What I’ve learned in all my years watching college basketball is this: it is lacking all logic and rationale and cannot be explained.
So many inexplicable things happen, defeat snatched from the jaws of victory and vice-versa. Buzzer beaters, blown leads, comebacks, brain freezes. What makes sense, what looks good, depth, balance, defense, offense, can all change radically within a week, a road trip or even a game.
But we all know why. These are just kids.
They have classes on the History of Southern Cooking, bowling, Advanced Triple Trigonomics and the Economic Impact of the Sudan on Western Civilization. In one semester. They eat their weight in Cookie Crisp and don’t gain a pound. They stay up all night and sleep half the day. They may or may not shower regularly.
And they are going to be as perplexing to us, especially while playing a game, as they are to themselves all the time. In college basketball, perfection is rare, predictability even more so – that’s why it’s called March Madness, after all.
Indiana basketball cannot be rationally explained, either.
Why is it so important to fans that Indiana University basketball return to a place of actual relevance and championship contending status? Why is this night, Senior Night against Ohio State with the outright B1G title on the line special? Why is this important?
Does “it just is” suffice for those questions? No? OK, well, that’s a shame, because that’s kind of the best answer. We don’t even really know what a “Hoosier” is – and it’s a good time to mention it’s 2013.
But that’s the best answer because, really, it would simply take too long to explain Damon Bailey, 1976, Martha the Mop Lady, Calbert Cheaney, Brian Evans, Alan Henderson, Scott May, the Abernathy twins, Branch McCracken, candy-striped pants, The Shot, Alford, Darryl Thomas, The Rim Recker, Greg Graham and his brother from another mother Jeff, Evans arm sling, The Chair, The Sweater, The General, A Season on the Brink, 1987, 1981 and the missed opportunity in 1993, Haston, Guyton, Lyndon Jones and Jay Edwards, Uwe, Kent Benson, Steve Green, Mike Woodson, Keith Smart, Isiah, The McGlocklins, Laz, Chuck Marlowe, The Indiana Classic, The Hoosier Classic, “Socks, Shorts, 1-2-3”, Bracey Wright, Joby Wright, McGinnis, Buckner, Wittman and really, a hundred other moments, names and games.
What we have is a grassroots style of support for a game long entrenched in the fabric of the state. From high school to college to pros, we live and breathe this stuff. In 1998, the state’s high school athletic sanctioning body, the IHSAA, changed the format of the state tournament to multiple class basketball and it was nearly Armageddon. The backlash is still going on, somewhat. People still talk about it.
But you have to understand how deep the roots are. It’s tribal.
Counties of four, five and six schools, like the six or seven that surround Indianapolis, are deeply rooted in rivalries between schools of diverse enrollment and socio-economic class. It’s 1990 Duke-UNLV or 1992 Michigan-Duke, in a way. Then, there’s Marion County, home of Indianapolis and home to a hoops hotbed. The City and County championships are legendary.
Every game is March Madness in Indiana high school basketball. At least it was. I played in both the final single-class tournament and the first multi-class tournament. It felt like they were trying to find a way to make the small schools feel important, but we already did. A sectional championship might as well have been a state championship. It meant that much.
Now take that, let it age a few years. Let the lived and lost dreams of former players, coaches, cheerleaders and fans permeate.
In Bloomington, they have five national title banners swaying softly in an oddly shaped building that can get very, very loud. It’s loud because it’s filled to the brim with diehard fans of the game. A former high school star sits next to a former high school cheerleader next to their parents, who went to every game, drove every trip for AAU games in Fort Wayne and Evansville when they lived in Batesville, Rushville or Jasper.
Nature vs. nurture? How about both.
In Indiana, this basketball stuff goes deep and it’s like a cult. Nearly everyone did have a basketball goal and dreamed of taking the last second shot. Magnetic – and usual – personalities like Bob Knight, Gene Keady and Digger Phelps ran the state for nearly 30 years. They brought in the local boys, the hometown heroes we had watched through puberty and made them men – championship men. Some went on to the NBA, others just back to their hometown. But all basically legends.
Knight himself was a force of nature, and when he slipped and finally lost it, it was like a giant falling. The crash left collateral damage, bruising the school, the state, the game, our tribes. And as often happens when eras end, there is a hangover, a decay, a funk. Then, to make matters worse, Kelvin Sampson started using a cell phone. Those hometown heroes started leaving the state.
When you don’t have a deep connection to your high schools and your counties, when specialization in sports during this era means fewer kids participating as they get older, when your state divided by enrollment, when your legendary college coaches retire (or get removed) and some hotshot comes in from out of state, you lose your bearings a little bit.
The thread of the fabric unravels.
But just like with most things in life and in history, with proper attention and care, things can be repaired or made new again. These things just take time. It took the right guy – someone like Tom Crean – to fully submerge himself in the process of not just picking up the pieces, but building a new foundation from scratch.
It was good that Steve Alford knew all these years what many couldn’t see: IU didn’t really need him. Oh, they wanted him. What a story, right? The prodigal son returns. To do what exactly? Just winning would never have been enough. He would always be compared to Knight. He’d be living moment to moment, with no joy, dying with each loss, with each recruit he didn’t get. He’s better off building something new in New Mexico than trying to relive the past in Bloomington.
No, Indiana needed Tom Crean, someone without history here, but someone with passion for the history of the state and obsession for basketball, not the other way around.
Truthfully, honestly, full restoration may never occur – it’s just a different time, both in the state and the sport. We might never see the dominance of Indiana basketball again for an extended period of time, just like we might never see the level of obsession again.
Think of it as the new Hoosier Hysteria. It’s realistic, slightly tempered, built better for the modern age, with a nod to history. We like Tom Crean, but he hasn’t consumed us, blinded us as Bobby did. And yes, that’s a good thing. It shouldn’t matter if Knight wants to come back – for the first time since he left, the program is bigger than he is.
It’s the name on the jersey, not the coach on the bench.
Does Indiana, now after regaining credibility, being ranked No. 1 most of the regular season and capturing the school’s first B1G title in years need to win it outright tonight? Does it need to win the NCAA Tournament this year to fully return to glory?
Does it matter?
Sometimes to appreciate where you are, you just have to realize where you’ve been.
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