Festive Atmosphere at Hoosiers Practice at BetLM

Festive Atmosphere at Hoosiers Practice

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. —Indi­ana turned a Sat­ur­day night warmup prac­tice into a regular-season atmosphere.

Assem­bly Hall was almost full. The pep band played its usual reper­toire of songs and fans repeat­edly chanted the names of play­ers and recruits. Even Eric Gor­don and D.J. White, for­mer Hoosiers now play­ing in the NBA, came back to Bloomington.

Fans were fes­tive, loud and enthu­si­as­tic, just the kind of atmos­phere coach Tom Crean needs to rebuild his home-court advan­tage this season.

“If we play close to as good as you cheer and sup­port this team, we’ll be cut­ting down nets very, very soon,” Crean told the crowd, which responded with rous­ing applause. “We’re in our fourth year, and we’ve never had a start to the year where we’ve had fans on that balcony.”

A fun-filled night was the per­fect rem­edy for a pro­gram that’s been reel­ing since an NCAA scan­dal gut­ted the pro­gram after the 2007-08 sea­son. Crean took over in April 2008, and it was expected to be his best sea­son since com­ing to Bloomington.

But the Hoosiers are already off to a rocky start.

Start­ing guard Mau­rice Creek had surgery Mon­day to repair a torn Achilles ten­don in his left leg. He could miss the entire sea­son. It’s his third major injury in 22 months.

The next day, the school announced Crean had com­mit­ted a sec­ondary NCAA infrac­tion by con­tact­ing a recruit dur­ing a non-contact period. While the vio­la­tion is con­sid­ered small and will not have any addi­tional impact on the Hoosiers’ three-year pro­ba­tion, which ends Nov. 24, it did spark dis­cus­sion among Hoosiers fans about what happened.

Later in the week, start­ing for­ward Chris­t­ian Wat­ford was seen with a walk­ing boot over his injured right foot. It was still there Saturday.

But Indi­ana fans didn’t care about those con­cerns. They were here to celebrate.

“Over time, they’ll get that ironed out and straight­ened away,” Jonathan Crow­ley of Evans­ville, Ind., said. “There are some new peo­ple com­ing in and if you put the new peo­ple with the expe­ri­ence they’ve got, it could really be some­thing positive.”

The crowd of 16,100 applauded loudly when Indiana’s new direc­tor of bas­ket­ball oper­a­tions, Cal­bert Cheaney, was intro­duced. The for­mer Hoosiers star is still the Big Ten’s career scor­ing leader.

Crean received a stand­ing ova­tion and fans laughed when Creek tried to do a few cau­tious dance moves on his crutches.

The open­ing night fes­tiv­i­ties took place one day later than most other col­lege bas­ket­ball pro­grams, though Crean wanted it that way so he could give prized recruit Gary Har­ris a first­hand glimpse into Indi­ana basketball.

It was a remark­able sight.

Hun­dreds of fans lined up on the south end of Assem­bly Hall more than 2 1/2 hours before the men’s play­ers were even sched­uled to take the court. Two lines snaked around the park­ing lot.

“I got the biggest bang dri­ving by here today and see­ing the kids lin­ing up,” tele­vi­sion announcer Bill Raftery said before the work­out began. “I was like, ‘Who are they play­ing tonight? Purdue?”‘

If Har­ris had any doubts about how Indiana’s play­ers are revered, it didn’t take him long to fig­ure it out.

As Crean gave his intro­duc­tory remarks, the stu­dents chanted Har­ris’ name. When Crean started to speak again, he apol­o­gized for interrupting.

And if Har­ris thought it was a fluke, he could have talked to White or Gordon.

“Words can’t describe (Hoosier Hys­te­ria) until you really walk out there,” White said. “The four years I spent here were pretty spe­cial, so it always brings back great memories.”

He also could have spo­ken with the actual participants.

The women’s team worked out for about 30 min­utes before the men’s team took the court.

Both teams held 3-point shoot­ing con­tests, and the men’s team also had a dunk con­test. The bas­ket at the north end was dam­aged dur­ing the con­test, but that didn’t stop the Hoosiers from hold­ing a 15-minute intrasquad scrimmage.

Or fans giv­ing new­com­ers a sense of theh envi­ron­ment they can expect at home games this season.

“This is my first time being it and I haven’t even watched one. I think it was def­i­nitely great for me,” fresh­man Remy Abell said. “I expected it to be packed, but not that packed.”

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