Indiana's Derek Elston will not be punished for tripping incident

Three-quarters of the way through Indiana's fourth straight loss to open Big Ten play, sophomore big man Derek Elston allowed his frustation to spill over into the realm of poor sportsmanship.

Elston appears to intentionally stick his left leg into the path of a cutting Alex Marcotullio during the second half of Sunday's game, drawing an intentional foul call and sending the Northwestern forward sprawling to the floor.

It appears fairly clear from the above video that Elston tripped Marcotullio on purpose, yet Indiana coach Tom Crean has stuck up for his big man thus far. On his weekly radio appearance Monday night, Crean said he's taking Elston at his word that the trip was unintentional, adding that there will be no further punishment for the incident.

"In this situation, it would be highly out of character for Derek to be dishonest or do something of that nature in a negative way," Crean said. "It would be truly out of character, and if he did it would be a mistake. That's the end of story. We got the intentional foul, they got the foul shots. I looked at it. I discussed it with him. But the last thing I'm going to do is break down a trust by accusing a player of something that he says he didn't do on purpose."

Northwestern coach Bill Carmody had a chance to comment on the incident during a conference call on Monday, but he took the high road, insisting that he hadn't seen it because he hadn't watched second-half game film yet.

"I haven't looked at it," Carmody said. "But I will when I get off this [conference] call."