INDIANAPOLIS- The hot sounds of a cool 10-year-old blues harmonica player from Lafayette, Ind., drive IUPUI’s radio and television commercials promoting the 2003-04 IUPUI Jaguars “Absolutely Jagnificent” basketball season.

L.D. Miller, who came in second in NBC’s “The Search for America’s Most Talented Kid” last May, wails on the harmonica as another member of his family sings: “The lights go down, you know the crowd starts to roar, you’ve entered the Jungle when the Jags hit the floor.”

The 10-year-old phenom is part of the Clayton Miller Band, which is named after his older brother and includes his other brother and father. When L.D. appeared on the “America’s Most Talented Kid” program, he was introduced as a 10-year-old with “the soul of a 90-year-old blues man.”

The 60-second spot featuring the Clayton Miller Band will run on radio 120 times between now and February, and 100 times on cable TV during the same time period.

“The Clayton Miller Band was a perfect fit for this spot,” said Troy Brown, executive director of the IUPUI Office of Communications and Marketing. “The band is a family and IUPUI basketball is about family fun.”

The IUPUI men’s basketball team, just like L.D., is a rising star, Brown said, noting the team’s first trip to the NCAA tournament last March after winning the Mid-Continent Conference Championship.

IUPUI’s Jaguars basketball season is also being promoted on ads placed on two city buses, four billboards around Indianapolis and 10 newsboxes downtown, Brown said. A new theme mural is also being placed in IUPUI’s gymnasium as part of the promotion.