Written Spring 2020 during Introduction to Sportswriting with Mike Wells
[IMAGE: Brian Spurlock, USA Today]
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A chilly December evening could not cool the energy inside of Assembly Hall as the sea of crimson, cream and Santa hats was rocking all night long as unranked Indiana battled with top-ranked rival Kentucky.
With 5.6 seconds, on the south end of Assembly Hall the Hoosiers inbounded to senior guard Verdell Jones Jr. down 72-70.
Jones Jr. raced down the floor, angling his way to the left-hand side of the court just in front of coach Tom Crean and the Hoosiers bench before flipping the ball backwards to an open Christian Watford on the left wing.
“Watford for the win?!” exclaimed ESPN’s Dan Shulman as he let it go.
Pandemonium.
Watford’s shot had barely hit the floor after plunging through nylon before the student section burst, overflowing within minutes to completely blanket Assembly Hall’s floor. Hoosiers win 73-72.
The party was on. Indiana Basketball was back.
That is exactly what most Hoosier fans felt on that evening just nine years ago.
Hell, they had every right to.
The hordes of Hoosier fans waited in line all day with snacks, beverages and even massive carboard heads of Mark Cuban and Sage Steele with upset hopes.
Realistic fans knew the Hoosiers were going up against an extremely talented Wildcats team.
The Wildcats entered Assembly Hall that night with not just the number one ranking but a roster steeped in talent. Their entire starting lineup that night was composed of five-star recruits, notably the number one freshman Anthony Davis, and fellow five-star Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.
Indiana, by comparison, had just one, big man Cody Zeller.
The win over first-ranked and arch-rival Kentucky on the home floor was the exclamation mark on the slow, painful rebuild required that truly dated back to the Bob Knight firing in 2000.
Sure, Mike Davis and the 2002 team’s run in the tourney quelled some of the Hoosier fans thirst for success. However, the next decade did little to sustain it and the Hoosiers hit a proverbial rock bottom when the Kelvin Sampson-era sanctions nearly sunk the storied Hoosier’s program into college basketball purgatory.
Hoosier fans savored the David role they could play to Kentucky’s Goliath that night. They loved the togetherness this team played with. They loved how the Hoosiers responded. They loved the memories a performance like that brought back.
And at the time there was real reason to believe that nostalgia that celebrated the togetherness, effort and focus of this squad could be the long-awaited return to normal or IU basketball in Bloomington.
It was justified to believe Crean was finally the answer after the divorce with Knight and Kelvin Sampson’s bumpy departure.
It was completely realistic to view Zeller and incoming Indianapolis five-star Yogi Ferrell as harbingers for a future of in-state recruiting dominance.
Pair that, with the development effort Crean had displayed with guys like Christian Watford, Jordan Hulls and the budding Victor Oladipo and the “IU basketball is back” fever was hard not to catch after their upset in 2011.
Despite Kentucky going on to beat IU in the tournament later that year en route to a National Championship win, there were a few years, Hoosier fans could point to this win in December as validation of their return to college basketball’s elite.
Now, the picture does not seem so perfect or even resemble that hoped-for reality.
Tom Crean is at Georgia. Including Ferrell, Crean got exactly two high-rated in-state recruits the rest of his tenure. And the players he recruited hoping to develop in those ensuing classes mainly developed into headaches for him, his staff, and IU administration.
Indiana basketball was not back. It still isn’t. Not to the level of the perfect seasons and National Championship banners that were customary under coach Knight before the turn of the century.
But for the psyche of a fanbase devastated by the sanctions imposed during Sampson’s tenure hoping for some semblance of the program and culture they once knew, this night in December was everything. It still is.
Many in attendance were not alive to have the connection older Hoosier’s have to the program and coach Knight’s best years in Bloomington. The 2011 IU upset of Kentucky and the “Wat-Shot,” gave that connection and identity to a new generation of Hoosier fans, students and players.
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