Two weeks ago, we had all but given up on IU men’s basketball season. The team had lost six out of seven of its games, including two that were absolute blowouts. Mike Woodson had announced his retirement at the end of the season, and pretty much no one thought we had a chance to make it into the NCAA tournament. My dad was even worried that we wouldn’t make the Big Ten tournament as the bottom three teams were left out of it this year.
All of that started to change this past Sunday. While we were enjoying our day at Epcot with Brett, IU was playing against Purdue. I told Cameron that I thought it was interesting that the last time I was at Epcot they also played Purdue. It was a close game then, and I really hoped that we would win this time, but didn’t have much faith this time. Even though he was going to the game and that I might see him in the crowd, I decided that I wasn’t going to watch it while we were enjoying the art festival. I did turn it on towards the end of the first half and believed that I had made the right decision when I saw that we were down by 12 points.
Imagine my surprise when a few art booths later I turned the game back on halfway through the second half to see that we were up by 11 points. I didn’t know what had happened as I missed the first 10 minutes, but I was happy to see the turnaround. I was still a little bit pessimistic about our chances, but Doug and I decided to go ahead and watch the second half when we went back to the room to rest. I was glad that we did as neither of us could believe how well IU played as they steamrolled Purdue and easily won by double digits.
Because of their decisive win against the Boilermakers and their victory over Michigan State not too long ago, the media actually started to talk about us as a bubble team. Once Cal said that he was getting sucked back in, I thought I would join him. I hate getting my heart broken, and IU basketball has done that a lot lately, but in the end, I knew that I didn't really have a lot to lose except more anguish.
I talked to both Cameron and Cal a lot this week about IU basketball. I knew for us to keep our March madness dreams alive that we had to win at home against Penn State on Wednesday night. It would be a tall order after coming off such a big high on Sunday, plus Penn State would be gunning for us as we had humiliated them the last time we played. I wasn't sure that I could handle a loss but decided to watch the game anyway. I definitely got extremely nervous when the game started, especially after realizing that one of our star players was out with the flu. The first three-fourths of the game was intense which only added to the stress. We missed a lot of free throws and Penn State played very well.
I didn't give up hope, however, even when the score favored the Nittany Lions with only eight minutes left in the game. I really believed that it would start to turn our way. That was when some of the IU students began heckling their star player. I was glad to hear that Cameron didn’t join in the obscenities being yelled, but I did understand from talking to him that Ace Baldwin may have brought it on himself by taunting the crowd first. Either way, it seemed to hype up the entire crowd, as well as the players. It may have even led to one fan being objected, which was probably the most surprising part of the game, especially since he was sitting in the front row and looked older than both Doug and I.
Shortly after those events, one of our guards got really hot with about five minutes left and hit two threes in a row giving us a five-point lead. I hoped it would be smooth sailing on the way out, but it was back-and-forth to the very end. Thankfully, the Hoosiers held on to win, keeping their tournament dreams alive. I talked to Cameron today and listened to his thoughts on the game. I asked him if he appreciated just how fortunate he was to be going to IU and being on SAB during a time that the excitement around basketball and football was at an all-time high. He definitely did and said that it had made his sophomore year in college one of the most memorable ones in his life. I don’t know what will happen on Saturday when we play Washington, but if we can win there, we may just get out of the bubble. Either way it has been a fun couple of weeks in a season that I had completely given up hope on salvaging.
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