Former Hoosier Curtis Jones Squares Off With His Old Team

Penn State senior guard Curtis Jones played the first two years of his college career at Indiana, so he's looking forward to seeing a few old teammates Wednesday night.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Curtis Jones used to be teammates with Indiana seniors Devonte Green and De'Ron Davis a few years ago. The Penn State senior guard said he often still talks on the phone with them.

Wednesday night he'll get to say hello in person when the Hoosiers take on Jones' Nittany Lions in a huge Big Ten game. (Game time 8:30 p.m.; TV: Big Ten Network). "We talk a lot still, but we haven't talked about this game,'' Jones said. 

The Hoosiers are catching Jones coming off his best game of the year, when he scored 18 points in the second half in Penn State's road win at Michigan. He's been coming off the bench all year, but he's getting about 18 minutes a game.

“I talked to Curtis before I put him in, and I said ‘These moments are made for seniors,'” Chambers said on Wednesday. “‘It’s your time,’ because I didn’t play him that much in the first half. He really stepped up in a big way when they started making their run.”

Jones played 40 games for Indiana, 33 in the 2015-16 season and seven games in 2017. He transferred to Oklahoma State and played one year before transferring to Penn State.

He had his moments as a Hoosier, right from the get-go, and his first game in an Indiana uniform was his best one. He scored 15 points in Indiana's season opener against Kansas his freshman year, making three 3-pointers. He made key free throws and a game-ending dunk, helped the then-No. 12 Hoosiers knock off then-No. 2 Kansas in a thrilling 103-99 overtime win in Honolulu to open their regular season.

He played  in every game for Tom Crean that year, and then played seven games for Archie Miller before leaving the team in December.