Freshmen Storm Campus: Hoosiers Start Workouts

From several reports all the freshman are either on campus as of right now or will be soon making their way to start classes and workouts in the second summer session of the academic calendar. This week truly signifies that the 2012 season has begun and the players are already starting to work towards a campaign for a sixth national title.

There are a few things to report from the first couple workouts that have already occurred. Fellow freshmen Yogi Ferrell, Ron Patterson and Jeremy Hollowell all reported that teammate Peter Jurkin has more game than was initially expected. After having some lengthy injury setbacks he was certainly the wild card in this year’s class. Because of his inability to work with his lower body injury, he seemed a prime candidate to red shirt or at least take a lot more time to develop. That doesn’t appear to be quite as likely now. Reports (and pictures) show that he is much bigger in the upper body than the early pictures to come from North Carolina after his commitment. He still needs to work on strengthening the lower body, but his reported unexpected face up game should provide him with a more of a buffer window to accomplish that into the season.

Ron Patterson shot down rumors of him going to prep school. I don’t think it was ever truly a viable possibility. Chalk it up to internet message board rumors from people who don’t know what they’re talking about. All of the 5 freshman will be on and playing for the team this coming season. Buss will be looking to fight for minutes early with his tenacious defense. That length coupled with good size could make him a defensive terror going up against PGs and SGs. Hopefully practicing staying in front of Yogi day in and day out will help him take his defense from a very good high school player to an elite college player quickly.

Yogi sounds like he’ll be playing alongside Hulls just as much as he’ll be competing with him for minutes. Hulls as we all know is a lights out shooter and combining a lightning quick PG with great passing skills with an automatic deep threat has some potential for some magical shooting games for Hulls in 2012. Add in Hulls’ leadership qualities and I think it is easy to see where Sports Illustrated was coming from when they named Hulls a top 10 impact senior for this coming season.

Terry Hutchens had a great article on Yogi and what he’s looking for out of this coming season. Really have to like his attitude and approach to the upcoming season.

Zeller, according to Dan Dakich is much bigger. Dakich said on his radio show about a week ago that there are guys that are big and then there are guys that boggle the mind. Mind you Dakich has been on the Indiana basketball scene for a long time and knew what Zeller brought to the table. If he noticed a big difference in the incoming sophomore that says a lot. If he’s up to 250 lbs. by the season there is no chance he doesn’t embarrass every other big in the conference.

Mo is dunking and looking good offensively in practices and workout sessions, but his lateral quickness appears to still be a work in progress. Anything he brings to next season is just a bonus. Hope he can come back to be the player he looked to be capable of being as a freshman.

Not heard much else from the team as of this point. Organized workouts are just getting started again. Should be getting a better flow of information here in another couple weeks as players get into the full swing of things.