Evan Gordon Coming to IU

With all the news recently of players leaving Indiana, it is nice to see a player coming in. Several sources have reported through social media that Evan Gordon, younger brother to Eric Gordon, will finish up his college eligibility at Indiana.

IndyStar.com had this to say about the transfer:

Former North Central guard and Arizona State transfer Evan Gordon committed to Indiana on Wednesday morning.

Evan Gordon committed to Indiana on Wednesday. The Arizona State transfer will have one year to play.

The 6-3 Gordon, who has graduated from Arizona State, will be eligible to play right away at Indiana. He averaged 10.1 points for the Sun Devils as a junior after transferring from Liberty.

Gordon’s older brother, Eric, played at IU in 2007-08 and is now in the NBA with New Orleans. Evan Gordon said he will enroll in the sports administration Masters program at IU.

“There’s nothing like an Indiana kid playing for IU,” Gordon said. “Coach (Tom) Crean has that program rocking and rolling.”

Gordon visited Butler on Tuesday and said he strongly considered the Bulldogs. When he first considered transferring from Arizona State to get closer to home, he said Butler was actually his first thought.

“It seemed like a great opportunity at Butler and it would be a great opportunity,” he said. “They have a Masters program where I could have earned my teaching license and it’s obviously a winning program that is going into the Big East. That made it a tough decision.”

Gordon transferred to Hargrave Military Academy (Va.) after his junior year at North Central. He averaged 12.0 points as a freshman at Liberty and 14.1 points as a sophomore before transferring to Arizona State.

“It’s kind of crazy how I ended up back here (at Indiana),” he said. “When I left Liberty the reason was to play on a bigger stage and it was a better opportunity to do that. This chance at IU just kind of came about and was hard to turn down.”

Gordon said he is headed back to Arizona for a couple of days before returning home on Friday. He’ll start summer classes on June 10 in Bloomington.

On his visit to Indiana on Saturday, Gordon said Crean talked about him providing a scoring punch.

“They have a lack of guards coming back and need somebody with experience who can make an impact this coming season,” he said. “He talked about me being a scorer and also being a combo guard who can help out Yogi (Ferrell).”

Evan’s younger brother Eron will be a sophomore at North Central this season. He averaged more than 19 points a game as a freshman and has offers from Indiana, Purdue, Nebraska and Arizona State.

I.U.’s Recruiting Class

The Indianapolis Star ran an article today about Indiana Basketball’s recruiting class. You can read the entire article on their website, but here’s how the article opened. Good news for what Tom Crean is doing with the program.

It has been a month but Indiana coach Tom Crean finally was able to sit down, surrounded by his coaching staff Thursday, and talk about the six members of his most recent recruiting class that signed national letters of intent last month. Collectively, the group is ranked as the No. 3 recruiting class in the nation by both rivals.com and scout.com

By now, every IU fan knows a little bit about the group. Here’s a quick synopsis:

*** Devin Davis, 6-6, 200, Forward, Indianapolis (Warren Central)

*** Luke Fischer, 6-11, 215, Center, Germantown, Wis. (Germantown)

*** Collin Hartman, 6-6, 185, Forward, Indianapolis (Cathedral)

*** Stanford Robinson, 6-4, 185, Guard, Fairfax, Va. (Findlay Prep)

*** Noah Vonleh, 6-9, 220, Power Forward, Haverhill Mass. (New Hampton Prep)

*** Troy Williams, 6-6, 190, Small Forward, Hampton, Va. (Oak Hill Academy)

Sweet Hoosier Hysteria Video

Tom Crean tweeted the link to this video yesterday. I watched it and loved it. It is titled “Then and Now” and features past and current IU players. The creator of the video took photos and videos from the archives and made it appear that past players were alongside current players. You see Jordan Hulls and Damon Bailey side-by-side. One shot has last year’s team on the bench as Knight gets ready to toss the chair. Lot of fun to watch. Go IU!

Hoosiers To Be Part Of ESPNU Midnight Madness

Basketball season is just around the corner.  I mentioned in an earlier post that IU was a pre-season #1 pick.  While that may have been a little (or a lot!) early in the game, it bodes well for Hoosier basketball.  As the season draws closer, ESPNU announced that IU’s practice on October 12 will be broadcast as part of their Midnight Madness.  That is certainly a long way from the dismal seasons IU had a few years ago.

Here’s a portion of what is posted on the Indiana Athletics website:

For the seventh year, ESPNU will tip-off the nation’s college basketball season with more than four hours of Midnight Madness coverage on Friday, Oct. 12 beginning at 5 p.m. ET. This year’s programming will once again include both the men’s and women’s defending NCAA National Champions and eight teams in ESPN.com senior writer Andy Katz’s Preseason Top 25.

