Indiana Hoosiers Manage To Lose While Not Even Making the Field of 65
That was a fun weekend of hoops, and certainly one of the best opening four days to the tournament we’ve had in years. You know who probably didn’t love it? Indiana Hoosiers fans. But they’re not in the field, Chris. Why would they care? Take a look at some of the guys playing deep into the tournament, and it’s hard to picture IU fans doing anything other than putting little pins into a Kelvin Sampson voodoo doll.↵↵Three players with Indiana connections, either as recruits or actual players, are into the Sweet 16. The biggest name of them all is West Virginia’s Devin Ebanks. He put up a double-double (16 points, 13 rebounds) in the first round, and had 14 points and seven boards in the second-round win for the second-seeded Mountaineers. Ebanks was going to be a Hoosier, but he had an out-clause in his letter of intent to IU. If Sampson left, Ebanks would be allowed to do the same. He made that choice when the IU program blew up and went to Morgantown with Bob Huggins.↵
↵↵Then there’s Xavier’s Jordan Crawford, who gave Richmond’s Kevin Anderson a run for Atlantic 10 player of the year. The Musketeers are into the Sweet 16 and Crawford has been a monster for his squad this season, averaging 20.2 points, 4.8 rebounds and 40 percent from 3-point range. For the tournament, Crawford has 55 points in two games while averaging six boards and three assists. Unlike Ebanks, Crawford actually played a season at Indiana before bolting following the great Sampson Exodus.↵
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↵One player who actually left before Sampson's final season is also into the Sweet 16, and that's Saint Mary's Ben Allen. While he hasn't been prolific in the tournament, Allen is an important complement to the rugged Omar Samhan in the post for the Gaels. Allen averages 10.5 points and 7.6 rebounds. He spent two seasons at IU and didn't even average 10 minutes per game his sophomore season. Now he's playing nearly 28 minutes per game as an important cog in a Sweet 16 team. (The number of Australian players also played a role in his decision to head to Saint Mary's.)↵
↵↵Had Allen chosen to stay at Indiana, he would’ve exhausted his eligibility by now, but one player who would’ve still been eligible is Ohio guard Armon Bassett. Unlike the other three players, Bassett didn’t make the second weekend as the Bobcats fell to Tennessee, 83-68. Still, the potential of a Bassett-Crawford backcourt has to leave IU fans smarting a bit. Prior to a tough game against the big perimeter defenders from the Vols, Bassett had scored at least 25 points in five consecutive games, beginning with the first round of the MAC Tournament and ending with Ohio’s first-round upset of Georgetown.↵
↵↵Who knows when things will really trend back upward for the Hoosiers? They were 10-21 this season. The recruiting class doesn’t appear to have a John Wall-type who will elevate the program single-handedly. If there’s any positive, it’s that the team returns its top three scorers from this season, including promising freshman Maurice Creek. Still, they’ve got a ways to go before they could even compete with this hypothetical Indiana team that has been scattered across the country.↵
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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.
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