The Hoosier State Getting Back to the Court

Born and raised a Hoosier girl, but more importantly a sports fan, the state of Indiana breed me into a basketball connoisseur. I’ll be the first to say the Indiana Pacers and I have had quite the roller coaster of a relationship, well if that roller coaster was accompanied with brawls, Rik Smits and Boomer. But thankfully as the NBA returns to us, the Pacers decided to return their late 60s ABA dynasty years after a very disappointing nearly decade from Conseco Fieldhouse.

Starting out with a shocking 10-4 record this season, the Pacers latest victory came by a three-point margin to the Golden State Warriors, a team coached by former Pacer, Mark Jackson. A member of the team at more optimistic time. A time when in 49 states it was just basketball, but in Indiana, it meant something. After all it is the Hoosier state. While the list of renown Pacers is not necessarily the longest, there is one that sticks out to all. One that rings bells from behind the three-point arc and haunts Spike Lee’s dreams. It’s Miller time baby.

Now it’d be an understatement if I said I was a Miller fan, my dog’s named Reggie. The entire state of Indiana had a hero. Someone to cheer for, support, and rally behind. But when 31 retired, and with the infamous brawl of ’04 it seemed the Miller era and everything it stood for was declining right before fan’s eyes. Indiana was left with a void. How could they survive without their game. Let’s face it, Metta World Peace (formally known as Ron Artest) was no one’s first choice to be the face of Hoosier hoops.

But as hoop dreams turned to nightmares, Pacers brawl, Kelvin Sampson investigations and the Keady era of Purdue winding down, Peyton Manning and Tony Dungy, were giving Indianapolis something to sedate their pain. While the Indianapolis Colts unstoppable pairing of Marvin Harrison, Manning, Dungy and others was enough to entice any sports fan, Indiana is thee Hoosier State. The state of basketball. But it seemed all had forgotten that.

That was until the promoting of 31-year-old former volunteer coach Brad Stevens. The team didn’t have an all-star. They didn’t have the top picked players from high school. They didn’t have pizzazz. but they had a young coach who loved the game, smart players and Blue the Bulldog. A perfect combination for the youngest coach to take a team to the NCAA Championship game, twice. While I could write for hours about Brad Stevens changing the NCAA perspective and game, he changed the way Hoosier’s saw basketball. Suddenly the state and even the nation was captivated by a team lead by a scrawny kid from Brownsburg, IN who rapped and missed a buzzer beater to defeat Duke by an inch. Indiana was back to having a team on the court instead of the field. Back to watching people on the hardwood that were likable.

The Bulldogs ushered in a new era for Indiana. It was time for the Hoosier state to revert back to their first passion, their love for the game of basketball. While the argument can be made Indiana is the Colt’s state, home to “Blue Sunday”, Danny Granger is ushering in a new era for the Pacers. An era that includes the most notable start for the franchise in recent years. Not to be left out of the happy ending, the Bulldogs have several young stars on the rise and who knows, maybe the next Reggie Miller is wearing Butler blue as we speak.