Opening Day!

Today is opening day for College Baseball.  The Hoosiers have been taking good steps the past few years under Tracy Smith to become a competitive team, and eventually nab an appearance in the College World Series.  It is great that Indiana has decided to broadcast ALL of their games for free online (audio online), check out the page here.

Last year before the season I picked Evan Crawford as a Freshmen to watch, and he ended up shining in his first year of college ball.  With a solid Sophomore season he could begin to put himself on the map as prospect for the majors.   So without further ado, this years pick to watch:

Kyle Leindecker (LHP).  So this is an easy one.  As opposed to last season where we didn't have any truly projectable players coming in, Kyle Leindecker has all the makings of a pitcher who will make an impact his freshmen year.  Drafted by the Indians in the 25th round, he opted to go to school in his home state instead, and hope to boost his draft status over the next few years.  

So let's go Hoosiers!  

First up, LSU...

Kyle Taber - A Hero Obscured By Tragedy or Come On Folks, Kyle Taber Is Playing Pretty Well

An unfortunate consequence of Kelvin Sampson's recruiting violations is the fact that Kyle Taber, all 6'7", 228lbs of him is getting lost in the mayhem.

It's not that he is a superstar possessing NBA potential, it's that this largely forgotten player sidelined by injuries his freshmen year has come on over the past few weeks to play an important role on this team. I went about gathering stats on his performance but have opted not to include them, as honestly, they don't do him justice, as they are fairly paltry due to his limited playing time (although I did tinker with extrapolating his stats/playing time for the equivalent playing time of White/Gordon/Ellis and he came out 3rd on the team in rebounds!).

Normally I am NOT one to speak a lot about intangibles, I like looking at statistics to evaluate players, but from watching Taber the last few games it's clear he is making his time on the floor count. It's not that he is scoring tons of points, getting every rebound, or blocking every shot, it is simply that he is there on every play, thus when he gets an opportunity he does follow through and make the play. I remember vividly yelling "Taberrrrrrrr!" out of excitement several times during the Purdue game when he made a great follow-through lay up and a jumper, not to mention some good board coverage.

In what may be the best part of the story though is that if you listen, you can hear chants of "Ky-le Ta-ber" coming from the crowd on occasion. IU fans have always loved to support the guy who comes from no where, or is a native son who worked his way up through the ranks. The last guy who got this treatment was Errek Suhr, the most recent to get it, and lose it due to the fickleness of the fans was Sean Kline. Let's hope Taber continues to play well, and IU fans keep supporting the former walk on from Evansville.

Iu vs Wisconsin

Surrounded in a cloud of haziness, and uhhhhhh lies, IU tried to defend assembly hall last night and failed. The zone defense was useless and as soon as we came out of it, we took a pretty commanding lead. For some reason we felt the necessity to head back to the zone in the second half, even though they were lights out from 3 point land all game.

A heart wrenching loss which caps off an atrocious day (week) in IU Sports.

Now onto what everyone is talking about.

I was writing an email to my fellow DefendTheRock-ers about how frustrating all of this is to sit back and watch. Is this worse than the Mike Davis stuff? We are winning now right (well not against anyone with an RPI higher than 32)? We are winning but are we now the team that could start playing well and winning, but have an asterisk next to our name at the end of the season?



Really we can't do anything about it either, that's the hardest part. Fans everywhere are commenting on blogs or polls and saying Sampson and Greenspan need to be fired. I agree. I want them so far from this organization right now, even without "proof." I think a truly clean and fresh start can really do nothing but help IU. They can be pro-active and take the punishment handed down by the NCAA but also get rid of the cancer that is tainting IU basketball at the moment.

Let us know what you think, or if you hear any news, sadly we are not in Bloomington anymore, so we lack the immediate connections and ties to what is going on. Should we look internally for a coach? Or go outside and try to start a new no cheating era?

Beats me, this is an incredibly frustrating time for Hoosiers fans. If you see a moping Hoosier fan, give em a hug. We have to prove our resiliency here. Lets lift each other up, and not forget that we still have 12 guys out there still playing their hearts out for our Alma Mater.

Hoo Hoo Hooosiers!

A.J. Ratliff

I just want to mention that I wish him the best.

I will always love this:



enjoy!

