Wake Forest knocks off Indiana

“I know everybody will be looking forward to the time (in Hawaii), and certainly we have Thanksgiving”, IU coach Tom Crean said, “but I’ll be looking forward to our next practice”. After today, I’m just hoping that they’ll be able to get into the tournament at all.

If Wake Forest and Kansas can secure victories on Tuesday – Wake Forest will play Vanderbilt – the Maui Invitational final on Wednesday night could become the Manning Bowl.

“When Coach Rice recruits his players, this is what he tells us”, Ben Carter said. “It’s unacceptable with the guys that have the ball in their hands for us to be giving the ball that way, and we’ve got to get that fixed”. “And then we got a great stop at the end”.

St. John’s: This is the Red Storm’s first appearance in the Maui Invitational…. I thought in spurts we did some things, but over the course of the ballgame we have to do a much better job defensively. For the most part, we rebounded and competed.

Patrick McCaw had 20 points for the Runnin’ Rebels (5-1), who bounced back from their opening loss to UCLA with wins over Chaminade and the Hoosiers (4-2), who leave Hawaii with just one win in three games.

The first time, with Yogi Ferrell, their senior all-American candidate, handling the ball, they never got the ball in play.

“We played 15, 16 good minutes when we got the lead to nine points”, he said. After the win over St. John’s, it was another one that went down to wire. We showed a lot of toughness. They’ve dropped five straight and are in danger of going 3-9 in each Dave Clawson’s first two seasons.

In this case, they were good about sharing playing time as well.

“I think their length is what bothered us”.

IN (3-1) led 75-67 with 4:50 left but the Demon Deacons went on a 9-2 run to take a 78-77 lead on a drive by Crawford with 24 seconds to play. I didn’t have to, but I took him out. Along with Zeisloft, James Blackmon Jr. was the only other Hoosier in double-digits with 13 points. That helped Vandy push their lead to as many as 25 points as the two teams slogged through a second half that seemed to have as many referee whistles as made baskets.

“You come here as a group, as a team, trying to find out your identity, trying to see who in your program has toughness, who can bounce back”, Rice said. “We’re going to play against the best because we want to be the best”. The Hoosiers seemingly had control of the game but were undone by their lack of ability to secure defensive rebounds late and their curious shot selection. With three seconds left, Nick Zeisloft had his shot deflected off of an inbounds pass and that sealed the game for the Rebels. St. John’s had eight turnovers against Vanderbilt. Day one of the tournament was largely a disappointment for the Indiana Hoosiers. They finished with 11. They won by three points, 72-69, but for much of the game, they dominated No. 13 Indiana’s stagnant offense. Carter scored in the post, hit some big mid-range jumpers, and went 4-of-5 from the free throw line, including some clutch makes in the final minutes.