Two months ago Cody Zeller was held to four points against Michigan State as the Spartans roughed him up, limiting him to just five shot attempts. Since then Zeller has been a consistent scorer in Big Ten play, scoring in double figures in 13 of 16 games, including a 14 point performance against Jared Sullinger and Ohio State on New Year's Eve.

“I think the big thing we saw from Cody from game one to game two was how and quick and willing he was to adapt and figure things out and then he carried those things right into the Ohio State game,” said Indiana coach Tom Crean. “I think what has happened over a period of time is that Cody has shown that the more physical you are with him the better he is going to be. I don’t think that affects him. I think he relishes it.”

Zeller scored just seven points in Indiana’s 69-50 victory Sunday over Minnesota. Crean said a measure of Zeller's progress is to look at how he influenced Sunday's game despite relatively little scoring.

“Cody is unique,” Crean said. “I’ve never been around a freshman who is so good at impacting the game from so many different ways. (Sunday) he didn’t have a great scoring or rebounding game but you watch the film and you see how he affects the game with his help defense, with his deflections, with his activity and his running and his passing.”

At least one NBA general manager has not been overly impressed so far by the potential 2012 draft class.

"Everyone talks about how great this draft is," one NBA GM said. "On paper in July, it really looked that way. On the ground in February, I'm not that impressed. Anthony Davis is great. But after that, there are a lot of question marks and a surprising lack of depth. I'm not sure that the 2012 draft will be better than the 2011 one."

North Carolina’s Harrison Barnes, Baylor’s Perry Jones, Ohio State’s Jared Sullinger, and Kentucky’s Terrence Jones have failed to show significant improvement from one season to the next while UConn's Andre Drummond and Duke’s Austin Rivers have failed to live up to the hype that surrounded them.

Only two freshmen, Kentucky’s Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Indiana's Cody Zeller, have exceeded expectations.