What is Hoosier Hysteria?
by JustAJ on Oct 18, 2011 3:00 PM EDT
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PrintSince Hoosier Hysteria on Saturday night there has been quite a buzz about the message boards. Many of the older crowd are complaining of the circus that it was. The majority of others were claiming that it was an unorganized mess. Rivals from every school are complaining that the whole thing is just one big recruiting violation. But what actually is Hoosier Hysteria? It may just be a little bit of everything but most of all it is a PR opportunity for the program. This is a chance for them to put themselves out there and get fans excited for the upcoming season.
There is a small contingency that has lodged complaints about Victor Oladipo using some of the time to show off some of his other talents. He's sang, "You Got It Bad" by Usher to start off some ceremonies (Roy Williams has danced at mid court the last several years in Chapel Hill). Of course the crowd who has no idea who Usher is was pretty upset behind the display. Perhaps more upsetting were the all-white backup dancers with no rhythm (no offense to you guys but stick to basketball). Several people, including Rick Bozich of the Louisville Courier-Journal, questioned what Bob Knight would think of such a display. Here's the kicker on the question, no one cares. When Bob Knight was the coach of this team Hoosier Hysteria was merely practice. Today it is a PR event. People would have the right to be upset if this was counted as a practice, but it isn't even that. It's a show, a glorified pep rally. There is no reason to get upset about anything, especially what a former coach may or may not think of the event.
As an address to the "secondary violations", this is just other schools trying to drum up reasons to be offended at IU and its fans. If someone actually believes that chanting a recruits name is going to sway their decision then they lack the logic of a normal human being. I understand that sports have little room for things such as logic but it is still hard to take these people seriously. There is no moral high ground in this discussion. It is mostly kids being kids and anyone who takes offense to this is extremely biased if not slightly delusional.
::UPDATE AFTER THE JUMP::
The final issue Hoosier Hysteria is the complaint of massive disorganization. Now I wasn't there several sources including a close friend that indeed is the truth. If someone is going to throw something so large for 16,100 fans then it better have some organization behind it. One person told me, "it's as if it was planned by a person who's never seen a basketball game before." I have scoured twitter and asked several people that were there and I have yet to figure out who actually won the three point contest. Rumor has it, it was Austin Etherington though I can't be certain. Perhaps the disorder was the reason that so many complain of the circus atmosphere. Either way despite the disorder it was a successful event.
In the end, HH is an event for the public and not for the progression of the team. The scrimmage as little actual value to teambuilding and little becomes of it from a basketball standpoint. The real practices earlier in the day and several recruits will attest to the fact that it was a very hard practice. Instead of practice, HH is a chance to showcase the upcoming program and its fans to out-of-state recruits. In-state recruits have seen the games and the fans 1 million times and know what the atmosphere is like. It is the out-of-state recruits they get the benefit of attending this event. The best example of that is a quote from Florida shooting guard Sam Singer after his attended the Saturday, "I was very impressed with everything. Hoosier Hysteria was unbelievable time. My family and I really enjoyed ourselves.... It's [Indiana] definitely at the top of my list now." That is what Hoosier hysteria is about showcasing the atmosphere and trumping up fan support for the upcoming season in the most entertaining way possible.
::UPDATE::
Beloved player and now ABA team Midwest Flames Head Coach, AJ Guyton, chimed in on this very subject via his Facebook fan page. Take a look for yourself, but he didn't have too kind words for Crean and the program. It wasn't overly critical but he was bothered by the fan fare when the team has been so unsuccessful in the recent years. "Connecticut, Kentucky, Butler deserve to celebrate an upcoming season. Nothing positive happened for Indiana until the recruitment of Cody Zeller. Why are we so damn happy?" This seems to be a trending mindset through a lot of Hoosier Nation. I think the best rebuttal is this wasn't a practice. That actually occurred around 2pm earlier in the day. This was an event to celebrate the start of the season. No reason to get so worked up about it. But that's just this guy's opinion. What do you think?
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off topic, but on the main page, the fanposts and fanshots are appearing at the bottom of the page, in the middle. Why aren’t they along the right side? just curious.
