Welcome to another edition of 6-Banner Sunday, a joint production between The Assembly Call and Inside the Hall, and presented by our friends at Homefield Apparel, where we highlight the five most essential IU basketball stories of the past week, plus take a look at how the other IU sports programs are doing.
Football continued its conference season with a showdown against Ohio State and lost for the first time in nearly two years. Meanwhile, IU basketball won an exhibition game last Sunday and has another one today as competitive contests are here.
Also, the hoops squad bagged a future recruit and projections for this year for them. As usual, we will conclude with a look at the weekly shows and the rest of the Indiana sports scene, which was led by an announcement of sponsorship on jerseys department-wide.
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Here is what is in this week’s edition:
IU Football Loses Thriller To Ohio State That Ends 22 Game Win Streak
Hoosier Basketball Dominates Butler In Exhibition Game
Indiana Hoops Gets Commitment From 2029 Recruit
IU is 47th In KenPom To Open Season, Nine Seed In NCAA Bracketology
Weekly Shows
Hoosier Roundup-Sponsorship Jersey Patches Coming To All IU Uniforms
Banner #1: IU Football Loses Thriller To Ohio State That Ends 22 Game Win Streak
IU played its toughest game of the season in football and arguably the biggest game in Memorial Stadium history. The atmosphere and fans in the stadium created a hostile environment for the opposition. Also, for the first time in years, the Hoosiers had nearly all supporters in their own venue, and the number of traveling Ohio State fans was cut to a small fraction of the past.
Once again, though, Indiana struggled mightily on offense for large parts of the game as quarterback Josh Hoover continued to have inaccurate throws and issues processing the field. However, IU’s defense played lights out and bottled up Buckeye QB Julian Sayin and the nation’s top WR in Jeremiah Smith.
This led to a low-scoring contest where the Hoosiers needed a score on their final drive. However, WR Nick Marsh could not get his foot down by inches on what would have been a game-winning touchdown on a throw that led him to close to the sideline.
Because of this, Ohio State held on 19-15, and Indiana fell to 6-1 this fall and had their 22-game win streak snapped. The last loss before Saturday came nearly two years ago in December of 2024 to Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff.
Afterwards, IU coach Curt Cignetti spoke, Inside the Hall had a photo gallery, Zach Horwitz wrote Five Takeaways, and Ian Plaskoff put together a column about the end of the winning streak.
Banner #2: Hoosier Basketball Dominates Butler In Exhibition Game
IU basketball fans got their first chance to see the squad last Sunday against opposing competition. While the game was not in Bloomington, it was the first of four contests up in Indianapolis this fall as the Hoosiers played at Butler in Hinkle Fieldhouse, and plenty of Indiana fans were in the crowd.
If this contest was any indication, IU will be much improved with a far superior front line as the Hoosiers dominated 96-68 over the Bulldogs. Fans will get another chance to see the squad in the Circle City today when IU takes on North Carolina today at 5 pm with plenty of tickets left.
After the game against Butler, Hoosier coach Darian DeVries spoke, Inside the Hall had a photo gallery, and Ian Plaskoff provided Five Takeaways.
Banner #3: Indiana Hoops Gets Commitment From 2029 Recruit
The Hoosiers picked up a commitment for down the road. It is a local kid for 2029 in the form of Micah Mohler.
While Mohler has no stars or ranking yet, he had an offer from archrival Purdue. He averaged over 20 points a game for his high school in Austin, Indiana.
Banner #4: IU is 47th In KenPom To Open Season, Nine Seed In NCAA Bracketology
While the game against Butler would seem to indicate the Hoosiers could be much better, IU opens the season at just 47th in the KenPom Rankings. They are also a nine seed in bracketology according to Joe Lunardi.
Presenting Sponsor: Homefield Apparel
Homefield’s annual Black Friday sale has already begun. Use the promo code BLACKFRIDAY at checkout to get 20% off your entire order.
The item of the week for this week is the new “Hurryin’ Hoosiers” snapback hat. Both
Jerod Morris and Tony Adragna have it, and can attest to its quality and fit.
Plus, how cool is it to have an item celebrating the great teams under Branch McCracken?
Banner #5: Weekly Shows
Podcast on the Brink returned this week. On it, Alex Bozich is joined by Assembly Call’s own Brian Tonsoni to discuss IU basketball.
The Back Home Network has many shows. As a result, it was on air several times this week with programming.
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Banner #6: Hoosier Roundup-Sponsorship Jersey Patches Coming To All IU Uniforms
IU announced a jersey patch program with Merchants Bank that will see sponsorship from them on the uniforms of all 24 sports. The company already has the naming rights to the field itself at Memorial Stadium.
Men’s soccer suffered its first loss of the fall to Rutgers.
Field hockey topped Ohio but fell to Northwestern.
Volleyball continued its sudden rough patch, losing to USC as well as Oregon.
Women’s soccer tied USC but lost to Michigan State.
Men’s golf finished fourth at the Purdue Fall Invitational.
Women’s golf won the Illinois Invitational at Medinah.
Swimming and diving competed at the CSL Match 5.
Cross Country competed at the Pre-Nationals.
Thanks for your continued support of The Assembly Call and Inside the Hall. We’ll be back next weekend with a new roundup.
Now go enjoy yourself a 6-banner Sunday.
Aaron (Ari) Shifron
Assembly Call Contributor
The Assembly Call is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
1st losses for football and soccer. Coach Cig’s comment was a good one, “the sun will come up tomorrow and we need to get ready for Michigan”.
Well, two consecutive weeks where IU comes-out of the locker room, gets off to a slow start, and has to play catch- up. Against Nebraska they’re able to come from behind late for the win and against OSU the come from behind effort fails and they lose. The clock of a college football game is 60 minutes and against good competition, you’ve got to play full tilt for all 60 of those minutes and they haven’t done that for two consecutive weeks. I hope the slow start doesn’t become a trend for this team because if it does, the price to be paid will be more losses down the road.