Obama to shoot hoops in Indiana with former IU star

INDIANAPOLIS---- Presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama will go three-on-three against a former Indiana University basketball star and four students, tapping the state's rich basketball tradition in an effort to get out the vote for Indiana's May 6 primary.

An 18-year-old high school student who registers 20 people to vote will choose two students to help challenge the Illinois senator on the court, said Kevin Griffis, a spokesman for Obama's campaign in Indiana. If the winning student decides not to play, he or she can select all three players.

Obama's team will include Calbert Cheaney, a former NBA player and NCAA basketball player of the year, and a college student who registers 30 people to vote.

''We just were looking for a way to engage young people,'' Griffis said. ''There simply is no better state to do this sort of thing than Indiana, where basketball is important to so many communities across the state.''

Obama was a member of Hawaii's championship high school basketball team in 1979. A recent YouTube video clip shows him casually sinking a three-point shot at a school gym in South Carolina during a visit to promote his education policies.

Cheaney, an Evansville, Ind., native who played for Indiana University and was most recently with the NBA's Golden State Warriors, said he has supported Obama from the ''get-go.''

''I'm just one of those guys that think he could be the man to change everything for the better,'' Cheaney said.

The game would be held at the high school attended by the winning 18-year-old. Nearly 50 schools had already qualified for the contest, Griffis said Wednesday.

Obama's campaign staff said the game would likely be played according to standard three-on-three rules, where the winner is the first team to reach 11.

The contest is the latest effort by Obama and rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to reach out to voters ahead of Indiana's primary, where 72 delegates are at stake. A Rushville woman won a dinner with Obama in an online donor initiative, and two Indiana women were chosen to follow Clinton for a day during a campaign swing through the state last week.