TERRE HAUTE — Another day, another Challenge for the Indiana State men’s basketball team.
This time it’s the inaugural Mountain West-Missouri Valley Conference Challenge as ISU plays host to Colorado State tonight at Hulman Center.
The game is the midway point of a punishing stretch in ISU’s schedule. The game against the Rams was wedged into ISU’s four-game Preseason NIT commitment as the Sycamores head to Western Kentucky for games against Coastal Carolina and Western Kentucky on Monday and Tuesday in the NIT’s consolation round.
Add in ISU’s road game at Arkansas State on Nov. 28 and the Sycamores are in the midst of a punishing seven games-in-16 days stretch at four different sites.
ISU coach Kevin McKenna is doing what he can to mitigate the fatigue factor for the Sycamores.
“We’ve tried to back off practice the last few days. We were off Wednesday, and Thursday will be a light day, almost just a walk-through. Friday will be game day,” said McKenna after ISU’s victory over Wisconsin-Milwaukee at LSU on Tuesday.
While McKenna is adjusting the practice schedule accordingly, he isn’t overwhelmingly concerned with fatigue.
“Our guys are pretty resilient, we have good depth, and as long as guys keep producing, we can utilize that depth,” McKenna said.
McKenna has long been a supporter of the MWC-MVC Challenge. The Challenge was announced last season and Missouri Valley and Mountain West teams were paired for the first time this season.
Because of pre-existing scheduling conflicts at schools in both leagues, this season’s MWC-MVC Challenge schedule is haphazard, with games beginning last week [Bradley lost at BYU] and ending in December. In future seasons, both conferences are blocking out a specific time period to make the Challenge more like those between the Big Ten and Atlantic Coast and the Pac 10 and Big 12 Conferences.
“We got into [the Preseason NIT] really late, so we kind of sandwiched this game in there. [The Preseason NIT] is a good tournament to be involved in, but so is the Mountain West Challenge. It’s a great thing for our league, it guarantees us a home game against a quality opponent every other year,” McKenna said.
The matchup brings together two former friendly adversaries. McKenna and Colorado State coach Tim Miles coached against each other at the Division II level earlier in the decade.
“[Miles] is a friend of mine, I used to coach against him in the old North Central Conference [when McKenna was at Nebraska-Omaha and Miles was at then-Division II North Dakota State]. They put in some of our offense there, the spread stuff, he liked it when we ran it against them. They’re running some of it now, not all of it. It’ll be interesting to play against them, they’re kind of up-and-coming like us,” McKenna said.
If 2-1 ISU is to have success against the 2-1 Rams, it must continue its good defensive play and drastically improve its rebounding. ISU held both LSU and Wisconsin-Milwaukee at or under 35 percent shooting on Monday and Tuesday. At the other side of the coin, ISU has been outrebounded by an average margin of 5.3 boards per game so far.
Rebounding is a concern regardless of the foe, but it’s especially disconcerting for ISU considering that Colorado State forward Travis Franklin (7.3 rpg), forward Andy Ogide (6.3) and guard Dorian Green (5.7) have all been effective on the glass in the Rams’ three games so far. By contrast, Carl Richard and Rashad Reed are ISU’s rebounding leaders at 3.7 per game.
“It’s a testament to our guys buying into defense. Now if they can buy into the rebounding part, we’ve got something. We can score some points, we have versatility there, if we can just get rebounding under control that’s when we’ll become a really good team,” McKenna said.
College
Another Challenge for Indiana State as Rams visit Hulman Center
- College
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Bubble intact: ISU headed to NCAA baseball tournament
Forty-eight teams had been chosen for the NCAA Baseball Tournament Selection Show and things were getting antsy in the Indiana State clubhouse on Monday.
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Indiana State’s baseball fate to be decided today
At high noon today, the train arrives for the Indiana State baseball team.
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ISU hurdler Swift becomes 5th Sycamore to make NCAAs
Indiana State sophomore Greggmar Swift became the second member of the men’s team and the fifth Sycamore overall to qualify for the 2012 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Finals at Drake University, placing second in the second heat of the 110 meter hurdle quarterfinals Saturday at the NCAA East Preliminary Round.
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FROM THE PRESS BOX: ISU baseball has pluses, minuses for tourney bid
Last Thursday, when Indiana State’s baseball jumped around in a celebratory dogpile after clinching the Missouri Valley Conference regular season championship at Bob Warn Field, no one thought that a little over a week later, the dreaded NCAA Tournament bubble would fly over Terre Haute. -
Lou Watson, former IU player and coach, dies at 88
Former Indiana University player and coach Lou Watson died on Thursday in Fairfax, Va., the school announced. He was 88.
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METRO ROUNDUP: ISU’s Pounds qualifies for NCAA Championships
Brandon Pounds of Indiana State missed the 2011 outdoor season with a hand injury but has made up for lost time, qualifying for the 2012 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships at Drake University with a fifth place finish in the men’s hammer throw at the NCAA East Preliminary Friday.
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Rose’s Liz Evans wins fourth NCAA high jump title
Junior Liz Evans became the first Rose-Hulman athlete to earn four career NCAA Division III championships by winning the women’s high jump at Friday’s 2012 outdoor national meet at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.
