Matt Slaninka, a 7-foot-4 freshman center, threw down the first dunk. Junior forward Danny Miller made the first jump shot. Junior guard Juan Dixon recorded the first three-pointer.
And after Miller and Dixon's White Team edged the Red Team, 42-36, in a scrimmage before a near-capacity crowd at Cole Field House in College Park, Maryland coach Gary Williams greeted the passing of another Midnight Madness celebration early yesterday with a sigh of relief.
"Nobody got hurt," said Williams. "The court is slippery from all the people who've been on the floor. The players aren't playing as hard as they usually do. You worry about that."
The only sign of an injury was the protective mask worn by redshirt junior Byron Mouton, who got hit below the eye during a pickup game more than a week ago. Williams said Mouton would wear the gear for a few days in practice as a precautionary measure.
Maryland, which will open its season Nov. 20 against Louisville in the Maui Invitational, began practicing in earnest with a three-hour workout yesterday afternoon.
Although senior forward Terence Morris and Dixon drew the loudest ovations during the introductions - enhanced by loud music and a fog machine - the star of the scrimmage was Mouton.
After preceding a layup with a forward flip near the foul line after his introduction, Mouton mugged for the crowd twice after making back-to-back three-pointers.
INDIANA: It was only Midnight Madness, but the fans understood fully what was happening Friday night: The Bob Knight era was over and the Mike Davis era had begun.
And the several thousand fans who started filing in at 11 p.m. wanted to show they're still Indiana fans.
"I'll be an IU fan and I've been an IU fan for years," said Charles Clark, who traces his Hoosiers roots to the 1950s. "It would have to be an awful drastic thing for me not to be an IU fan."
Not even former longtime coach Knight's firing could reach that level.
But what many of these fans wanted to illustrate at this event was that they still supported these Hoosiers - regardless of Knight.
Holder, an annual attendee of the midnight practices, came to Bloomington with three other people and detected the changes almost instantly.
"The atmosphere feels a lot different," he said. "We got to go inside, before they closed the doors, and walked around on the court. Before, you usually got this feeling that you weren't allowed to do that, that you might bump into Coach."
While Holder and his friends managed to mingle with some of the players, namely freshman guards A.J. Moye and Andre Owens, they also managed to bump into the new coach.
"I was just telling this guy that Coach Davis needs to know we're behind him," said Kevin Morgan of Tipton, Ind. "Can you imagine being in his position, replacing a legend, replacing maybe the greatest basketball coach of all time and we're not happy with 20-win seasons here. We expect Big Ten championships and national championships."
Davis, who accepted the Hoosiers' job two days after Knight was fired for violating Indiana's "zero-tolerance" policy, added three-point shooting and dunk contests to the repertoire and also made the women's basketball team a first-time participant in the late-night event.
"I'm just being myself," Davis said. "We did some things for the kids. We want them to have fun tonight because [Saturday] at 4, it's going to be serious."
NOTRE DAME: Forward Troy Murphy said he was not drinking at a local bar when police caught him there with fake identification.
"I was in the place and I had a fake I.D., but I wasn't drinking," Murphy said. "I don't drink. It's disappointing to look on the Internet to see I was caught for underage drinking when I don't drink. Everybody who knows me knows I don't drink."
Murphy, 20, freshman teammate Tom Timmermans, 19, and Irish football player Gerome Sapp, 19, were among the 147 minors cited Thursday in a sweep of Finnigan's Bar. Murphy and Sapp also were cited for possession of false identification.
CINCINNATI: The Bearcats scheduled too many games for the 2000-01 season, so they will have to postpone their game with Temple for a year, athletic director Bob Goin said.
Cincinnati was to play Temple in Philadelphia on Jan. 20. But Goin said Cincinnati recently discovered an NCAA rule change that put the Bearcats over the NCAA limit of 28 games. Goin said Cincinnati committed to play in the Puerto Rico Holiday Classic before that tournament was counted toward the season limit.
SOUTH CAROLINA: Rolando Howell, South Carolina's prized freshman recruit, was cleared to open practice with the team.
Howell, a 6-foot-9 star forward from Lower Richland (S.C.) High School, was suspended from all team activity after his arrest last month on charges of forgery and conspiracy. Prosecutors say Howell and two others cashed hundreds of dollars in bad money orders obtained from a Columbia Bi-Lo grocery store.
Howell has applied for pretrial intervention, a program for first-time offenders that allows their record to be expunged when certain community service is completed. However, Howell's attorney, Xavier F. Starkes, said this week they have not yet heard from prosecutors if the freshman will be admitted.
Howell was part of the McDonald's All-American team this spring and was rated the eighth best high school prospect in the country by recruiting analyst Bob Gibbons.
Wire reports contributed to this article.
