Hoosier Hysteria Opens 2014-15 Season
10/25/2014 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
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2014-15 Hoosier Hysteria Three-Point Champion: Max Hoetzel Photo Gallery |
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Nearly 14,000 fans welcomed a new Indiana basketball season as they met the 2014-15 team during Saturday's Hoosier Hysteria presented by Smithville. Highlights of the event included a three-point shooting competition, a slam-dunk contest and the hosting talents of ESPN's SportsCenter anchor Sage Steele. The night concluded with a Cream vs. Crimson scrimmage as the 2014-15 team took the court for the first time in front of Hoosier Nation.
Three-Point Contest
In the first round of tonight's three-point contest, redshirt junior Nick Zeisloft and freshman Max Hoetzel led all scorers with 21 and 22, respectively. James Blackmon Jr., Kevin Yogi Ferrell, Collin Hartman and Robert Johnson were eliminated after round one. For the final round, Zeisloft put up a score of 18, but was no match for Hoetzel, who scored 21.
Dunk Contest
The four competitors in the dunk contest were Devin Davis, Hanner Mosquera-Perea, Nate Ritchie and Troy Williams. With 45, Mosqera-Perea won the first round, followed closely by Williams with 41. In the final round, freshman Ritchie took the crown with a perfect 50 on his last dunk - a between the legs pass off the backboard from Stanford Robinson.
Here are a few videos that those in attendance were able to view during the event:
Head Coach Tom Crean spoke with media after the night's events:
On Nate Ritchie winning dunk contest:
"I'm not shocked at all. Haven't you seen his YouTube video? I'm not surprised by him. He turned down Division I offers, good schools and he really wanted to be at Indiana. He's been well coached, he's an excellent young man. It's a different place with our two walk-ons. They've both had a level of scholarship, interest, or play. You aren't going to find many better programs than Bellarmine in Division II and you aren't going to find a better coach than Scott (Davenport) and he's had the opportunity to do that. Nate's doing a fantastic job so we are blessed to have those two with us."
On the shooting during the scrimmage:
"We led the league in three-point defense last year and 12th in the country. The hardest place to get threes should be in practice. A couple times we came off the shooters but again when you have speed and penetration, and that's why it's so important for Troy (Williams) to handle the ball the way that he does. When he's flying down that lane, you can't help to react to it. And I think he played a simple game tonight, which is what we are trying to get these guys to understand. The better the player you are, the simpler the game should be. If you're working hard on your skills and fundamentals, your vision and you're making simple passes, it's amazing what can happen. I think our game was good and it can get better. We missed some shots that we could have made. But I think our concern is can we make enough threes to be in games. I don't think that's going to happen very often. "
On the passing of the candy-stripes:
"I can't take credit for that. It was an idea that was brought to me. I think it's fantastic and it will really take off as a tradition. That's really what this is about - tradition. I don't have the personality to dress up and do those things. It's not about bringing in the biggest act. However, I would love to have Oladipo come back and sing. This really is about the tradition of the program and the fans. To have the former players intertwined with the new players, this makes them understand how big of a deal this is."
On the makeup of the scrimmage teams:
"This was based on a scrimmage in practice. No reason for those teams. The only real reason to have James (Blackmon Jr.) and Rob (Johnson) without Yogi (Ferrell) is so that they are forced into a leadership role. At the same time, when Troy (Williams) has the ball in his hands, he knows that there are two guys - really three with Max (Hoetzel) - that the ball will be played to and there is a pretty good chance of going in."
On the defense during the scrimmage:
"I think we played hard. I think we have a lot to learn and we are learning a lot. Right now we are in practice shape and we've got to get more towards game shape. You only get into game shape by being in the game or being in multi-scrimmages. But we haven't had a lot of scrimmage situations. That's the longest we have scrimmaged at any point since Montreal. We have spent a lot of time breaking it down. So it's not the fatigue that shows up easily, it's the fatigue of not talking as much or we don't have our hands up as much - the little things. The details of it are behind when it comes to game speed. But they aren't behind when it comes to drilling. I think the effort is there. I've been seeing us come off shooters and we never do that. That's the one adjustment I've seen being in the Big Ten, you cannot chase the ball when there are so many good shooters in the league. You have to defend the shooter. Stop the ball, but defend the shooter."
On the Montreal trip:
"I would have loved to see where Hanner was at after that trip. In a perfect world you have Emmitt (Holt), but we were just starting to recruit him. I still go with that it was invaluable. There is a little carryover in spacing, in ball movement and we have a lot of guys like Nick (Zeisloft). He was ranked nationally for shooting in the good way. He's learning to drive more. When you look at our higher-level shooters, they are also good at driving to the lane - Yogi, Robert and James. Dribbling is a weapon, not a necessity. We were able to work on that a lot this summer and we've had success. We didn't do a lot of rebounding drills before Montreal or physical taxing things. We just started to do more of those so we'll see more improvement in not over-dribbling, will see improvement and continuing to make the next pass. We'll see improvement in our defensive rebounding. We'll see improvement in sprinting to the offensive board, those types of things. I think we definitely got a head start on that from being in Montreal."
