Author: Dustin Dopirak

Former Indiana baseball coach Chris Lemonis led Mississippi State to its first ever NCAA baseball championship on Wednesday evening when the Bulldogs shut out defending champion Vanderbilt 9-0. Lemonis coached at Indiana for four years from 2015-18 and led Indiana to the NCAA Tournament in three of those seasons. This is his third year in Mississippi State and he’s been to two College World Series twice. The year he didn’t make it was the year there was no series because the season was ended because of COVID-19. He has a 114-37 record with the Bulldogs after posting a 141-91-2 record…

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The NCAA’s Board of Directors decided Wednesday to allow college athletes to profit off their name, image and likeness, passing a temporary measure after attempts to get Congress to pass an overarching law that would govern the practice. Numerous states have passed laws that would allow college athletes to bring in NIL income with more than a dozen setting them up to allow athletes to begin collecting offers on Thursday. The NCAA’s decision assures that they can begin collecting those offers without violating the organizations own bylaws. The board decreed that athletes can still not be paid directly for athletic…

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Indiana’s havoc-creating defense is built on bodies who fit into multiple positions and positions that are creatively named because they aren’t part of a standard lineup like the Husky, the Bull and the Stinger. Many defensive players arrive in Bloomington not sure where exactly they’ll fit, and both they and their coaches kind of like it that way. But there are still some players in each class who fit a prototype, who fit in exactly one spot and fit it perfectly. Cooper Jones is one of those players. The former Valparaiso star is listed at 6-foot-6, 270 pounds, and even…

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CARMEL — C.J. Gunn won’t get matched up against guys like Jalen Washington all that often at the next level, at least not primarily. Gunn, the 6-foot-5 shooting guard from Lawrence North who is committed to Indiana for the Class of 2022 will certainly find himself on 6-foot-9 power forwards with 3-point range like Washington has on switches, but not as a primary assignment. But this is high school and Gunn is still one of the tallest and most experienced players on his high school roster, especially because Lawrence North was hit so hard by graduation after falling to Carmel…

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Indiana will play at Syracuse in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge according to a Twitter report from Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports.  The game will be held on Tuesday, November 30. Indiana won its last national championship by beating Syracuse in the title game in 1987 in New Orleans. Since then, however, the Orange have won the last five meetings, four of which were at neural sites. Most recently, the Orange eliminated the No. 1 seed Hoosiers in the NCAA Tournament East Regional semifinals in Washington, D.C. in March of 2013, then beat them again the following season in the ACC/Big…

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CARMEL — Cathedral center Xavier Booker walked away from his unofficial visit to Indiana this week with not only a scholarship offer, but a good sense of how the Hoosiers would operate under new coach Mike Woodson. As has been the case with just about every recruit Indiana has pursued and is pursuing so far under Woodson, the Hoosiers stressed the importance of developing relationships between the players and the coaching staff during Booker’s visit, and that was what most impressed the 6-foot-10, 205-pound rising junior. “They like building relationships with the players,” Booker said Saturday at the IBCA/IHSAA Team…

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CARMEL — Jalen Washington is diplomatic the way top-level players tend to become when they’ve had to give enough interviews. The Gary West Side power forward speaks well of every program showing interest and can list at length the attributes that make each one enticing. That includes Indiana. The Hoosiers have stayed in pursuit of the five-star recruit and No. 19 player in the Class of 2022, and he says he has been impressed by what the program has done so far in its first few months under coach Mike Woodson. “They’re very much still in touch,” Washington said Saturday…

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Lilly King became an Olympic gold medalist in the summer after her freshman year at Indiana. That made her a household name, especially in the state, but she couldn’t profit off of that at the time because of NCAA rules. She’s now a graduated professional and heading to her second Olympics, having qualified in the 100-meter and 200-meter breastroke events with an opportunity to also swim in relays in Tokyo. She has her own endorsements now and has an opportunity to cash in even more with a strong performance, particularly another gold, in Tokyo. However, she does see the NCAA’s…

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Sean McEvoy was intrigued by Michael Penix as much as any of the quarterbacks who attended the Flight School quarterback he runs with Quincy Avery, his fellow quarterback trainer and partner in a venture they call QB Takeover. Avery had seen Penix at the Elite 11 camp when he was coming out of high school. McEvoy had not. He had seen him play during the season and noticed him lead Indiana to a 6-2 season, Outback Bowl berth and top 15 finish with wins over Penn State and Michigan, but hadn’t seen him up close. And he obviously wasn’t sure…

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Go on to Carter Smith’s Hudl page and you’ll have to scroll down a long ways to find video of him playing football. All of the videos since April have a cover photo of him in a football uniform, but if you press play, you’ll see him in a volleyball shirt and shorts. Smith is a middle blocker on Olentangy Liberty High School’s volleyball team in Powell, Ohio, as well as an offensive tackle on its football team. In those videos, you can see him skying way above the to get to serves and throwing down thunderous spikes his opponents…

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