The Online Reflector

The No. 23 University of Indianapolis men’s basketball team (19-7, 12-6  GLVC) began preparing for the post-season last week after finishing the 2011-12 regular season with a three-game winning streak. The team earned a first-round bye in the SCHEELS Great Lakes Valley Conference Championship Tournament.

Head Coach Stan Gouard said that being able to earn a bye in the tournament benefited the team at the start of the post-season by giving them another day to rest.

He also said that the five coaches on staff, including the four assistant coaches, took this extra time to prepare themselves with scouting reports of other teams that may have been competition in future games.

Senior guard Adrian Moss agreed that the bye would help the team as well.

“It’s actually going to be great for our team because like I have said before, we’ve got some older guys on this team. So if anytime we can get a [chance to] rest, that is great,” Moss said. “We only have seven players, and most of us have been playing 30-plus minutes a game most of this year, so it’s good to have the week off.”

Following Sunday’s first round match-ups in the GLVC tournament, the Greyhounds learned that they would be playing No. 13 University of Southern Indiana (21-6, 12-6 GLVC).

UIndy has defeated the Screaming Eagles on two separate occasions during the regular season.

Moss said that although the team has shown many positive plays in both match-ups against Southern Indiana, there was still room to improve and play even better for their third game against the USI.

“I wouldn’t say the game plan has changed. I would say it is more of just continuing to do the stuff we did good and changing the stuff we did bad,” Moss said. “We’re looking at film right now, looking at the stuff where we messed up and looking at what we could do better. Hopefully, we can do those things better, because  we felt like in the two games we didn’t really play two great games and if we put together a great game, we feel like nobody in the conference can beat us.”

As the team prepared for the weekend, Gouard said he was excited about the possibilities of the post-season with the team.

“Well, I want to play on National Championship Day and go all the way. We looked at the pre-season and talked about some goals, talked about winning conference and winning the conference tournament, then winning six games and we would be national champions,” Gouard said. “That’s all it takes once you get into post-season play, and once you get into post-season play its win or go home. This year’s group is a special group with a will to win. I’m excited about the post-season for our team and am looking forward to leading these guys deep in the tournament.”

UIndy lost to the Screaming Eagles 78-60 in the quarterfinals on March 2. Sophomore forward Leland Brown scored a career-high 23 points for the fourth seed Greyhounds but that wasn’t enough to combat the Screaming Eagles.

USI is the top defensive team in the conference and that showed during the game. The Eagles forced 21 turnovers and had 12 steals against the Greyhounds.

UIndy led with the first six points of the game, all scored off of fast breaks, but the Eagles fought back. USI stopped the Greyhounds’ offense and went on an 11-4 run of their own.

With 7:31 left to play, junior forward Will Smith hit a jumper at the top of the key that put UIndy ahead 20-18.

The Eagles rallied and went on another run of 12-2 just before the half, putting them on top, 30-22.

UIndy made seven of the next 10 points to pull within four, 33-29. But it wasn’t enough and the Eagles led 38-29 going into the break.

The Eagles used the Greyhounds’ mishaps to their advantage as the team scored 16 points from 14 of UIndy’s turnovers.

In the regular season, USI averaged just six made 3-pointers, but in the third matchup of the two teams, the Eagles shot 50 percent from behind the arc.

At the start of the second half, USI scored the first four points to extend their lead and put the Greyhounds down by 13 points.

For the remainder of the game, the Greyhounds were never able to break out of the deficit and the difference was never back within single digits.

With 8:56 left to play, the Eagles went on yet another large run and put UIndy down by 21, 63-41 and securing the win.

The Greyhounds defeated Saint Joseph’s College (8-18, 3-15 GLVC) 84-71 on Feb. 23.

The victory over Saint Joseph’s provided the Greyhounds with their first win in a five-game losing streak they had against the Pumas.

All five starters from UIndy finished the game in double figures, with senior forward/center Wilbur O’Neal scoring 15 points and seven rebounds, sophomore forward Leland Brown finishing with 12 points and sophomore guard Reece Cheatham contributing 10 points and eight rebounds.

The Greyhounds opened the game up with an early seven-point lead. UIndy led 18-11 before allowing the Pumas to go on a 21-4 run to take the lead 32-22 late in the half.

The Greyhounds pulled within two points, 40-38, after a pair of 3-pointers  by Moss, and UIndy took control from then on. The Pumas made mistakes, which UIndy capitalized on by making 10 of 11 free throws and scoring 17 points off of turnovers in the first half.

Sophomore guard Miles Mitchell said that although the team was playing well, there was room for improvement heading into the match-up with St. Joseph’s.

“St. Joseph’s is just another opponent. Fortunately, we’re playing good basketball right now, and we want to continue that,” Mitchell said. “We would like to come out and show that we have made a lot of improvements and that we can correct a lot of errors, so we can continue progressing and be strong at the end of the year.”

Gouard said he agreed that the team needed to continue improving every day, but at this point in this season there was nothing left to cover.

“The focus is still trying to get better, night in and night out, especially in practice. We don’t do too much of live stuff in practice right now, just paying attention to detail and getting a lot of shots up,”  Gouard said. “This late in the season, to be honest, you can drill all day, but if they don’t have it by now, they’re not going to have it. So we try to focus on getting a lot of shots up, shooting free throws and just paying attention to detail when it comes to the scouting reports and things like that.”

The Greyhounds will now sit back for the remainder of the conference tournament and await the results of the NCAA tournament selection. UIndy was ranked fourth in the final NCAA Midwest Rankings on Feb. 29.