he's going to get easier shots. I think he's improved athletically so I think that'll come into it, but then he's just got to be an absolute terror on defense whether it's in the full court, whether it's on the ball in the half court or whether it's his awareness off the ball."
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Indiana football will be playing the biggest game of the Kevin Wilson era when they host number ranked Ohio State tomorrow afternoon at Memorial Stadium. The game will kick-off at 3:30 p.m. and it will be televised by ABC. Both teams are 4-0 and the Buckeyes are right around a three touchdown favorite. Peegs.com has out several stories this week leading up to the game and you can check those out below:
Ohio State week: William Inge Q&A
A look at the Buckeyes
Oliver stepping up at linebacker
Hanging with the Buckeyes
Ohio State week: Tony Fields Q&A
Coach TV: Previewing Ohio State
Ten Takeaways: Indiana vs. Ohio State
Indiana-Wake Forest: A Look Back
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The IU program did get some bad news earlier this week when it was announced that starting defensive lineman Darius Latham has been suspended indefinitely pending the resolution of a proceeding with the IU Office of Student Ethics. You can read the story here that has a statement from Indiana.
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As we talked about in last week’s Inside The Locker Room there was a movement to get ESPN College GameDay to Bloomington this weekend for the Ohio State game, but instead GameDay decided to head down to Clemson for their match-up with Notre Dame. There will be another kind of GameDay as current radio host and former IU basketball player and coach Dan Dakich will host his own version of GameDay before the IU-OSU game. Jeff Rabjohns has been following this story and you can read the updates he has had on it here.
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Traffic has been an issue for IU fans all season long with the construction on SR37, and with a much larger crowd expected those issues are magnified. Parking for this weekend’s is also an issue as it appears there is very little to no parking left if you don’t have a pre-paid parking pass. You can check out stories from the IUHoosiers.com site talking game day traffic and parking issues, as well as how ticket sales are going.
IU announces traffic & parking info for OSU game
IU game vs. OSU sold out
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A couple of Indiana players were recognized for their play this season. Junior wideout Ricky Jones has been named to the Biletnikoff Award Watch List which recognizes the top receiver in the country. You can read about that here.
And running back Jordan Howard was named the Big Ten Co-Offensive Player of the Week after his performance in the IU win at Wake Forest. Here is the release that talks about that.
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The Indiana staff is expecting a number of top recruiting targets to be at the game tomorrow and we have a list of the prospects that we have confirmed will be there. You can check out that list on our Premium FB Board.
One of the prospects that will be visiting IU this weekend is 2017 Georgia RB Kurt Taylor. The three-star prospect currently has about 15 offers, including one from the Hoosiers. Here is an update we did on him earlier this week.
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The 2016 Indiana recruiting class is at about the midway point of their respective seasons and Peegs.com has a weekly feature that tracks how each commit is doing. Here is our Following the Future story.
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The IU staff is still looking to add at least one more cornerback to their 2016 class and it appears they are targeting junior college prospects for that spot. We spoke to juco corner Kamal Hardy about his recruiting and his interest in IU. Hardy is currently committed to Iowa State, but he plans on visiting IU after his season. You can read the story we did on him here.
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With the NFL season starting this past weekend Peegs.com has out weekly feature on how former Hoosiers playing in the NFL did in their respective games. Here is the update on how six former IU players did in week one of the NFL season.
Speaking of that game, be sure to leave early as traffic could be a nightmare. Traffic info link.
If you're there early you can check out the Dakich Gameday set up located between Memorial Stadium and the westside of Assembly Hall. It will run from 12:30 to 2/2:30ish
Kickoff is 3:30 pm on the ABC Network.
By all accounts the visit to Indiana last weekend by De'Ron Davis went extremely well. There was never any sourced info that he might pop for the Hoosiers during or after the trip but it wouldn't have come as a big surprise if he had.
The indications still point to Indiana being the leader despite the news that he will visit Mississippi State on October 9th and Arizona on October 23. The fact that Texas has not set up a visit is a bit of a surprise.
So the tea leave may point to Arizona as being Indiana's biggest threat here. The Wildcats though have a lot of irons in the fire upfront. Head coach Sean Miller flew out to Finland recently to see 6-foot-10 Lauri Markkanen. He's supposedly a five-star, one and done level kind of guy who is down to UA, Utah and UNC, and will visit those three in the coming month. Markkanen averaged 18.3 points a game for his national team over the summer in the European Championships.
The Wildcats along with Kansas are the reported favorites also for Rivals150 power forward Mitch Lightfoot. He's from Arizona but used to live in the Kansas City area.
Indiana offered 2017 point guard Da'Monte Williams this past week per the Mac Irvin Fire coaching staff. He's the son of former Illini point guard Frank Williams and plays at the same Peoria Manual program that his dad played. While he has those strong Illinois ties, the talk is he's definitely no lock for Illinois, especially given the struggles of late for that program that are expected to last at least one more season.