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Indiana State throwers advance to NCAA championships
A pair of Indiana State juniors punched their ticket to Des Moines, Iowa, on Thursday as Felisha Johnson finished fifth and Mary Theisen ninth in the women’s shot put at the 2012 NCAA East Preliminary track and field championships on the University of North Florida campus.
“Both were very focused and had great starts,” ISU women’s track coach Angela Martin said. “They did just what we wanted them to … be relaxed, have fun, and do what they have already done this season.” -
Blanked by Blach: ISU drops MVC tournament opener
Things went wrong for Indiana State’s baseball team in its Missouri Valley Conference Tournament opener against Creighton, but one statistic glowed white-hot.
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MVP of the MVC: Lucas first Sycamore to earn Player of Year honors
Indiana State’s baseball team got the Missouri Valley Conference regular-season hardware last week and it’s hoping to grab more gold this week in its quest to win the Missouri Valley Conference baseball tournament.
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Sycamores try to catch Missouri Valley Conference tourney vibe
A Missouri Valley Conference championship season has bloomed for the Indiana State baseball team in 2012. The Sycamores have been dominant through most of the season.
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FROM THE PRESS BOX: Subtle switch has fostered MVC baseball parity
When Indiana State was crowned as the regular season baseball champion of the Missouri Valley Conference last Thursday, it marked the fifth different regular season champion the league has had since 2005.
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ISU claims Missouri Valley Conference baseball title
Entering Thursday’s game against Indiana State, Missouri State starting pitcher Nick Petree had gone 72 1/3 innings without surrendering an earned run, an unofficial NCAA record.
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ISU baseball in familiar territory with MVC title on line
First place is there is for the taking for Indiana State's baseball team this weekend … so is redemption.
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A time for firsts: SMWC seniors have national title aspirations
Even though St. Mary-of-the-Woods College has won eight national titles in softball in the last 16 years, seniors Sara Goelz and Jessica Jonas are among the many current Woods players who have not been part of a national championship team.
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Win over SIU puts Sycamores in first place
As Indiana State’s baseball team tried to climb to the top of the Missouri Valley Conference mountain on Saturday against Southern Illinois, it stood to reason that the air would get more rarefied as they neared the summit.
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Major Clay takes fourth straight MVC high jump title
For the fourth straight year, Indiana State’s Major Clay will climb to the top spot on the awards podium as the Sycamore captured his fourth high jump championship at the 2012 State Farm Missouri Valley Conference outdoor Track & Field Championships on Saturday.
The competition was conducted at Cessna Stadium on the campus of Wichita State University. -
Edgewood takes Western Indiana Conference golf crown
Edgewood and senior Jackson Cowden took top honors in the Western Indiana Conference boys golf championship played Saturday at Idle Creek.
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North grad wins 10,000 at Big Ten Championships
Terre Haute North alumnus Zach Mayhew ran a Dan McClimon track record at the University of Wisconsin to win the 10,000 meters at the Big Ten Championships.
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Top-seeded Rose-Hulman falls in opener of HCAC Tournament
A couple of Rose-Hulman streaks came to an end Thursday night in Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference baseball tournament action, but the home-team jinx looks to be still alive.
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ISU's Ort getting hot at right time for Sycamores
Indiana State’s baseball game notes list game-by-game performance for each Sycamore batter. It lists them box score-style: at-bats, runs, hits and RBI.
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Terre Haute native getting national attention as freshman for Kentucky
On a day where Terre Haute native A.J. Reed returned home to continue his college career, he got plenty of time to be on-stage.
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Top seed, home field doesn’t guarantee Rose success
On the surface, serving as host for the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference baseball tournament would appear to benefit Rose-Hulman’s No. 1-seeded team, which finished the regular season 27-12 overall and 18-6 in the conference.
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Metro roundup: ISU’s Lucas honored by Missouri Valley again
For the fifth time in the last nine weeks, Indiana State junior catcher Jeremy Lucas has been named the Missouri Valley Conference Scholar-Athlete of the Week.
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Sycamores top Shockers in 10 innings in MVC series opener
If free baseball is what you want, Indiana State has what you need. For the sixth time in the span of a month, ISU’s series opener went extra innings.
- METRO ROUNDUP: Rose baseball team takes first game of doubleheader
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ISU starting pitchers in rhythm heading into Wichita State series
“Gettting into rhythm” is such an oft-used cliché in sports that it’s hard to hear the term and fight the urge to not let it enter one ear and escape another.
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ISU goes to well too many times
Perhaps the most unnecessary pursuit for a Wabash Valley sports fan during the now-completed weekend was watching the first few innings of nonconference college baseball between Indiana State and visiting Nebraska-Omaha.
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ISU baseball living on the edge
Indiana State’s baseball team got its game against Nebraska-Omaha in Saturday between morning and evening rain showers. But in the wake of another walk-off 3-2 victory against the struggling Mavericks, one might be forgiven if they felt the Sycamores are walking between the raindrops a bit.
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PREP ROUNDUP: North Central baseball improves to 10-2
North Central lost a 7-1 game to Vincennes Rivet, and then Nolan Kinnett pitched the Thunderbirds to victory, adding a double and three RBIs against Riverton Parke in a pair of high school baseball games on Saturday.
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