After playing North Carolina and Connecticut, two top-15 teams rich in basketball tradition and success, the Cats will face Indiana (4-4) on Saturday.

The Hoosiers haven’t had the success recently that they once enjoyed, but what the Cats can expect is a hard nosed club ready to deal the No. 4 Cats (9-0) their first blemish of the season. Hoosiers head coach Tom Crean, who is good friends with UK head coach John Calipari, has quickly instilled a work ethic in his two teams at IU that has become a trademark.

“This team he’s trying to play faster like he did when he was at Marquette,” Calipari said. “They’re trying to get it in and go and get easy baskets. In the half court they run great stuff, they run pro stuff. His player’s get better week-to-week.”

The Hoosiers struggled last season, going 6-25 with a new head coach and a lot of turnover in player personnel from the departure of former head coach Kelvin Sampson. This season Crean’s team has reaped the benefits of two freshman, Maurice Cheek and Christian Watford, who rank first in the Big Ten among freshman in points and rebounds, respectively. Cheek is averaging 15.6 points per game while Watford is grabbing 6.5 rebounds a game.

Indiana already has four losses on the season to Mississippi, Boston, George Mason and Maryland, but are coming off a 10-point victory in Madison Square Garden against Pittsburgh. With back-to-back emotional victories in hand, the Cats now have to refocus to play a gritty Indiana team.

“We can’t overlook (Indiana),” Wall said. “Like I said, it’s not high school where you can play two good games and then you can overlook an opponent that’s young. Anybody that’s playing on a college level that’s a D-1 team, they can make plays and win games. This is another tough game for us, it’s our third game in a week.

Playing in legendary Assembly Hall, the young Cats will have their second opportunity to face one of UK’s most historic rivals after playing UNC on Dec. 5. Wall said right now none of the freshmen know too much about the UK-Indiana rivalry and they’re just going into it like any other game.

For Calipari it’s not exactly any other game because he’ll be coaching against a good friend in Crean. Calipari said during the game they probably won’t look at each other once and afterward he expects the winning coach to be sad for the loser and the losing coach to be happy for the winner.

“Here’s what stinks about coaching,” Calipari said. “Your happiness as a coach is in direct proportion to the other guy’s misery. So you have to make another human being and his family absolutely miserable for you to feel happiness. Now think about what I have to do for a living. They don’t pay me enough to do that.”