In no particular order, here are the storylines we’ll be tracking this month:

+ Is David Williams a high major talent? Before he committed to Indiana in late April, Williams was relatively unknown nationally. He is not among the top 100 prospects in the 2010 class on either Scout.com or Rivals.com and many wonder if offering a scholarship to Williams was a stretch for the IU staff. Playing on a stacked roster for the Atlanta “J-Smoove” Celtics that includes N.C. State commit Ryan Harrow, Tennessee commit Jordan McRae and former Ohio State commit Trae Golden, Williams is often overshadowed and perhaps under appreciated by scouts. We’ll get our first look at the Jacksonville native on Monday.

+ Can Indiana secure an official visit from Kyrie Irving? The Hoosiers appear to be in a favorable position for their top 2010 target after he said Indiana was at the top of his list in early June. However, Irving has established himself as one of the top players nationally in his class and Duke, Virginia, Kentucky and Notre Dame are all believed to be making a strong push. He will participate in the LeBron James Skills Academy this week and IU coaches will be able to watch him on Wednesday and Thursday.

+ Will Matt Carlino return to form after a tough April and May? After being slowed by injuries this spring, Carlino hopes to get his shooting stroke back and display the talents that led to an IU offer last summer. With his recent move to Bloomington, he should be more familiar with his Indiana Elite teammates. Look for IU’s lone 2011 commitment to have an impressive summer while playing both guard spots.

+ Is Indiana a major factor for Marquis Teague? Publicly, the stance from the Indianapolis Pike point guard is that he loves Indiana and Tom Crean. At the same time, Louisville has been recognized as the team to beat since last winter. There’s no doubt IU has been able to make up considerable ground in his recruitment. But can Crean sell Teague that he’ll be able to compete for a national title his freshman season?

+ Who is the best player from Indiana in the 2012 class? The 2012 class is loaded with talent and IU is actively recruiting four of the top players: Bowman Academy’s Dejuan Marrero, Broad Ripple’s Ron Patterson, Lawrence Central’s Jeremy Hollowell and North Central’s D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera. To this point, Smith-Rivera has garnered the most national publicity, but Hollowell’s length, Patterson’s versatility and Marrero’s athleticism are all things to keep an eye on.

On Monday, July 6 we’ll be at the adidas It Takes Five Classic in Cincinnati and on July 10, 11 and 12 we’ll be at the Kentucky Hoopfest in Louisville. Follow us on Twitter to receive updates throughout the day from both events.

The Indiana University men’s basketball team will face Pittsburgh in the second game of the 2009 Jimmy V Classic scheduled for 9 p.m., Tuesday December 8 in New York’s Madison Square Garden. Butler will face Georgetown in the opening contest at 7 p.m., with both games set to air on ESPN.  This is the 15th Annual Classic, with Indiana making its second appearance in the event (1999).

“My wife and I are contributors to the V Foundation and it is an honor for us to participate in the Jimmy V Classic,” said IU Head Coach Tom Crean.  “This is annually one of the premiere events in college basketball and it is always exciting to take a team to Madison Square Garden.  We have great respect for the Pittsburgh program.”

The two early-season college basketball events showcasing top programs on ESPN and ESPN2 will conclude the third annual Jimmy V Week, a week-long initiative across multiple ESPN platforms and programs featuring special content to help raise funds for cancer research December 2-8.

Maybe I’m a bit optimistic, but I’ve got a good feeling this could be a win for our Hoosiers. The top three players for Pitt, Dejuan Blair, Sam Young and Levance Fields, are gone. And IU will no longer have to rely on Daniel Moore or Michael Santa to run the point. Is it time for Hoosier Hysteria yet? Hey, it was worth a shot.

And several players being pursued by Indiana made the list.

Matt Carlino, the only player committed to Indiana in the 2011 class, is No. 72. Carlino recently transferred from Highland (AZ) to Bloomington South and is playing this spring with Indiana Elite.

Among the notables (High school and AAU team in parentheses):

+ Marquis Teague (Indianapolis Pike; Spiece): No. 6

+ Branden Dawson (Gary Lew Wallace, SYF Players): No. 26

+ Marshall Plumlee (Arden Christ School, NC; Indiana Elite): No. 35

+ Chasson Randle (Rock Island, IL; Illinois Wolves): No. 49

+ Austin Etherington (Hamilton Heights; Indiana Elite): No. 57

+ Cody Zeller (Washington HS; Indiana Elite): No. 59

Rivals.com also released an updated version of their 2011 rankings.

But, Sampson did not agree with the NCAA’s ruling. So he appealed. And today, he was officially denied.

Some more details from the Indianapolis Star:

Sampson appealed the penalties in an April hearing, saying his ban was too severe and that the original committee hearing was biased against him because a date was set before the NCAA enforcement staff issued formal allegations and before it completed interviews.

The NCAA contended that the the original findings and penalties were correct.

Nothing surprising here: it was unlikely Sampson’s appeal was going to help lessen the penalties brought down upon him. Now that he’s been denied, IU has no more hearings with the NCAA on the matter and he’s toiling away on Scott Skiles’ bench in Milwaukee, this will likely be the last nail in the coffin on the Kelvin Sampson era at IU. (Unless members of that team/Sampson/an assistant coach/a member of the athletic staff/a member of the administrative staff/a recruit does a tell-all interview or leaks something to the media. I suppose there’s always a chance of that happening.)