Williams is ranked No. 56 in the class and also holds offers from Illinois and Bradley. Having seen him a few times, he has a lot of similarities to his father in that he's a bit of a bigger sized point guard who excels in the open court and has the versatility to move over to the other guard spot.
The Hoosiers checked in on another Illinois legacy this week when the staff traveled to Lincolnshire (Ill.) Stevenson to see Justin Smith, a 6-foot-7 forward currently at No. 11 in the Rivals150. The junior was also seen by Georgetown and Illinois and holds offers from DePaul, Illinois, Indiana, Northwestern, Purdue, Rice and Wake Forest.
Smith took an unofficial to Indiana in early August and the Hoosiers have a seem to have a serious chance here if they continue to prioritize him over the next year.
Indiana was expected to be in this week to see a player in contention for the top overall prospect in the Class of 2017 - point guard Trevon Duval. The Philly area native recently moved to Dallas to play at Advanced Preparatory International.
The competition for Duval will obviously be fierce but Indiana did get involved before he blew up to the No. 2 overall player in the Rivals150.
The Hoosier Hyesteria visitor list is continuing to grow. It will be held October 24th. Mario Kegler has scheduled his official visit to Indiana that weekend. Not a lot of buzz on that recruitment other than Arizona State and Maryland are in good with him. Indiana obviously too to have earned the precious official.
Malik Williams, Kris Wilkes are the headliner 2017 guys coming in that weekend. Does seem like the Hoosiers have put themselves in better position with Wilkes over the last couple months.
This weekend marks the start of full practice for Division I basketball across the country. With that in mind coach Tom Crean met with the media yesterday at Cook Hall.
Here are a few highlights.
On the health of the team:
"We don't have a team that's fully healthy, so we'll definitely make adjustments inside of practice, but everybody is ready to start practice.
"In the case of James, James has been going full tilt but he missed a lot, but he's out there ready to go full go, but he still has a ways to go in building his body back up, because he did a great job at getting stronger. He even did a great job at getting stronger when he was dealing with the injury.
"The one thing that we have not done a lot of is play some pick up games. We're not huge about 'let's be playing as much basketball as we can play' because what happens is a lot of those things become now you're taking away bad habits when the coaches aren't there. We want to build good habits and that's what the drills are for. You hope that's happening in the pick-up games, but we've done very little full-court since September 15 when we were able to put the whole team together. We've done a lot more smaller group workouts and only a couple of workouts when the whole team has been there.
"But with James and with the other guys, it's a matter of building them up. It's a long season. It's a long process. We're taking it everyday for what it is and having great communication with Tim Garl, with Dr. Rink, Dr. Ahlfeld and planning accordingly. But nothing different than what we've done in the past. Sometimes this guy will go this long, sometimes this guy will only do half court, and the whole goal is to get them as healthy as they can be as we get ready to start the season.
"We will have a full team. Nobody will be standing on the sidelines not being able to participate tomorrow other than Josh Newkirk, and we've tried to be extremely creative in our workouts with him. Even though he can really only move in a short space, hopefully he feels like his fundamentals are getting a lot better in spite of that. We'll be anxiously awaiting him to do more as every week goes on. Him coming in and getting better, improving his game, building his leadership already, those things have been good for us. So he'll be the only one who won't be able to go all the way."
More on Blackmon recovery:
"He lost a little bit of the fundamentals with how quick he has to be with the basketball. It's in his hands a lot in workouts. When we work out, we are playing anywhere from ½ to ¾ court where it is live. So it is not just start the offense from the top of the key and let's go make a pass and cut. It is the same thing when we have gone up and down. We want to apply pressure, we want them to be able to deal with pressure, and I think that is one of the biggest things he has to make the jump on. The decision making with speed and under pressure if he is going to have the ball in his hands more. But I think he is getting better at different things we are trying to do with creating space off screens and off the handoff.
"His shot has been not normal James Blackmon shooting at this point. I think that is a product of him being out as long as he was, but I don't have any concerns about that. He has come back with no fear. He has come back on the attack. It is really the mental part of playing through things and the decision making that needs to come through for him as we start getting into live day-to-day practice.
"The biggest thing is going to be how he does on defense. He has an awareness, more and more, right now. It has been in shorter pockets of time. It hasn't been over game-to-game or day-to-day yet. I am hopeful he understands that will have a lot to do with his playing time this year. The decision making and the defense will have a lot to do with all of their playing time. I am not big on who has done what to earn playing time and predicting starting lineups, because really it is very irrelevant. It is fun to talk about, but in theory it is a fluid deal."
On absorbing loss of Holt:
"Our young guys in the case of Thomas Bryant, Juwan Morgan and O.G. Anunoby, those guys have to be able to help us, especially with the loss of Emmitt (Holt). Emmitt was a guy that would have been at least a top 8 situation and a potential starter, based on what he did last year. He was having a great spring and summer, so with that being said, that pushes the freshmen up the ladder that much quicker in a sense of them having to really get an understanding."