And it's now my sig
by Bronn on May 17, 2011 4:56 PM EDT
I was having that issue all last week and it's fixed for me now
not sure what was going on. I tried clearing my cache and that didn’t fix it, but when I restarted my computer at the end of the week it was back to normal yesterday. Not sure what’s up. I’ll let tech support know.
-Contributing Writer at The Crimson Quarry.
I suggesting sending an e-mail to support@sbnation.com. I have been having a similar problem, but it wasn’t clear if it was account- or site-related.
The Crimson Quarry, SB Nation's Indiana Hoosiers blog
by John M (The Crimson Quarry) on Oct 18, 2011 3:35 PM EDT up reply actions
A few thoughts.
The first-ever midnight practice at IU was on Halloween night 1992, my freshman year. Back then, “midnight madness” was not necessarily on a Friday or Saturday night, but was on whatever night of the week November 1 happened to fall, but I think the fact that it fell on a weekend is why IU decided to give it a shot. As Devin noted a few days ago, it truly was a practice, for the most part. Generally, it was individual and group drills followed by a scrimmage. The one departure I recall was in 1994-95, when the members of the heralded but ultimately disappointing Patterson-Miller-Reed recruiting class were freshmen. That year, there were individual introductions, and at one point in the practice there was something that was not really a dunk contest, per se, but a layup line with lots of thundering dunks. Obviously, the current format would not have been Knight’s style. On the other hand, Knight was an outlier even 19 years ago, let alone today. A friend of mine who was a student at Kansas during the same era reports plenty of skits and contests and so on at what they called “Late Night with Roy Williams.” In other words, Tom Crean didn’t invent this stuff, and plenty of good and serious coaches have been doing it for decades, even as Knight resisted.
I had to laugh at the self-righteous nonsense over at H&R about the carnival show at IU compared to Purdue’s “men” practicing in a dark and nearly empty Mackey Arena. Here’s a clip from Purdue’s 2008 “Mackey Madness.” Perhaps the dulcet tones of Bruce Barker from the Neon Cactus were not to Matt Painter’s liking and he canned the whole idea, right? Nope. Mackey Madness for 2009 and 2010 was canceled because of arena renovations. I guess we will see if it is back next year. In any event, the idea that we’re supposed to be embarrassed that 16,000 people are excited enough about the program to show up for this event is pretty deranged, even if our arena is (gasp!) poorly designed!
The Crimson Quarry, SB Nation's Indiana Hoosiers blog
by John M (The Crimson Quarry) on Oct 18, 2011 4:04 PM EDT reply actions
I am a new resident of Bloomington coming here from Florida, more importantly the University of Florida. My fiancee is a Student at IU and we got to go to the Hoosier Hysteria and we enjoyed ourselves. I got to witness back 2 back National Championships at UF and let me tell you that nothing compared to the seen at Assembly Hall. It was beyond amazing. The way the fans get into it, the fact 16,000 showed up for such an event is just remarkable. I also was shocked at how nice the football stadium is. For not having a good football program it’s a nice facility. Assembly Hall is awesome looking. It is unique and I love it. I haven’t been in Bloomington long but I love the campus and the city, and everyone here has been really welcoming. It also hasn’t taken me long to meet a few Purdue fans and they have been the biggest tools ever. For a school that has no National Championships in Basketball or Football they act like they are the shit and think they will compete for National Championships every year. They make fun of you guys for having 5 dusty banners when they can’t even get a banner. I have met a lot of idiotic fan bases(Florida State, Alabama, Georgia) but Purdue’s might be the worst, and they aren’t even any good at anything.
Goodluck this year guys.
2011 Gators Defense: "We be overrated, yo"
by Gators1 on Oct 19, 2011 3:50 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Wow
You deserve a Kent Benson Medal of Freedom for that. Welcome to the fold.
by hoosierdaddynow on Oct 19, 2011 4:18 PM EDT up reply actions
you sir
have just been awarded commentor of the month. Kudos
-Contributing Writer at The Crimson Quarry.
They're not all bad.
It’s actually pretty respectable that some of their fans are as passionate as they are considering they’ve never won anything meaningful. Given they don’t have near as many diehards as IU and if they had a down season or two their stands would go back to being half-full but at least for the moment there’s some pride there.
