OT - Have you Experienced a 'Hoosiers' Moment or Season?
Mates,
Basketball season is coming to a head both in college and in local high schools. I would hope about 99% of you would get the reference to the movie 'Hoosiers', which has to be the single most iconic hoops movie ever made. For the handful that haven't seen it, order it on Netflix in the next few minutes and watch it.
Anyway, one of our local high school teams is having that kind of a Hoosiers season, small school playing larger schools and winning continually. They are now a game away from the State Semi-finals. Whenever they play now there is a trail of cars/trucks/vans and a bus at the head of the line, now with a police escort of sorts on the way back. The latest game ended with a victory lap around our little tiny town with the fire trucks and police going lights and sirens, people pouring out at the school as the busses come back. Its neat to see those things can still happen.
Literally every person on this blog is a sports junkie of one level or another, and nearly as great of a percentage have lived through (hopefully) at least one magical season as a player, coach, parent, student/buddy of those that did make it far into the playoffs.
So the question is this: What 'Hoosiers' season have you lived through in whatever sport it might have been, whether it was one you played on, one in your local school district, whatever, where you and others had that once-in-a-lifetime ride deep into the playoffs and the community united behind the team? Share about that championship team....
Hoping to get some great answers, and since it'll be Friday for most of you when you see this, happy Friday, posbang, all of that.
XM
it wouldn’t even be the greatest underdog [victory] of all time in college basketball. That honor rests with NC State.
1985 Villanova says, "Hold my beer".
This would have been my thought right here - if I am not mistaken, Villanova was a #7 seed in the tournament that year and all of 11-8 in their own conference, so I would think exactly zero people saw this coming. That Georgetown team had Patrick Ewing, Reggie Williams and a few other NBA notables too and it was upset. Well, Villanova had Ed Pinckney, who hung around in the NBA, if nothing else.
Still, Villinova has defeated five #1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament. That's not a program that comes out of nowhere.
Sparty lost in the first round to UAB that year. We lost the next round by 4 points to Villinova. Seemed like a tough loss at the time but turned out to be understandable at least.
Totally, totally fair point about 85 Nova. Although they were the lowest ranked seed to ever win, they also played Georgetown who was a conference foe. Granted, Georgetown had a few HOFs on that team and were basically in a dynasty run. But Nova had played them twice before in the season, losing both games by only a few points. So, I guess I consider 85 Nova 1B because of their familiarity with Georgetown; and, I think NC State is 1A playing Houston in 83 (against Phi Slamma Jamma!).
Either one is pretty deserving though...Thank you for including 85 Nova!
March 10th, 2018 at 10:00 AM ^
Although not in the tourney, Chaminade over #1 Virginia (Ralph Sampson) ranks up there in basketball.
I was at that national championship game. IF Gordon Hayward makes that half court shot at the buzzer, that is the best basketball game of all time - bar none. But since he didn't, it was just another fantastic game.
Why yes, actually, I have lived through such a moment, and by coincidence it happened just two weeks ago:
What do you do after you win a gold medal and go on a whirlwind media tour? You hop back into your local Monday curling league. Welcome home, @jlandsteiner pic.twitter.com/aKoWtsYm8t
— Steve King (@stephenrjking) March 6, 2018
"I love you guys" -- Norman Dale
at the hardware store, or the school, or wherever. unassuming gold medalists. gotta love it.
What about all that big curling endorsement money?
You joke but there have been calendars for both the men and women of curling. Big in Canada, obviously.
for us, please. who advertises in them, kielbasa and beer companies?
Hell, even Barbie gets more endorsement money for "curling"
Heh. They are actually picking up a few endorsements, but nothing worth quitting their jobs over (the possible exception being Shuster, whose career choices are deliberately oriented around curling flexibility in a way the others are not). Matt and Becca Hamilton picked up an endorsement from Kemp's Milk, whose gallons they will now adorn.
Canada has the most robust curling culture, and while there are "professional" curlers, none of these make all that much money and many of them still maintain at least part-time careers elsewhere.
have any contact with the other teammates from that team? it is my theory that successful teams breed successful adults later in life.
wow, this question really caught my eye.
I went to high school in a small farm town in SW Michigan, graduating in the early 1990s. My junior year I hardly played at all, probably even saw action in about 8 of our 22 games. My senior year I was our 6'4" starting center. I don't think I guarded a guy shorter than me the entire season. Needless to say we were not expected to do anything in the playoffs, finished the regular season at 11-9.
The class B districts were held at Battle Creek Pennfield. They were 18-2 and ranked #6 in the state. Not to get too cheesy but we went into the tournament feeling like we were much better than our 11-9 record. We had a 2 guard on our team that was very good but just didn't get the attention he deserved based on where we were from. We beat Pennfield by 30 points. Our 11-9 small town team beat the 18-2 #6 team in the state by 30 on their home court. We went on to win 2 more games (Hillsdale, Albion) to win districts. This was our town's first district title in 7 years.
Up next was Coloma playing at Mattawan's new gym outside of Kalamazoo. They were ranked #13 in the state (others receiving votes). We scraped by them to earn a regional champioship game against 23-1 #2 ranked Comstock featuring 6-8 future Marquette and Atlanta Hawk Chris Crawford who finished 4th in Mr. Basketball that year. So here I was a 6'4 skinny kid trying to guard a future NBA kid that was averaging something like 35 per game that season. I inexplicably "held him" to I think 25 points and we pulled off a huge upset to advance to the state quarterfinals.