Time For Sampson and Greenspan To Go

By now I am sure all of you have read and seen the reports on the latest round of recruiting violations by Coach Sampson and his staff. You can look back on this blog (just search "Sampson" ) and you will see me singing this man's praises. It's true that I didn't want to see Mike Davis go, but I welcomed Sampson with open arms, despite the violations he had at Oklahoma, and the repercussions they meant for Indiana basketball.

I do not believe Coach Sampson is a stupid man, and that just means that he is arrogant and foolhardy. I can't imagine why a coach at a Big Ten school, with such a rich basketball tradition as IU would go back to his illicit recruiting methods that he used at his prior job after already being caught.

As for Greenspan, he was responsible for brining in a coach that he knew violated league rules once before, so one would figure he would keep Sampson on an extra short leash, making sure he didn't repeat his previous violations and cause further harm to the Indiana basketball program. Greenspan is doing typical PR spin right now, trying to make it sound as if he, and the rest of his staff had no idea what was going on, there are two ways to take this. If true it means he wasn't doing his job of keeping an eye on Sampson to ensure the continued excellence and honesty of the program. If false, it means he was complicit in violations of league rules. I think we know which one is worse, but both are pretty damn bad.

I just feel bad for the players, it's not their fault that their coach violated the rules to recruit them or their teammates. Sure, these guys know they're not supposed to accept a car, but I have to imagine they don't read every press release and every line of the league recruiting rule book to see if they can take a call.

Coach Sampson has done an excellent job on the court while here at Indiana, but it seems increasingly evident that off the court, his job has not just been lackluster, to contrary to the image than Indiana would like to project. Greenspan has done an admirable job of bringing in coaches, attention, and funding to our various athletic programs, but if he is unable (or unwilling) to go that next step and properly oversee his subordinates (especially such a high profile, and high risk one such as Sampson) in order to make sure they are following league rules, he has no place at this institution.

I am not well enough versed in how the contracts for these two gentlemen are set up, so I do not know what the most pragmatic method of terminating their contracts is, all I know is that it is my fundamental belief that it would be best for Indiana Athletics, and Indiana fans nationwide if these two men did not return to their posts in Bloomington next year.

In no way am I going to turn away from Indiana basketball, or any other Indiana sport over this latest ordeal, but it's leaving a pretty awful taste in my mouth and regretfully, at this point I have to assume it will only get worse before it gets better.

I am sure my fellow Defend The Rockers will have plenty to say on this topic, so stay tuned.

A.J Ratliff Is No Longer An IU Basketball Player or A.J. Ratliff Was Still An IU Basketball Player?

As reported by the Indiana Daily Student, A.J. Ratliff is as of now, no longer on the IU Basketball roster. As IU fans have probably noticed, Ratliff has been noticeably absent from the team this year. Between injuries (which have nagged him his entire IU career), academic ineligiblity, and "personal issues," Ratliff has been deprived of playing time this year.

Ratliff had an impact in his Freshmen year, leading the team in 3-Point Percentage, and playing in 26 of the team's games, but never seemed to explode like it seemed like he was always set to do. His best year was last year, when he averaged 9.3 points a game, and scored himself an Adam Ahlfeld Team Player Award due to his strong performance against Purdue.

As with any Hooiser who carries a good attitude and plays hard, I'm sorry to see him go. Luckily this team has plenty of guards, and his performance, or lack thereof this year, will not be sorely missed.

Football is making headlines again!

Not even a week after our #11 in the Big Ten Recruiting Class was announced, 5 IU Football Players have been arrested.

James Bailey and Demetrius McCray were both arrested for disorderly conduct after failing to turn down their music on Sunday. They were both taken to Monroe County Jail that evening after the police verified they had been issued warnings previously.

The others arrested were Jarrell Drane (Illegal Consumption), Ian Reeves (Illegal Consumption), Darius Johnson (resisting law enforcement, illegal consumption, public intoxication).

This is disappointing news. Especially that of Ja Bailey to me. I know we have seen him sit out a game for an unspecified violation of a team rule, but I hoped as he came into his senior year that he would start acting like the leader that he needs to be. He has to be our BMOC this year. He can be a fan favorite like J-Hard was, and I would love to see that happen. I would hate to see him keep getting caught up in all of this off the field bullshit. Come on Ja!

I assume we will be hearing about this via IUhoosiers.com soon. In regards to a punishment for the players, what do you think is a decent punishment for the above arrests? Should there be any punishment? Are/Should football players be held with a certain level of accountability higher than that of an average student? What do you think Bailey and McCray were listening to? Honestly, were the freshman simply being freshman?

Let us know!