Post by teamweaver on Oct 22, 2005 22:29:53 GMT -5
"I thought Rajon, his outside shooting was certainly impressive,'" Coach Tubby Smith said. "Running the team he did a good job, things we expect him to do. He created a lot of problems on both ends of the floor." >>Click Here For Full Recap, Box Scores, Game Quotes & Photos<<
One of my last was the '82 scrimmage. Roger Harden was the highly touted freshman that year. He was Indiana's Mr. Basketball and it was an obvious big deal that we had recruited him away from Knight - rumor had it Roger had a pretty big head over it. Well, Hall wasn't going to take any of that so he assigned Dirk Minniefield to kind of ride herd on Roger in practices to give him a reality check and bring him back to earth.
Come the Blue-White Game, Roger was the starting PG on the White team and the first time Roger tried to bring the ball up the court, Dirk (on the Blue Team) stole the ball. Dirk passed off and Blue went down and scored. The next throw-in, Dirk again steals a Harden pass and, voila, Blue is up 4-0. The very next White throw-in Minniefield strips Hardin off the dribble before he can get across midcourt and takes it in for a jam. Hall immediately benched Roger at that point and he didn't play the rest of the scrimmage. Hardin was in shock! He was a pale blond kid anyway, but he was absolutely ghostly sitting down at the end of the bench.
Hall was not known for bringing young players along gently and I think it took Hardin till his junior year to get his confidence back after that.