This was probably one of the best days of my life, even now. Similar to your story my hometown absolutely rallied around our tournament run. I recall at our practices during our run people would start to show up just to watch us practice, most of our fathers along with just random fans. I also remember one time I went to McDonald's after practice and people that I didn't even know were coming up to me to wish me luck in our next game. It was very surreal. We also had police/firetruck escorts from our HS to I-69. It was truly a special time.
We face Muskegon Heights in the state quarters at Grand Rapids CC. My hometown is 9,000 people and I honestly think they projected 5,000-6,000 fans made the two hour drive. I remember during warm ups watching most of the players on their team putting down dunks which had always been verboten. But for some reason the officials didn't seem to care. I was the only player on our team that could dunk so my teammates and our crowd were urging me to dunk to show them that we could do that as well. The energy was electrifying so I couldn't help myself, I threw down a dunks to appease everyone, but knew if I did too much I'd wear myself out.
Our biggest lead was 11 early on after I hit a baseline turn around jumper, and I wasn't known for scoring so I think we all felt that if that shot went in we couldn't lose. Our 2 guard scored 38 that night which I think was a point away from our school record. It wasn't enough, we ended up losing by 3 that night. I fouled out attempting to take a charge with about a minute left. I swear 3 of my fouls were about as bad as the officiating in the Iowa game last week.
I found out later that had we won that game, the real Hoosiers coach Marvin Wood had already confirmed that he would have sat on our bench at Chrisler against Flint Powers in the state semie. The Heights blew Flint Powers doors off that game, and most of us were there to see it. It was tough to watch that knowing that we only lost by 3 and we felt we were jobbed a bit by the officials. We just knew we could have also beaten Powers and played in the state championship, with Marvin Wood on our bench as well.
Sorry so long, but your question just brought back so many memories.
Go Blue.
thanks man.
i hope others post theirs today.
thank you for your original post, very relevant this time of year.
You went to Coldwater didn't you.
I remember seeing highlights of that game on the local news back then.
yep, that's it. cool that you remember that.
Were you in the same class as Dan Martinson at Coldwater?
He was a kid that went to Coldwater whose family had a summer place next to us up north. I played tons of wiffle ball with him when I was a kid growing up durning the summer with him. He was one of my "summer friends" when I was a kid.
oh cool, where was your cottage?
Wolf Lake, north of Baldwin, MI. Lots of fun memories as a kid up there.
Hi Ben, did not realize you were on here!!! That season will always be such a cool memory..and yes we were so close to getting to the finals!!!
Nailed a couple 3s to help down Mr. Crawford's crew...still remember that feeling!
hey bud, cool to see you here as well. You like my pic? Ha. That was a Bud Barnes special that went into our local paper. I like that you can see the Cardinals in the background, he framed it very well. Think we did about 10 takes of that dunk before he said he got it right. Had no idea until it hit the paper.
yes you did, we couldn't have done any of that without a few of you juniors, and the soph, contributing as well. You guys really stepped up with some big 3s for us.
Wow, that was 25 fugging years ago!! Crazy how time flies by. Take care man.
I remember that pic also! I know cannot believe it was that long ago.
hoosiers picture, though the vehicles are newer. i did actually 'hire' our last local sheriff officer - i was on the township board for a decade and they asked me to do it b/c of my law enforcement background. there really are some blessings to living in small town, usa. next tailgate i'll share the story of when my dad got pulled over going literally 2x the speed limit in our town.
oh yeah, i gave the deputy your picture, said 'if robf is in the township, make sure you arrest him for something, anything' we'd have figured out the charges later....
that's why he gave instructions that included watching the movie.
lots of teams in the north, boys and girls, are having a run. great time of year.
Went to the Pacers/Jazz game on Wednesday night, and I mentioned to my wife that T.J. Leaf reminded me of Jimmy Chitwood. She said that she had never seen Hoosiers. I was disapointed. We watched it last night and she said "it's an ok movie". That was even more disapointing.
I visited the Hoosiers gym in Knightstown, Indiana. They still use the gym for Rec league games and Saturday morning kids games. When I was there you could see all the memorobila from the movie and even go into the locker room. It almost felt like you were in the movie. Very cool place to visit and I hope to take my kids there someday.
Yes it was very cool. It felt like you were walking into the movie.
About 10 years ago, my brother-in-law and I made the drive down there on a Saturday to take it in (we live in West Michigan). We are both big fans of the movie and I highly recommend it.
I did not have kids 10 years ago, so instant road trips for us back then were common. I would like to go back in a few years to bring my kids and show them the setting. If you are a fan of the movie it is something you will want to do.
I'm an assistant baseball coach at a school of about 650 kids that plays in a conference in which at least 3 other schools have 1200+ students. We're small and have not had much/any athletic success in the past 10 years aside from a conference wrestling title.
I went into the season thinking we'd have a good year if we went .500. The guys ended up setting a school record for wins, defeating the No. 1 ranked team in D2, and made it to the state semi-finals in Columbus. The school sent the team down in a charter bus, we had a police escort out of town, and our practices that last week were filled with media interviews.
Those boys worked so hard, believed in one another, and just found ways to win games. It was freaking incredible. Hope your community gets to celebrate soon!