A Game I'd Rather Not Have To Play

So IU (18-8/8-5) heads to East Lansing tonight to take on Michigan St. (20-8/7-6) tonight in what hopefully should be a pretty good battle. The Spartans are coming off a big win over Wisconsin and with a win can cause quite a mess in the Big Ten standings, as we've already seen some shuffling of places go on this weekend with Illinois moving into 3rd place with their win over Penn St.

Now for a nice little table courtesy of IUHoosiers.com:

Jan. 31, 2004 L, 84-72 East Lansing
Feb. 27, 2005 W, 78-74 (ot) Bloomington
Jan. 11, 2006 L, 87-73 East Lansing
Feb. 26, 2006 W, 78-71 Bloomington
Jan. 7, 2007 W, 73-51 Bloomington

That's the last five meetings between Indiana and Michigan St., the outcome, and the location. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the home team has won each time out, so the trouncing that the Hoosiers gave the Spartans earlier this year doesn't mean all that much.

All I ask is the IU holds onto the ball and doesn't commit the plethora of fouls we've been seeing of late. If they do that, we'll have a game.

Play Ball! Hoosiers Open Baseball Season!

Ahh, can you smell it? Baseball season! Yesterday not only did I buy my Cards/Cubs tickets but the Hoosiers officially opened the 2007 College Baseball season.

Down in Dothan, Alabama the Hoosiers took on the Troy Trojans, and well...lost. That may not come as a surprise to many of us who have come to know IU baseball of late, but there are some encouraging signs. First off, the Hoosiers limited the Trojans to only 4 runs which is microscopic for Indiana baseball teams of late, and pretty damn good in general considering how college ball is focused on offense due to that damn metal bat. While unable to watch the game, I do wonder how lucky the Hoosier pitchers were in this game, considering they gave up 11 hits, 4 walks (only 1 strikeout), all while the defense committed 3 errors.

Indiana's Mr. Baseball Josh Phegley had a quiet Hoosier debut, going 0-4 with a strikeout but apparently took part in a pretty nifty double play. On the whole it looks like the offense struggled a bit with only six hits, but with only 5 k's and a couple walks at least the boys are making contact.

We have a full season of IU Baseball coming up and I'm looking forward to covering this team. From reading offseason articles about all our new players, I like the direction this program is going. Go Hoosiers!

IU Football Signees in Moving Picture Form!

So this is a brilliant idea and kudos to the person who decided to implement it. On their official sports page, Indiana University has put up a compilation video of all 19 players who have signed onto IU Football for next season. It's not often you get to see HS players on TV during the year, so this is a great opportunity for all of us Hoosier fans to see who is going to be playing for us next year. Sure it's basically a highlight reel of each player's HS career so it may not be the best talent indicator but nevertheless a great resource for us fans.

Click here for the page containing the article and video.

Back In The Game

So we've had a week or so off from posting here at Defend The Rock and it's time to get back in the game. Hopefully, after two bad losses at Purdue and Michigan the Hoosiers can get back in the game as well. Rather than dwell on those two losses that occurred during our blogging break - we'll look ahead - seeing as Defend The Rock has always a forward thinking blog.

So tonight IU plays Minnesota at home (we're in the midst of a 4 out of 5 away game stretch so it'll be nice to have homecourt for once) which is good news as the Hoosiers are undefeated in Assembly Hall. The Golden Gophers come in being just dreadful (9-18/3-10) and have lost five straight. The question is this: Will Minnesota be discouraged and run down by their awful season performance and just roll over, or will they look at IU's last two losses and say, "Hey, we have a shot!"?

Let's see a win tonight boys....