Feels good, doesn’t it?

The game was last played at a neutral site in 2005 at the RCA Dome, a game the Hoosiers won 79-53 behind 23 points from Marco Killingsworth.

In 2006, the game was moved to Rupp Arena because Freedom Hall was unavailable on the date agreed upon by IU, UK and CBS. Kentucky won in 2006 and 2008 at Rupp Arena and IU won in 2007 at Assembly Hall. This year’s game will be played in Bloomington.

If the game were moved to Louisville in 2010, both schools would likely want it to be played in the new downtown arena. The arena, which has yet to be named, is scheduled to open in November of 2010. Seating in the arena is expected to exceed 22,000, according to the Louisville Arena Authority.

{HT: Hoosier Scoop}

For those of you who haven’t kept track of our birthday (shame, shame), Friday marks the two-year anniversary of the launch of Inside the Hall. What started small has grown into a community that all three of us are proud to be apart of.

The focus of the site will remain the same as we head into year number three. We’ll continue to bring the same commentary, news and recruiting updates and in turn, we hope you’ll continue to be the engaged audience that you’ve been the past 730 days.

We feel like it’s as great of a time as any in recent years to be a fan of Indiana basketball. Enthusiasm continues to grow despite a 6-25 season in Tom Crean’s first year. The program is headed in the right direction.

As for the makeover, we hope you’ll share your feedback with us. If something doesn’t look right or you notice any problems, drop us a line at info@insidethehall.com. Or if you absolutely love it, you can tell us about that, too. We’d like to give a shout-out to Collective Colony (which is actually just Ryan and a friend), who worked diligently to build our new look.

Most importantly, thanks to all of you who read, comment and spread the word about Inside the Hall. We hope you’ve enjoyed the first two years of Inside the Hall and will join us for year three.

Creek is believed to be waiting for SAT scores and Muniru is finishing a summer course in Alabama. During today’s press conference, Tom Crean addressed the status of Creek, albeit briefly:

“I can’t tell you much and I’m not going to. We’re very on top of it. He’s very diligent with what he’s doing. We’re confident that everything is moving in the right direction for him. That’s really all there is to it with both of them.”

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out, but for now, the cause for concern is minor at best. Similar situations transpire each year across the country. The reality is that both players will qualify if the necessary criteria is met and Crean sounds confident that will be the case.

In Wednesday afternoon’s press conference, Tom Crean was asked about IU’s recruiting efforts by Herald-Times beat writer Chris Korman. Here’s a transcript:

Korman: You obviously don’t have too many scholarships for the next couple classes, but there seems to be a fair amount of offers out there. How do you manage those?

Crean: We just do. We’re constantly recruiting. We’re constantly recruiting.

Korman: If you have a kid, is there pressure on them if they’re a 2011 kid and they know, some of them we’ve talked to they say, ‘IU doesn’t have any scholarships.’

Crean: Are they saying that or are you saying that?

Korman: Well, they’re saying that to us. ‘Yeah we know that IU doesn’t have any scholarships.’

Crean: Okay. I’m not going to go far into that. We know what we’re doing in recruiting. You know, I read in a situation like where you put out that I didn’t think were real accurate on that in one of your recent stories with that. I’m not going to go very far into that. We’re going to recruit. We’re going to recruit and I’m not going to come in and explain every offer nor could I, you know, legally. We’re going to recruit, we’re going to do what’s best to make this program as successful as it can be. And if you use sources that are wrong, well that’s on you. We’re pretty locked in to what we’re able to do in the sense of what we can say and what we can’t say. I appreciate the attempt at the hypotheticals, but we’re going to recruit the way we recruit. And you mention the word pressure, I don’t think we’re a pressure staff. I think where those things come up is if there’s a timing issue with other recruits. But again, that’s all part of it. I think for the last 14 or 15 months I’ve been pretty open on recruiting and I hope to continue to do that. But we’re also going to recruit the best way we see fit inside of the program. We have our own expectations in here that we have to fulfill.

Korman: It’s just such a mysterious process for us and for readers.

Crean: Well, what’s mysterious about it? There’s scholarships, there’s offers, a lot of things change. A lot of things change inside of years. I’d like to say you always have to be prepared, which you do, but you have to be very diligent in your approach to recruiting. And I think it’s not, it’s never serving the best needs of Indiana basketball, the future of it, to come in and discuss hypotheticals. It’s just not.

–

Before I dive into this, I first want to throw out that I’m friends with Chris Korman. But I would also have no problem telling Chris if I disagreed with him.

First off, Korman is one of the few guys around the program who will ask the questions that need to be asked. He did it with Kelvin Sampson and he’s doing it with Crean. Good for him. It’s his job.

I’ve been around AAU plenty this spring and he’s absolutely right when he says there are kids who are concerned about the scholarship situation moving forward. They talked about it during the spring and I’m sure we’ll hear more about it in July. It’s a legitimate question. The numbers speak for themselves.

(Photo credit: Fannation.com)

We’ll have more reaction to Crean’s comments later tonight or tomorrow.

(Thanks to Chris Korman of The Herald-Times for the audio.)

Davis also held an offer from Purdue and was receiving interest from Butler, Cincinnati, Iowa, Tennessee and IU.