Hoosiers tip-off tonight against Grace Lancers

The Indiana men’s basketball team finally gets to play someone other than themselves tonight when the Grace College, a small NAIA school from northern Indiana comes south to Assembly Hall for a 7 p.m. exhibition game. Nicknamed the Lancers, the school is located just out of Warsaw on Winona Lake and the team play in the Mid-Central College Conference where coaches recently projected them to finish sixth out of nine teams.

Last year Grace won 20 games and went 11-5 in the MCC but for the second straight year have been hit hard by graduation. The biggest loss is Eric Gaff, the team’s top scorer and rebounder last year with impressive numbers of 21.0 points and 12.2 rebounds per game. Gaff is 6-foot-10 and will be a real difficult guy to replace for coach Jim Kessler. Second leading scorer Michael Wienhorst is also not back.

The most proven player returning for the Lancers is 6-foot-6 forward David Swanson, a senior from Ohio who averaged 13.5 points and 9.2 rebounds a year ago. Another key returnee is point guard David Henry, a 5-foot-11 junior from Brownsburg. Henry averaged 8.6 points and a team leading 4.1 assists per contest as a sophomore. Another intriguing guy back is 6-foot-10 Duke Johnson, a skinny but skilled big man who played high school for Jimtown near Elkhart.

It is NAIA but a season ago the Lancers scored 78.3 points per game and shot a very respectable 48.3% from the floor. They outrebounded opponents by nearly 10 boards per game but will obviously miss Gaff in that department. The Lancers did turn it over over 100 times more than opponents.

Game time is 7 p.m. and while the game is not being televised live anywhere fans can catch it for $2.99 on a tape delayed basis or watch it live over the internet at BigTenNetwork.com. Click here for those details.

Projecting starters for the first game of the year is hard for most teams but here goes:

Grace College

PG - David Henry, 5’11, Jr., 8.6 pp, 4.1 apg
2G - Kyle Plumlee, 6’0, 6.1 ppg, 3.9 apg
SF - Dayton Merrell, 6’4, 4.4 ppg, 1.6 apg
PF - David Swanson, 6’6, Sr., 13.5 ppg, 9.2 rpg
C - Duke Johnson, 6’10, So., 6.3 ppg, 3.3 rpg

Indiana

PG - Jeremiah Rivers, 6’5, Jr. (redshirt last season)
2G - Jordan Hulls, 6’0, Fr., (true frosh)
SF - Verdell Jones, 6’4, So., 11.0 ppg, 3.6 apg
PF - Christian Watford, 6’8, Fr., (true frosh)
C - Tom Pritchard, 6’8, So., 9.7 pg, 6.4 apg