The season for my favorite sport has begun. As much as I enjoy watching football, my favorite sport as a player was always hoops. What would you expect, me being a kid growing up in Indiana during the heyday of high school basketball? That is, before the state athletics association went all PC on us and wrecked the high school game with Class Basketball.
I'll get to the Class Basketball travesty another time.
The season has started, and I've seen the Hoosiers and Pacers play.
Indiana is starting over this year with a new coach. Kelvin Sampson. Coming from Oklahoma, he had done fairly well in a football college and state. Will he be a good fit at Indiana? I think it's far too early to say.
The team is struggling, already 3-2 in the young season. Even so, the two losses were to a hot Butler team (Tim's extremely excited) and a close loss at Duke last night. They'll have a tough year, having lost Marco Killingsworth, who was probably their most promising player from last year. They also lost Robert Vaden, but I don't think that has the same impact on the team as Killingsworth.
Sampson seems to have done a pretty good job keeping the rest of the team intact, as other players, such as DJ White, were upset at Mike Davis' firing and threatening to leave the program with Vaden and Killingsworth.
Now he says, and I agree, that this team needs to find its identity. I believe that was a true statement over the last couple of years under Davis. Offensively, they still show a tendency to stand around and wait for somebody else to make a play. That's when they lose.
They appear to play hard on defense, but even so get victimized too often by not playing the tight team defense for which Bob Knight's teams were so well known.
The guy I am most impressed by is in no way their best player. Angelo Pizzo has to make another Rudy movie, this time titled 'Errek'. Errek Suhr (yes, I spelled it correctly) is every bit the basketball version of Sean Astin's Rudy, but much more. I think it's a better story.
If you missed the Duke game last night, you missed an individual performance worthy of a standing ovation. The Hoosiers were struggling in the first half, slowly but steadily falling behind to the Dukies. In comes Errek, who brings energy and toughness and heart. He makes steals, takes charges, feeds teammates, breaks presses. And he's the smallest, least athletic guy on the floor.
The second half, Kelvin Sampson kept his starter on the bench and stayed with Errek. As the second half progressed, I kept seeing Errek making great defensive plays against guys two feet taller. Making steals, taking charges, driving into the lane, exhorting his teammates. And the Hoosiers got back into the game, tying it and keeping it close to the end.
At the end, Errek stole an inbounds pass from Duke, who was trying to run the last few seconds off the clock. As the final seconds ticked off the clock, it was Errek who found the ball back in his hands from timid teammates who didn't want the pressure of taking the game-tying 3-pointer. He did his best to lean in and draw a foul with an impossible shot, but the referrees wouldn't cooperate.
Indiana lost, but they wouldn't have even competed in the game without Errek. And the game was played for the most part with the bigger, stronger, faster, more talented Hoosier guards sitting on the bench.
ESPN showed a shot of Mike Krzyzewski wrapping his arms around the Indiana guard to talk earnestly into his ear. Dick Vitale noted the special attention, and everyone could only imagine the the message of respect and encouragement passed from Coach K to the senior Indiana former walk-on player.
If coach Sampson is looking for leadership and an identity for this team, he would do well to start with the little walk-on from Bloomington named Errek Suhr.
After all that, I hesitate to even talk about the NBA's Pacers.
Yes, I've seen them play. And they're a mediocre .500 team.
Jermaine O'Neal is a great player, but he's not a team leader. He needs a big, strong guy at Center to take pressure off him. Al Harrington is talented, and seems thrilled to be back in Indy, but he's not a center. I like Jeff Foster, but he's a backup.
The Pacers don't have a reliable point guard. Tinsley is erratic, and his backups aren't the answer. Sarunas (I can't spell his last name unless I look it up) is a pretty good shooter when he's open, but isn't fast enough to play point in the NBA.
Steven Jackson is erratic and streaky as well. Not to mention in legal jeopardy over a fight and illegal discharge of a handgun outside a strip club at 4 AM during training camp. That incident all by itself speaks volumes about this team, and how serious (not) they are about winning in the NBA.
Reggie Miller lost a step his last couple of seasons. But he was still the team leader, and still hit the clutch shots when called upon. The Pacers don't have leadership, consistency, chemistry or the quality it takes to win championships in the NBA.
And I don't think we'll be seeing them return to top-tier status again for quite some time.
Too bad, because I think Rick Carlisle is a pretty good coach. Unfortunately, after this season, I think he'll be shown the door. And it won't really be his fault.
Too bad the NBA doesn't have walk-on free agents like Errek Suhr. It would make the league vastly more entertaining.
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