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| Thursday, November 28 Updated: December 2, 9:50 AM ET Hoosiers can thank freshmen for athletic leap By Pat Forde Special to ESPN.com |
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LAHAINA, Hawaii -- Last December, after Indiana was athletically overmatched in the backcourt by Kentucky's quick guards in the RCA Dome, Hoosiers coach Mike Davis said that would change this year. "Help is on the way," Davis said. "Believe me, help is on the way." We've seen. We believe. Freshman guards Bracey Wright and Marshall Strickland hit Maui like a 35-foot wave. The 'Help Squad' arrived with live legs, sweet handles and killer jumpers to carry their elders past Virginia to win the Maui Invitational title on Wednesday night. Where they and the defending NCAA Tournament runnerups can go from here, nobody knows. But the ceiling is pretty high. "I've been telling people from Day One: This team is better than last year's team," Davis said. "It's better." Davis has made some startling statements in the past, but this might not be one of his most outrageous. He might be right. Indiana is undoubtedly more athletic and more dangerous off the dribble. It is not as good defensively without the annoying savvy of Dane Fife, but they're still pretty solid in that area. If the Hoosiers had another reliable big body to back up George Leach and Jeff Newton inside, they'd be close to bulletproof. "I want to win the national championship," Davis said. "That's the goal." (Here's a downright scary thought: North Carolina impact freshman Sean May could easily have been a classmate and teammate of Wright and Strickland, and Indiana's interior depth questions would have been solved. If you believe the whispers, Matt Doherty owes Mr. Robert Montgomery Knight a thank-you note for playing a role in May's decision to leave his hometown of Bloomington and matriculate to Chapel Hill.) Newton and Tom Coverdale will lead that quest, but Wright has established himself as Indiana's shining talent. On a night when Coverdale's back twinged and ankle throbbed -- he failed to make a field goal for the first time since last December -- Wright took control. His 21 points and seven rebounds against Virginia made him just the second freshman MVP in the tournament's 18-year history (North Carolina's Joseph Forte was the other). "The last three weeks of practice Bracey has dominated," Davis said. "Just dominated. You guys still haven't seen him play well. Trust me, he still hasn't played well." Whatever he's doing, you can't call it playing poorly. The ultra-quick Texan shot it from the perimeter (raise a chicken wing to BW-3, who had a trio of 3-pointers against the Cavaliers). He broke down defenses off the dribble. He scored in transition and went to the offensive glass. He was omnipresent, and transcendant. "I think Bracey Wright is one of the top five freshmen in the country," Virginia coach Pete Gillen said. "Top three, maybe. I can't imagine five better freshmen. Bracey Wright is special." Strickland didn't look far behind Wednesday night. He scored 12 second-half points to help break open a close game, making big play after big play. A 3-pointer plus a foul and subsequent free throw pushed Indiana's lead from three to seven. A finger roll plus the foul and free throw later stretched it to 14 and effectively put the game out of reach. The two newbies scored 23 of Indiana's 38 second-half points. "Everyone has a lot of confidence in us," Strickland said. "In practice they look for us to lead the team in situations." While others were dragging in the Lahaina Civic Center, Wright and Strickland hit another gear. "The thought of being tired never crossed our minds," Wright said. Maybe that's because college guys almost never play on consecutive nights. For these two, this was just like the Adidas Big-Time Tournament or some other wall-to-wall summer ballfest. Play every day. After opening their careers like this, Strickland and Wright probably think college basketball is easy. They'll eventually learn otherwise, but the rest of the nation will have to work awfully hard to stop them. Among the other things we learned in Maui:
Watson averaged 12.7 points and 11 rebounds, and Brown averaged 13.3 points and 4.6 rebounds in the tournament. The two spent a lot of time on the court together.
Camara repeatedly threw deft passes from the high post into Estill's soft hands in the low post for easy baskets. On defense the two made life extremely difficult for Zags center Ronny Turiaf, who had torched Utah and Indiana for 24 points apiece. "They were so big and so tall," Turiaf said after scoring 12 points on 2-for-11 shooting from the field. "I've never played against those kind of guys before. Every time I shot, I had two or three hands in the way." Against UK's tall wall of Estill and Camara, Turiaf's dunks and layups turned into awkward 5-footers and 10-footers. Swishes turned into misses. Confidence turned into frustration. Or something like that. "No, I was not frustrated," the good-natured native of Martinique said. "I was kind of sad. I keep missing and keep missing, and that's not good when you can't shoot the basketball." Late in the game, Turiaf walked downcourt banging his fist into his forehead and muttering to himself. That would seem like an international symbol for frustration, but Turiaf can call it sadness if he wants. "They played the post really physical, and they're long," Gonzaga coach Mark Few said. "Consequently, maybe we ended up taking some tougher shots than we needed to. ... I wouldn't say we were intimidated, but we ended up altering our shots in there."
Turiaf showed an Adrian Dantley-ish ability to get to the foul line and good touch once he arrived there. He attempted 44 free throws in three games and made 39 of them, fairly spectacular totals.
The 6-2 senior guard missed the Sun Devils' season opener against Morehead State and then their first two games in Maui for academic reasons, and ASU was a lukewarm 2-1 without him. But he was reinstated to the team and arrived on the islands in time to play Wednesday against Utah. Millage touched down and lit up, scoring 26 points in an 83-79 overtime win over the Utes. He could easily have had 30 with a little touch from the foul line, where he shot a gruesome 8 for 20.
He was largely correct. The Utes were bludgeoned by Gonzaga in the first round, rebounded to beat Massachusetts in the loser's bracket and then sent Arizona State to the foul line 57 times Wednesday. Utah was crushed on the glass 48-35 by the Sun Devils. Pat Forde of the Louisville Courier-Journal is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.
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