 The night begins with an in-depth look at what Katz put as the No.1 team in his super-early rankings last April, with ESPNU Midnight Madness: Indiana Practice at 5 p.m. on ESPNU. For the first time, the network will air a Hoosiers’ practice live and in full with commentary from college basketball analysts Jay Williams and Dan Dakich as well as Indiana Head Coach Tom Crean wearing a microphone throughout practice.

Go Hoosiers!

No IU-UK game this season

News came out today over Twitter feed that there will not be an IU-UK basketball game on this year’s schedule. With as much excitement and press this season’s game received, you would think it would be a no-brainer. According to the Indianapolis Star, it looks like location was a big part of the discussion.

Here’s what was posted on Indy Star today.

I’m not blaming Kentucky for insisting the rivalry be moved to neutral sites to increase revenue.

I’m not blaming Indiana for standing firm in its stance that the games stay in Assembly Hall and Rupp.

But one way or another, this was one of those issues where the two sides needed to lock themselves in a room until they figured out how to get it done.

IU-Kentucky is a rivalry that shouldn’t go away. No way. No how. It’s good for the schools. It’s good for the fan bases. It’s good for college basketball.

The excitement from an Indiana perspective that the regular season game last year brought with it is all the evidence you need. That single shot by Christian Watford was the signature image for all of college basketball from Dec. 10, 2011 through the NCAA Tournament. And the rematch was pretty good, too. There were a lot of people that believe that IU-Kentucky in the Sweet Sixteen was one of the more exciting games of the 2012 NCAA tournament.

And yet now it’s all going away simply because the two sides couldn’t reach an agreement on where it should be played.

Here’s my opinion: IU and Kentucky need to play next season. I don’t care if it’s on campus, in Louisville, or anywhere else, but the game needs to be played. Especially considering what happened last season. The 2012-13 IU-Kentucky was going to be the end all game to find out just how good the two teams were going to be a few weeks before heading into conference play. And both teams are expected to be very, very good.

Tom Crean indicated this week that he had spoken with John Calipari and that both coaches want the series to continue.

IU-Kentucky have played every season since 1969. How do you just throw all that away?

While the words in this press release are pretty clear that there won’t be an IU-Kentucky game next season, I still have to issue a challenge to athletic administrators from both schools to take a deep breath, take a step back, and then go back to the bargaining and get this done.

This is not the time for Indiana-Kentucky to become a thing of the past.

IU featured in SI

Sports Illustrated has a story on Indiana basketball in this month’s edition.  For Hoosier fans, it is a somewhat painful look at what has taken place in the basketball program over the past decade, but also shows the resurgence the program is making.

It’s a somewhat lengthy article, but one that is worth reading if you are a college basketball fan or if you are an IU fan.  Check it out by clicking the link.

Indiana fans from Albany to Zionsville—and across the – 01.16.12 – SI Vault.

We Are Hoosier Nation

Sweet video for I.U. fans everywhere!

Kudos to Coach Crean

I remember reading this article a few weeks ago about Indiana University coach Tom Crean. While it had to do with his role as coach at the school, it really wasn’t about basketball. Crean leveraged his influence as a coach to help a young man who needed someone to take an interest in him.

The article originally appeared on csnchicago.com by sports writer David Kaplan.


We too often hear about the negatives in the sports world including celebrities who far too many times fail to lend a helping hand when they are presented with a chance to make an impact on someone’s life. However, when someone of note goes above and beyond the call it’s important to let people know about it and the impact that it had on someone’s life.

Today, I received a call about Indiana basketball coach Tom Crean who is considered to be one of the better young coaches in the game and also one of the most focused and intense. The caller told me the story of a young man who is a freshman at Indiana and was finding his adjustment to college a difficult one. Crean saw the young man sitting in the lobby of the basketball practice facility recently and noticed him a couple of times as he went in and out of the basketball offices. He also noticed that the young man appeared to be very upset.

Crean invited the student into his office and proceeded to hear his story and counseled the young man on how difficult the transition to college can be and encouraged him to stick with it. He also introduced the student to the rest of his staff and he got him an opportunity to work around the basketball program as a member of the athletic department.

The young man had turned off his cell phone after telling his parents that he needed to take a walk and think and his parents were very worried when they were unable to reach him. When Crean inquired as to whether the young man had spoken with his parents recently the young man said no. Crean called the parents, gave them his personal contact information and told them he would look out for their son. After arranging for a job in the athletic department the young man is reported to be doing very well and has adjusted to life away from home.

When I reached Crean today he didn’t want to comment, calling it a private matter but he did say that he hoped as the father of three kids that if the roles were reversed that someone would do something to help one of his kids should they be in a tough spot.

Nice to hear that a celebrity who is also a father was there in a time of need and went way above and beyond the call of duty to impact a life. Congrats Tom Crean, the example you just sent should be a lesson to everyone.