Seeking more on Indiana

With Thanksgiving next week, I decided to move the question and answer column up a week this month.
This time around readers are interested in fundamentals and scheduling in regard to high school boys basketball as well as more coverage of Indiana University men’s basketball. But we’ll start with a questions about football in the Buckeye state.
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How long until the Ohio State University football team puts it together again?
—Jason Grieshop
Glasgow, Ky.

Despite all the turmoil over the course of the last year, I don’t believe it will take Ohio State too long to get the program back to where it has been accustomed to being. The Buckeyes did give up five scholarships last week as part of the ongoing issues stemming from players trading memorabilia for tattoos, but they’ve at least been able to be decent this year despite losing five key players to suspensions.
And if you’ve watched Big Ten football this year, you realize it isn’t very impressive.
(Also, it probably wouldn’t hurt if the speculation became reality and Urban Meyer accepted the job in Columbus next season.)
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Why don’t more coaches value teaching fundamentals at the high-school level or at higher levels? It seems that most programs only worry about fundamentals at a younger age. Is that and the easy schedule why the Jay County boys are good year in and year out?
—Chris Snow, Portland

I can’t pretend to know what coaches around the state value or why they do so. But I do think strong fundamentals are a big reason why Jay County is good year in and year out.
The Patriots spend a lot of time on the little things — triple-threat position, pass-faking, ball-handling, etc. — and it pays off. I think it especially shows up on the defensive end, where  JCHS is often among the best teams in the state in points allowed per game.
In terms of scheduling, who a team plays always has an impact on how many games it wins.
In Craig Teagle’s first season with the Patriots — 1998-99 — they played seven Class 4A opponents as members of an Olympic Athletic Conference that included McCutcheon, Harrison, Hamilton Southeastern, Connersville, Noblesville, Anderson Highland, Huntington North and Muncie Southside. That number was down to four last season.
But it should also be noted that Jay County, once a school of nearly 2,000 students, now has just 1,115 and is one of the smallest Class 4A schools after spending 2002 through 2007 in Class 3A.
In the last four years of sectional play in Class 4A the Patriots are 4-3 with two sectional championship-game appearances and one title.
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In (Saturday’s) paper you had a two-column story about Purdue’s basketball game (Friday) night, but you didn’t even have the score of Indiana’s basketball game. Why not? I would like to see more Big Ten scores in the paper. Thanks.
—Eileen Guntle, Portland

Coverage decisions are made for a variety of reasons.
Sometimes choices have to do with the competitiveness of each game. Sometimes it’s about the quality of the teams involved.
In this particular case, it was neither of those things.
Quite honestly, the IU game got forgotten in the chaos of a busy Friday night. Given the blowouts in both the Indiana and Purdue games, it certainly would have been more effective to run shorter stories about both games.
Since we were short on coverage of the Hoosiers Friday, hopefully stories Monday and today, and the next question, help make up for it.
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After watching Tyler Zeller look great and get a double-double versus a weak Stony Brook team, who was the last IU freshman to have a double-double in his first game?  And how many freshmen have accomplished this feat throughout IU’s storied history?
— Nathan Miller, Indianapolis

The debut double-double is not as rare as you might think, at least not recently. The last instance happened just two years ago when Christian Watford had 14 points and 11 rebounds against Howard.
Tom Pritchard, who graduated from my alma mater, St. Edward High School in Lakewood, Ohio, also had a double-double in his debut. He recorded 13 points and 10 rebounds against Northwestern State in 2008.
However, prior to 2008 the only Hoosier to reach the achievement was George McGinnis in 1970.
Watford and Pritchard are the only players in IU history to record double-doubles in each of their first two games.
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If you would like a chance to have your questions about local, college or pro sports answered, email them to [email protected] with “Ask Ray” in the subject line or post them on The Commercial Review’s Facebook page.[[In-content Ad]]