I’ve met several Purdue fans who can have an intelligent conversation about basketball in person. Over at H&Rs there are only a few people who aren’t spewing ‘ZOMFG IU SUCKZ, Clappy the Clown SUCKZ, Purdue is the BEST!’ nonsense other than Tmil so I wouldn’t use that site as a good barometer for the entire fanbase. In general their fanbase is smarter than most and are aware that they’ll probably never win because they have the best talent but because of hard work, good coaching, and by playing as a team. It’s rare that a fan of a team won’t simply say that they’re better than your team in every conceivably way so I gotta give them that.
Back to the point I was at HH and I agree that it was badass. It had been a few years since I’ve been to one and this was more fun than the other times I’ve gone. The team at least appears to mesh well together and there’s definitely been some growth in the offseason. Also, this was the first time I’ve seen Zeller play in person and he was just as good as advertised. MUCH bigger than he was at the end of last year and was more or less unstoppable in the paint. He’ll draw double-teams quite a bit which will really open up Watford/anyone slashing through the lane. To put it simply: I’m excited. I’m always excited when iubb is about to start but this year I’m even moreso. Let’s get jacked up, fellas.
"It's an easy game, man. Easy game."
~Edgerrin James
by 87 Rides A Surfboard on Oct 19, 2011 9:45 PM EDT up reply actions
I think Travis’s audience skews fairly young. The most true believerish of his readers/contributors, at least, seem to be in the current student/recent graduate category. The “no one does it better or more purely than us” attitude around there is pretty reminiscent of how I would have sounded if I had been blogging about IU at that age. Of course, I would have been talking about a program led by a coach who already was a Hall of Famer and had won three NCAA titles, while they are talking about a coach with one shared Big Ten title and a couple of Sweet 16s. I don’t say that to bag on Painter at all. He’s a really good coach and I respect how his teams play. But the “everyone who’s better than us is corrupt and everyone who’s worse than us is stoopid (and probably corrupt, too)” stuff gets a bit old.
I’m 90 percent excited about the season and 10 percent feeling like Charlie Brown about to kick the football. Last year’s team was much more competitive than the previous team but didn’t improve record-wise. A similar degree of improvement could yield a more-than-proportionate improvement in our record. Or not.
The Crimson Quarry, SB Nation's Indiana Hoosiers blog
by John M (The Crimson Quarry) on Oct 20, 2011 9:20 AM EDT up reply actions
Overall, my feelings about the upcoming season are heightened
Which means I am more excited and more terrified. The only nice thing about the last few seasons was that we had zero expectations. As hard as it was to watch (and even more painfully, as easy as it was to avoid watching), at least you weren’t let down. Now the talent gap has narrowed significantly. So I am excited to see what happens. And about 15% terrified that it will still be not God-awful, but bad nonetheless.
by hoosierdaddynow on Oct 20, 2011 10:33 AM EDT up reply actions
I'm about 15% terrified
that IU starts off strong, loses a key player to injury, then falls off the freaking planet. I like our starters and we have a few pretty decent backups, but unless Etherington and Remy are total badasses this team is not all that deep. One serious injury could derail everything and that would make me a sad panda.
"It's an easy game, man. Easy game."
~Edgerrin James
by 87 Rides A Surfboard on Oct 20, 2011 5:24 PM EDT up reply actions
I'm feeling this way
a more balanced team means they close out most of those close games last year. Which means a W/L swing of about 8 wins. 20 wins is a successful season with this team and likely bubble territory depending on the Big Ten Tourney. I’m chomping at the bit for this season to get started.
-Contributing Writer at The Crimson Quarry.
I simply want to beat all the teams we should beat
and steal a few from the teams we shouldn’t. That would equate to 18-22 wins and a possible 12 seed. I’m not saying that’s going to happen, it’s just what I want to happen.
"It's an easy game, man. Easy game."
~Edgerrin James
by 87 Rides A Surfboard on Oct 20, 2011 5:21 PM EDT up reply actions
I think you made the picture in this photo, Gator-bro?
http://www.gq.com/entertainment/humor/201108/douchiest-colleges-america-2011#slide=1
Bing, bang, boom. Had to post it, and maybe you’ll run into this Purdue graduate on in B-town at some point. Cheers!
by Bloomington.Boiler on Oct 20, 2011 3:58 PM EDT up reply actions
Purdue fans should breathe a sigh of relief that GQ decided to lampoon the “douchiest colleges” instead of the “dorkiest colleges.” No offense to the fine folks who put on the Rube Goldberg contest, of course.
