Rest vs. Rust: Long Layoff For Banged-Up Hoosiers A Good Thing?

Indiana hasn't played a game since Dec. 23 and the Hoosiers are looking forward to getting back in action on Thursday night in Iowa City. The rest has helped some injured Hoosiers, but how much will rust come into play as the Big Ten season resumes?

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Indiana will go 13 days between games when it finally suits up and takes the court against Iowa on Thursday night in Iowa City. That's a long time. 

But the Hoosiers have several players dealing with injuries, so the hope is that stars like Trayce Jackson-Davis and Jalen Hood-Schifino are closer to 100 percent now that 18 Big Ten games await the Hoosiers in the next nine weeks. Both have dealt with back injuries, missing three games each.

Jackson-Davis missed the last two games against Elon and Kennesaw State, and an earlier nonconference game on Nov. 23. Hood-Schifino first came up lame just prior to the Dec. 4 loss to Rutgers, and missed that game plus the win against Nebraska and the loss against Arizona in Las Vegas.

Having 13 days off in the middle of a basketball season is kind of unusual. There's good, especially for the sore bodies, but it's a long layoff, too. 

"There's two sides to it,'' Indiana coach Mike Woodson said Tuesday when he met with the media. "If it was up to me, we would have stayed here for the Christmas holidays and practiced like the old days and continued to work. But we gave the guys three, four days off. Guys that are a little banged up, it gave them an opportunity to recoup, then we came back and went to work while other teams were still playing.

"I've always been one that really wants to play. We set the schedule this way. When you think about it, I mean, it's good and bad. Again, I don't like a lot of time off. I just don't. This was a nice break. Again, we were banged up a little bit, too, so it's given guys like Trayce an opportunity to kind of recoup and hopefully get ready to go starting on Thursday.''

The players all went home after the Dec. 23 game. Only Xavier Johnson, who just had foot surgery after getting injured in the Dec. 17 loss at Kansas, stayed around. His family came from Virginia to be with him, and they all had Christmas dinner with the Woodsons.

Woodson stayed busy with recruiting and watching film. The grind is on, and he knows it. 

"I went out and did a number of things,'' he said. "I went and honored my high school coach (Broad Ripple's Bill Smith). I went and looked at a couple high school games. I spent all my time in Bloomington. I left for one day, and that was New Year's Eve when I went back and checked on my home in Atlanta that day. I came back New Year's morning and had practice and spent dinner with our team.

"For me, I'm strictly basketball. That's what I do. I was here watching film on the computer, trying to get ready for Iowa, seeing how we can beat Iowa.''

Jackson-Davis took it easy for a week, getting treatment. He was a full participant in practice on Monday. 

"(Monday) was really the first time he's had some contact. I thought he looked pretty good,'' Woodson said. "But I won't know the extent of it until I get down there in the training room (Tuesday) and just see how he feels physically.

"He's been doing some things on the floor, but not a lot of contact. (Monday) we had a lot of contact. (Tuesday) we'll have a lot of contact. We'll scrimmage and just kind of see where he is, providing he's feeling good about (Monday's) practice.''

The Hoosiers are 10-3 on the season and ranked No. 15 in the recent Associated Press top-25 poll. (They are No. 19 in the Coaches Poll.) So far the Hoosiers are 1-1 in Big Ten play, losing to Rutgers and winning at home against Nebraska.

Iowa is 8-6 and 0-3 in Big Ten play. Woodson knows Iowa will still cause problems, though, because it's a league road game — which are never easy — and they'll be hungry to snap the losing streak.

Iowa beat Indiana twice last year, first in Iowa City in January and then in the Big Ten Tournament semifinals in March on a half-court shot by Jordan Bohannon.

Woodson would like to end that streak. We'll just have to see how much the layoff will affect the Hoosiers. 

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