More on Juwan Morgan and OG Anunoby:
"They have made tremendous strides. I think Juwan went up 130 pounds in the squat area, at least 80 pounds in the bench area, and increased his vertical by three inches. O.G. had the second strongest legs on the team, made the biggest jump of the summer, and is also learning to play more away from the basket. Those two are really hard workers.
"O.G. fits into that Oladipo, Sheehey, Hulls mode of really being around here a lot to work on his game. We have to make sure they continue to play versatile. We recruited them to play versatile, and now that becomes part of the deal. They have to be able to guard different people. Athletically they are there. When you are working out for two hours a week for basketball you are going to get great intensity. They have been fantastic at conditioning and strength training. They have really jumped in and done all of that. But now the weeks go from eight hours, and whatever you do extra, to 20 hours, and whatever you do extra. You have to be able to keep that same level of intensity, that same level of endurance, and that same level of desire and determination to get better."
On what areas Robert Johnson is showing he'll be better:
"Decision-making. Better speed with the ball. Getting it up the court quicker. Playing without the ball may be even bigger than that. Playing without the ball underneath the elbows and being able to cut and move with it because he was a 39 percent 3-point shooter last year. And he was a guy who I didn't think shot nearly as good as he's capable of shooting. He's made a lot of strides in his improvement of shooting, especially the way he lands because he's a jump shooter, and a lot of times jump shooters have a tough landing spot. He's really worked on landing in the right place, which is really just a little bit forward.
"We work a lot of both feet, work off both hands, drop both shoulders, all those types of things. In that case, being better with his left hand is going to be big, but being able to decipher situations, concepts, decision-making even quicker at an even faster pace if that makes sense. Play even faster. Also having him be able to play equally as well without the ball so he can get into situations where he's going to get easier shots. I think he's improved athletically so I think that'll come into it, but then he's just got to be an absolute terror on defense whether it's in the full court, whether it's on the ball in the half court or whether it's his awareness off the ball."
-----------
Indiana football will be playing the biggest game of the Kevin Wilson era when they host number ranked Ohio State tomorrow afternoon at Memorial Stadium. The game will kick-off at 3:30 p.m. and it will be televised by ABC. Both teams are 4-0 and the Buckeyes are right around a three touchdown favorite. Peegs.com has out several stories this week leading up to the game and you can check those out below:
Ohio State week: William Inge Q&A
A look at the Buckeyes
Oliver stepping up at linebacker
Hanging with the Buckeyes
Ohio State week: Tony Fields Q&A
Coach TV: Previewing Ohio State
Ten Takeaways: Indiana vs. Ohio State
Indiana-Wake Forest: A Look Back
-----
The IU program did get some bad news earlier this week when it was announced that starting defensive lineman Darius Latham has been suspended indefinitely pending the resolution of a proceeding with the IU Office of Student Ethics. You can read the story here that has a statement from Indiana.
-----
As we talked about in last week’s Inside The Locker Room there was a movement to get ESPN College GameDay to Bloomington this weekend for the Ohio State game, but instead GameDay decided to head down to Clemson for their match-up with Notre Dame. There will be another kind of GameDay as current radio host and former IU basketball player and coach Dan Dakich will host his own version of GameDay before the IU-OSU game. Jeff Rabjohns has been following this story and you can read the updates he has had on it here.
-----
Traffic has been an issue for IU fans all season long with the construction on SR37, and with a much larger crowd expected those issues are magnified. Parking for this weekend’s is also an issue as it appears there is very little to no parking left if you don’t have a pre-paid parking pass. You can check out stories from the IUHoosiers.com site talking game day traffic and parking issues, as well as how ticket sales are going.
IU announces traffic & parking info for OSU game
IU game vs. OSU sold out
-----
A couple of Indiana players were recognized for their play this season. Junior wideout Ricky Jones has been named to the Biletnikoff Award Watch List which recognizes the top receiver in the country. You can read about that here.
And running back Jordan Howard was named the Big Ten Co-Offensive Player of the Week after his performance in the IU win at Wake Forest. Here is the release that talks about that.
-----
The Indiana staff is expecting a number of top recruiting targets to be at the game tomorrow and we have a list of the prospects that we have confirmed will be there. You can check out that list on our Premium FB Board.
One of the prospects that will be visiting IU this weekend is 2017 Georgia RB Kurt Taylor. The three-star prospect currently has about 15 offers, including one from the Hoosiers. Here is an update we did on him earlier this week.
-----
The 2016 Indiana recruiting class is at about the midway point of their respective seasons and Peegs.com has a weekly feature that tracks how each commit is doing. Here is our Following the Future story.
-----
The IU staff is still looking to add at least one more cornerback to their 2016 class and it appears they are targeting junior college prospects for that spot. We spoke to juco corner Kamal Hardy about his recruiting and his interest in IU. Hardy is currently committed to Iowa State, but he plans on visiting IU after his season. You can read the story we did on him here.
-----
With the NFL season starting this past weekend Peegs.com has out weekly feature on how former Hoosiers playing in the NFL did in their respective games. Here is the update on how six former IU players did in week one of the NFL season.
