SACRAMENTO ““ Watching the tape of Indiana today, there was one player from the Hoosiers who stood out in the Bruins’ minds.
D.J. White.
The 6-foot-9, 240-pound junior forward with a 7-foot-3-inch wingspan was nothing like the Bruins had ever seen before.
All you had to do was ask the player who is expected to guard him on Saturday.
“We haven’t seen anyone as strong or physical as him before,” junior Lorenzo Mata said. “Their offense runs through him and hopefully, we will able to stop him.”
Saturday will not be the first time White will be the focus of an opposing defense.
Every game this season, White has seen double teams, and he doesn’t remember the last time a team played him one-on-one.
White, after all, was the 2005 Big Ten Freshman of the Year, and was a heralded recruit from the beginning of his high school days in Alabama.
“I have seen it all before,” White said. “No double team is different from any other. As long as we come out focused and ready to play (on Saturday), we will be fine.”
For some, carrying the burden of a basketball-crazy school like Indiana might be an imposing task.
But for White, it’s something that he relishes, because last year, he didn’t have a chance to be part of any postseason run.
White sustained two foot injuries and had to take a medical redshirt as the Hoosiers lost in the second round to Gonzaga.
“Seeing our team fail last year, I wish I could have been out there,” White said. “It makes me so much more happy to be out there now.”
White and the No. 7-seeded Hoosiers have taken a similar path to get to Saturday’s game against the No. 2-seeded Bruins.
Just like White’s career at Indiana, the Hoosiers have struggled by their standards the last two years, and they brought in a new coach in Kelvin Sampson at the beginning of the season.
It took a while for the players to buy into Sampson’s system, but the Hoosiers eventually embraced his principles.
“I think we have adjusted to it well, especially on defense and rebounding,” White said. “Coach is very tough-minded, and he has brought that to our team.”
On Thursday, the Hoosiers showed that toughness as they handled a well-coached Gonzaga team, but they know Saturday brings an entirely new challenge.
The Bruins are one of the most athletic and well-rounded teams the Hoosiers and White have faced all season.
“This game has been on my mind all day,” White said. “It’s the Bruins and the Hoosiers and it’s a chance to reach the Sweet 16. I’m excited.”
MATA RECOVERS: After vomiting twice during Thursday’s game, Mata was held to a mostly liquid diet on Thursday night.
While the rest of the Bruins ordered hamburgers, Mata was limited to a light meal and a lot of Gatorade and water.
The result was that Mata felt much better today.
“I was able to go through the entire walk-through,” Mata said. “Hopefully, I will feel just as good tomorrow (as I did today).”
SAMPSON SUPPORT: Sampson’s father Ned Sampson traveled with his son to the Sacramento regional this weekend.
Ned, who coached Kelvin in high school in Pembroke, N.C., became famous in 1958 for fighting the Ku Klux Klan in a North Carolina field.
Ned Sampson was ambushing the Klan along with a hundred of Lumbee Indians, the Native American tribe that his family belonged to.
“He is a man that stood up for what he believed in,” Kelvin said Friday. “My father (is) not only a better coach than I’ll ever be, but a better man.”
DRIBBLERS: UCLA center Alfred Aboya, who played AAU basketball in Indiana, practiced against White in high school. While on the Hoosier campus, Aboya visited the Indiana Hall of Fame, and was "amazed by all the championship trophies." Aboya said that’s when he learned about Indiana’s basketball tradition. When Mata was asked about Indiana’s candy-pinstripe warm-up pants, he said that "we should get some of those in blue and gold."