Author: Dustin Dopirak

Indiana baseball coach Jeff Mercer tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, which led to a postponement of the double-header scheduled between IU and Penn State at Bart Kaufman Field. The release from Indiana follows. BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Indiana University head baseball coach Jeff Mercer tested positive for COVID-19 through an antigen test on the morning of Friday, Mar. 12. His result was then confirmed with a PCR test. “This morning I tested positive for COVID-19,” Mercer said. “I’m experiencing minor symptoms and will now enter my 10-day isolation period. I look forward to communicating with the team during my absence and rejoining the…

Al Durham still hasn’t come all the way out and said it. He participated in Senior Day ceremonies, but said at the time he had no answer for whether or not he’ll return for the fifth season made possible by the NCAA to deal with the effects of COVID-19. But Friday morning and early afternoon provided more signs that the senior guard will be ending his Indiana career after four seasons, 123 games, 97 starts, and 1,035 points. One after another, his teammates posted messages of appreciation for Durham’s tenure on their Twitter accounts and Durham made a point to…

For a moment, Indiana got to remember what noise can do. How it can add muscle to fragile psyches and make its targets feel as if they have no place to escape. A year to the day after the world changed and packed arenas became a dangerous thing, the Hoosiers experienced the closest thing to an impassioned, raucous crowd that they have seen since last March. Their friends and family had done the best they could at Assembly Hall all winter, but playing the Big Ten tournament at Lucas Oil Stadium provided enough space for even a socially-distanced crowd of…

There was never a time last season when Marcelino Ball didn’t feel sincere joy for his teammates. He caught every single game, whether he was there to see it in person or he caught it on TV or radio, even when he was recovering from surgery to repair his ACL. “Especially the Penn State game,” he said. “I recorded the whole thing on Instagram live. That was the day of my surgery and I just got home and it was the same day. It was good to see them ball out.” But there was also never a time he didn’t…

Archie Miller already doesn’t feel great about this matchup. The Hoosiers head into the Big Ten tournament at Lucas Oil Stadium as a No. 10 seed going up against a No. 7 seeded Rutgers team that has beaten the Hoosiers twice with the last loss coming by 11 points. The Hoosiers turned the ball over too much against the Scarlet Knights, they’ve had a hard time getting the ball to the rim, and they’ve had problems defending the dribble-drive on the other end. That’s not a good matchup for an Indiana team that, at 12-14 overall, 7-12 in the Big…

Trayce Jackson-Davis admits he was very heated during a huddle in the second half of Indiana’s loss at Michigan State on March 2 and he didn’t deny that he used the expletive that it appeared he did on the Big Ten Network broadcast, but the Indiana sophomore center said Wednesday that his ire was not directed at who IU fans thought it might be. “It was just in the heat of the game,” said Jackson-Davis, who was asked about the incident for the first time during a Zoom press conference Wednesday. “I was really frustrated, not even with the coaches…

On the first day of spring practice, Indiana brought out three players who were named All-America by one service or another for a Zoom press conference to discuss the beginning of the build-up to 2021. This is not something that would have been possible in almost any other season in Indiana football history. And not just because Zoom press conferences just became a mainstream necessity a year ago. The Hoosiers have three returning All-Americans on the roster for the first time since 1946, the year after the only undefeated season in Indiana football history when the Hoosiers went 9-0-1 and…

On his radio show Monday night, Archie Miller praised the eight scholarship players who are healthy enough to practice for their effort in Monday’s practice, but in so doing, he also confirmed that redshirt junior forward Race Thompson and sophomore guard Armaan Franklin are not healthy enough to practice. Miller said both are day-to-day as the No. 10 seed Hoosiers approach their first Big Ten tournament game Thursday at 6:30 p.m. against No. 7 seed Rutgers at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. He’s hopeful that both could play, but they still have to see significant improvement before they’re ready to…

Indiana was the school that gave Kaiden Turner his first scholarship offer, so Turner gave Indiana its first commitment for the Class of 2022. For the 6-foot-2 218-pound inside linebacker from Fayetteville (Ark.) High School it was sort of that simple and easy. From the time Indiana got involved in his recruitment in May of 2020 he was pretty certain that Indiana was the place he wanted to go. By the time he got around to announcing his commitment on Monday afternoon, it felt like stating the obvious. “They were my first offer, and that really means a lot to…

By the time he started his pre-spring practice Zoom press conference at 1 p.m. Monday, Tom Allen had already had a pretty lucrative day. About three hours earlier, Indiana announced that he had restructured his contract to add another $1 million per year to his seven-year deal, increasing his annual average compensation to $4.9 million from 3.9 million and moving him up the ladder in the Big Ten above Minnesota’s P.J Fleck and Wisconsin’s Paul Christ and in line with Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz. And just a few moments before he sat down in front of a camera in Indiana’s team…