The Crimson Quarry, SB Nation's Indiana Hoosiers blog
by John M (The Crimson Quarry) on Oct 20, 2011 4:59 PM EDT up reply actions
Truth!
I do love me some test tubes.
by Bloomington.Boiler on Oct 21, 2011 9:11 AM EDT reply actions
1. This is how to reply.
2. This is how to reply.
3. Got it.
by Bloomington.Boiler on Oct 21, 2011 9:11 AM EDT up reply actions
AJ Guyton
His following two comments are worth reading too. My take on all of this is that AJ Guyton was an incredibly talented player who worked his ass off for coach Knight when other classmates like Collier, Reed, and Recker jumped ship to try to make into the NBA. It didn’t work out for anyone except Collier (rest in peace, Jason), and AJ’s IU career although filled with some amazing highlights just did not have the postseason success that the other all-time IU scorers did. He was a loyal, talented soldier for IU who just didn’t have his hard work appreciated due to all the other sturm und drang of Knight’s slow exit, and kinda got shafted in the NBA, too.
This is all context for his second comment “no one from IU has reached out to me before.” His comments show that he still cares – Guyton is still a fan of IU, but probably felt a lot of frustration both personally and with the slow progress of the program. And remember he’s a Knight player- the mentality that “we haven’t done anything to celebrate yet, let’s just get to work” is pure Knight. What Crean has done well is embrace events like HH as a chance to keep people excited and win top recruits even when the program has been at the bottom of the rebuilding process. I respect the blue-collar no-frills approach, but I think Crean’s pretty smart to keep this thing rolling. He’s landed some big recruits while making little progress in the W-L column. And thank goodness, right?
accidental strikethrough, there. AJ had a lot of great highlights at IU: the ball-fake and three to beat Temple, the way-back fadeaway over Gyasi Cline-Heard to beat Penn State, and I remember at least one dagger he threw in for a win at Purdue. I loved watching AJ play.
Yeah, I love AJ, too. One of my all-time favorites, and he’s on a short list of Hoosiers (Steve Alford and Calbert Cheaney are the only others within my personal memory) who was the best player on the team from the moment he arrived until he graduated. Of course, his dagger against Temple led to another beloved crumudgeon, Quinn Buckner, who was doing color commentary for that game on ESPN, judging that the celebration was too intense. Everyone always thinks things were different back in the day. It’s certainly true, of course, that Crean definitely has a different style than Knight, but I don’t think Hoosier Hysteria is a negative. As I said in comments over on SB Nation Indiana, should Knight have canceled the senior night celebration in 2000 because the previous four years had been disappointing? In some ways, I regret saying that, because the struggles of AJ’s teams were despite his play, not because of it (and the transfers, oh, the transfers—tell me Knight couldn’t have won a title with a lineup of Collier (RIP), Haston, Recker, Lewis, and Guyton).
While I didn’t agree with his criticisms, I’m glad to see that AJ is still attached to the program and to Knight—it was always obvious that Knight had a high regard for AJ. I recall a scene late in the 2000 season of Guyton sitting and the bench, and Knight with his arm around him and Guyton leaning on to his shoulder. In other words, the sort of clip that usually doesn’t make it on to SportsCenter where Knight is concerned.
The Crimson Quarry, SB Nation's Indiana Hoosiers blog
by John M (The Crimson Quarry) on Oct 21, 2011 10:54 AM EDT up reply actions
great use of German
A+ for you on that.
I would agree with you. I get the feeling he’s a bit hurt because he’s typically undervalued in his era of IU basketball. He thinks he still has something to offer to the program obviously and would like his chance. Personal frustration for sure. Then I’m sure he’s feeling the fan frustration that we all feel only magnified because it is actually HIS program. We just all watch from a distance. I expect he’ll get past it with a successful season this year as will everyone else.
-Contributing Writer at The Crimson Quarry.
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