By Mark Bennett
Almost a year ago, Indiana State opened the
home portion of its men's basketball season with a 59-58 victory
over Indiana University in one of the most thrilling games in
recent ISU history.
Remember?
Hulman Center was packed, Michael Menser's
pair of late 3-pointers climaxed a dramatic ISU comeback and
IU had lost to the Sycamores for a second straight year. In other
words, there were plenty of reasons for celebration in Terre
Haute on that Nov. 29 night.
Coach Royce Waltman isn't likely to forget
that showdown anytime soon, nor are current seniors Kelyn Block,
Djibril Kante and Terence Avery.
The 2001-02 version of the Sycamores began
the home part of a new season Wednesday night -- with recently
graduated heroes Menser serving as a color analyst for WSDM-FM's
radio broadcast on press row and Matt Renn playing professionally
in France -- but the results were far less exciting and less
memorable from an ISU perspective.
Losing 71-54 to Valparaiso after seizing an
early 15-8 lead (hitting 7 of its first 10 field-goal attempts)
was not what Waltman had in mind to bounce back from Sunday's
70-54 season-opening loss at Illinois-Chicago. The Sycamores
ended up shooting only 21 of 58 from the field.
"I don't mean to sound like I'm bad-mouthing
our own guys, because we have good guys," Waltman said.
"But at this point, we're totally inept as a basketball
team."
The Sycamores sounded particularly displeased
with their performance early in the second half when a 32-29
halftime lead quickly nosedived into deficits of 35-32 and 43-35.
"I just think we got out to a good start
tonight," Avery noted. "But we got our heads down in
the second half and we weren't making plays we're capable of
making Guys got to step up and do what we can do."
"It's a clueless situation," a dejected
Kante said after shaking his head and taking a long pause from
his seat in the ISU lockerroom. "We work so hard in practice.
We came out strong in the first half."
"There were a number of things we did
wrong," he added before crediting the Crusaders for their
effort and apologizing for the shortness of his answers.
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| Tribune-Star/Joseph
C. Garza |
| Gimme that: ISU forward Djibril
Kante clutches the ball, with Valparaiso's Milo Stovall tries
to strip it away in Wednesday night's 71-54 Crusader victory
in Hulman Center. ISU is now 0-2 going into Sunday's game at
Butler, while Valparaiso climbs to 1-2. |
Only once last season did the Sycamores score
as few as 54 points, but at least that was in a 54-46 triumph
over Miami (Ohio) on Nov. 25.
"It just seems so stale," Waltman
said of ISU's offense. "We have got to try to find more
ways to score inside to take the pressure off our suspect perimeter
shooting."
Waltman said Valparaiso's defense allowed
Indiana State to take the ball inside in the first half and "we
were able to score pretty easily," but the Crusaders matched
up more effectively after that and forced the Sycamores to fire
more shots from the perimeter that did not fall frequently enough.
Valparaiso guard Milo Stovall, who finished
with 12 points, said his team's fierceness played a role in the
Sycamores' second-half demise.
"There was definitely more intensity,"
he emphasized. "We had been a little bit flat in the first
and second halves of our other games [losses to Purdue and Belmont].
We didn't want to come out flat again."
"I loved our energy," Valparaiso
Coach Homer Drew said. "We're going to get better as the
season moves on."
For the Sycamores to get better, Avery thinks
they need to believe in themselves again -- something he hopes
happens before next Sunday's game at Butler.
"I think right now our confidence is
a little shattered," the 6-foot-9 center admitted.
"I think the guys are really demoralized,"
Waltman added, "about as demoralized as you can be this
early in the season."
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