On the play of James Blackmon, Jr.:
"I think James Blackmon learned that there's a difference when Yogi gets up on you. As I said to the team, briefly before they went out for autographs, there's only one Yogi here to guard. If I say, `Okay, this guy needs to be shutdown," Yogi goes to that guy. He's as good a post defender as most post defenders that do it for a living in this league. The one guy that will go at Yogi the same way Yogi will go at him is Robert. James has made tremendous strides in all parts of his game even without the ball. Passing the ball with vision and still being able to get to the rim and get his shot. Making a lot of strides defensively. It was great for him to have to deal with `now there's not enough space for me when Yogi gets up into me.' So, we've got to do more of that in practice, because we've always said the best training for Robert and James here is to have to deal with Yogi Ferrell everyday. If they can deal with him, they'll be able to deal with a lot of guys. But, they've also got to back at Yogi, because we're continuing to build his role in so many ways."
On Robert Johnson's play so far:
"I'm not big on the whole like/dislike thing. It's just so much about improvement. I think he's competitive, I think he's a pitbull, I think he's got to gain confidence that he can still be really good when his shot's not there. What happens with new players, especially ones that were high-volume scorers and were as good as he was and as good as James was, they have to understand that you can still really impact the game even if the shots aren't there. I think one of the best things about Robert is, we're in Montreal and I had no idea that he didn't score a point. I was made aware of it after the game. I never saw that in him during the game, and I think that's a great trait, because that isn't going to happen very often. When a player can play through what's not happening for them offensively and continue to impact the game on both ends - that makes them a really valuable player. So, Robert's got to continue to learn that that's a big part of it. I love his upside; I love his desire to get better. He is an absolute 365-day a year guy here right now. That needs to continue when it comes to the extra work. We took two days off this week, which we had not done, so it was really three days off. We took Sunday off, practice two days and took Wednesday and Thursday off. So we knew we'd have a little bit of slippage, but I don't think one guy took either one of those two days off. Not one guy on this team. I love the upside of that and I think guys like Robert and James and Max are a big, big part of that culture of working extra on their ball handling, their shooting, their driving, all of those types of things even when we're not practicing."
On Hanner Mosquera-Perea's improvement:
"He's gaining more confidence. It's daily, there's not question about that. That's why spacing is going to be key for us. We missed him a couple times. What we've got to continue to do is we've got to continue to put our guys that don't get guarded as tightly or, like Devin (Davis) might not be pressured at the perimeter, but when he drives, it's at a high volume of making it right now. So how do we keep mixing guys and finding ways to play to their strengths and keeping the spacing right. We went to Hanner after a timeout and the defense sagged and the offense wasn't as comfortable throwing it in. The answer with Hanner, is he's got to do multiple things: he's got to be able to score at the basket, he's got to be able to run, rebound, block shots, defend the perimeter, defend the post, and at the same time pass and move the ball to people. He's got to be able to score on rim runs, be able to score on rolls, be able to score in the alley, the break, all those different things. Well, so does everybody else. We can't become a team that says one or two guys are the only ones that can score in the post. We've got to be able to slice cut, we've got to be able to get our guards posted. Well then Hanner has to be able to make those passes. The bottom line is, we're trying to keep it where Hanner is gaining confidence everyday. The more confidence he gains, the more we can stretch his game. He's on a good road, he's hungry. I'm not going to over-exaggerate it, I'm not going to over-compliment him, but you're seeing what we see - he's really working to get better. We've got to stay on that path."
On Collin Hartman's rehab:
"I think fine. We're still on a limit with him, as far as his physical contact in practice, but I thought he did a nice job. To have him a couple weeks with us before we got to this point, to me I think he's ahead of where I would have personally thought he would be. That's not necessarily what the doctors would have thought, but I think he's ahead of that. Hopefully, we can stay with that. There are times that we have to pull him back a little bit. We just keep a daily eye on that. Not just a daily rehab eye, not just a daily `is it healing' eye, just the daily `where's he at' eye."
On how happy he was with the pace of tonight's scrimmage:
"We practiced today, we practiced yesterday and it reflects already this afternoon. I don't have an answer for that really. We're playing against one another - I thought the pace was solid. I wouldn't say, `Well if they had played a 40-minute game, the numbers would have been this,' because we're not in game shape yet. That's just the way that it is. I'm not sure we'd want them in game shape yet, because then you're running into peaking to early. To me, we've just got to continue to build it up and the pace will come. We haven't even put our presses in and things like that and we're not trapping yet, but we've got to continue to build our base before we can start to really extend it. We're still right in the middle of trying to build the base. Once you get pressure into the game and sneak attacks and different defenses that can even increase the pace."
