The new day arrived without relief for my Hoosier hangover. A night of unconsciousness spent replaying that final shot failed to change the teams participating in the title game that afternoon at Conseco. Goodwill for the day had to be manufactured from leftover parts.
I emptied the dresser drawers of my wardrobe. Having guessed wrong about the karma embroidered into my sweatshirt, I wondered which shirt might have proven luckier. I paused on Thursday’s selection, the Number Four jersey. I pulled the red mesh to my face and sniffed. Aromatic, but not pungent. I slipped a clean Indiana tee-shirt over my head, followed by the worn jersey, then continued packing up my troubles with my clothes into Pathfinder luggage.
My late checkout afforded me time to leisurely haul my computer and bags down to the Hyatt lobby. My wife, Carter and Nana were headed to the Children’s Museum and would stop on the way for my bags. Ten or fifteen minutes after Amy called, I saw our red Honda-CRV pulling up to the hotel. Carter, alas, was asleep in the back seat. Four days away from the boy was too long. I couldn’t wait until he was old enough to appreciate this weekend.
“Meet back here?” I confirmed with Amy. “I should be back around, let’s see … Six o’clock. Pending overtime.” My partner was apprehensive.
“I want to see the trophy ceremony,” I insisted. At $130 a ticket, I was going to milk every drop of entertainment from the NCAA. Love and a wave sent the trio off to explore science, toddler-style.
The market was worse than imagined. I held eight tickets to the title game of the Big Ten Conference tournament; I required only one. In a world full of sports fans, friends, relatives and capitalists, I could not find any interest in the seven that remained. I considered trading up, throwing my good seats into the bag with the balcony.
“What section?” inquired one hefty scalper.
I lured him with, “I’ve got two in 103,” and then killed all interest by finishing, “and four more at the front of the balcony endzone.” No point in mentioning the last set, a dozen rows further into the dark nooks of the Fieldhouse.
“Man,” he laughed, “I’ll give you five buck for the whole lot. ”
I almost took him up on it. What stopped me was the certainty that the offer would drop while I haggled about excluding the two good seats. The closer I walked toward the stadium, the lower the asking price. By the time I crossed the last street near the pep rally tents, three bucks could make you witness to the best of the Big Ten Conference. I passed through the crowd, a desperate forest of raised arms leaved with tickets, and went inside.
Tipping my hat, I twirled through the security checkpoint. I grabbed my final burger and Dew, still no ice, and found my seats one final time.
I was the only resident in a town of drifters. All of my neighbors had moved away. The big man, who had proudly gestured to the row of seats he controlled, was gone. In his place came Iowa fans. That group paid cut-rate prices for their seats. Others were more opportunistic, snagging the cheapest way in the door. Smiling, they claimed real estate in my section as if it were general admission.
Conseco Fieldhouse filled slowly. Iowa fans, purged of the annoyance of patrons rooting for other teams, arrived confident. They greeted other yellow-clad tourney survivors as soulmates. One such couple turned to complain about the Indiana crowd.
“The way they treat that poor boy, booing him all the time,” an elderly woman said with a scowl. “They should be happy for him.”
I interjected, “Not everyone in Indiana roots against Luke Recker.” This was not my conversation, but it certainly my turf, and it needed defense. I didn’t want to be lumped with the same Hoosier boors Bob Knight might silence with a stadium loudspeaker. That wasn’t me. This old woman was describing thugs. Or worse, Boilermakers.
“Well, it’s good for that,” she said.
It was ironic, I thought, Recker’s recent experience in Bloomington might not have occurred without the coaching change. Bob Knight took steps to control his crowd. When profanities began to build in the student sections, play stopped and Coach grabbed a PA mike. “We don’t do that here,” he scolded, adding, “This isn’t West Lafayette.”
He expected as much from every coach. The Northwestern chanting of “Hoosier Daddy” spurred a week of ESPN leads. Coach took exception to the students’ choice of taunts, believing it to be directed at senior William Gladness, starting center and young father. However, events were exasperated by Kevin O’Neill not intervening. That angered Knight more than the student behavior, which ultimately proved to be a big generational misunderstanding. Coach made peace on his next visit, taking candy to the babies.
Under Mike Davis, crowd control is not on the agenda. He did interject on Senior Night when boos crescendoed at mention of Myles Brand’s name. Davis said sharply, “Hey, if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be here.” But on other matters, the crowd at Assembly Hall went unchecked. They grew more belligerent with each game. Officials were cursed in unison, as were the Badger players held up on court for post-game television interviews following the Hoosiers’ lone home loss of the season. Taunts of “NIT” and “Overrated” served as victory yells, and nary an airball went by without constant reminders from the crowd. Fans did the Wave, for God’s sake. It was out of control. Recker’s treatment was just the cherry on top of a rude sundae.
A happy yellow-clad man strode up my row. He entered from the wrong section, counting seats as he went. When he arrived at mine, the man checked his ticket.
“You’re in the wrong seat,” he said with naive confidence.
A smirk hinted through my face. I had been through this before, even committing the same mistake myself. In the Fieldhouse, there are three steps for every row. The number appears on the last of these painted even with one’s feet. The natural inclination, as I discovered, is to match the number with the row in front, where the seat backs begin. I sat comfortably snapping pictures from Row 7 for almost an hour that first day before the rightful owners came and bumped me out.
The same thing was surely happening here. “What row do you have?” I asked, full of patience.
“Yeah, we’ve got all of these seats,” he continued, gesturing broadly with a beer.
“What row do you have?” I repeated.
“Seats eight through 12,” the man persisted. “Let’s see your ticket”
“What … Row?” I slowed the pace to compensate for early stages of alcohol poisoning.
“Nine, man,” he boasted triumphantly. “We’re in nine.”
“That’s the row behind.” I was gruff as I spoke, patience exhausted by a combination of events. Only now did my emotions emerge, summoned by this guy’s unwillingness to answer my question.
The pack found their seats behind me. They were intruders in my territory, these yellows, only here by the grace of a fraction of a second and a time-out rule in serious need of overhaul. There was no advanced planning on display here, no anticipation of the spectacle. These were vultures, feeding off of the misery of the dead and dying. Rowdy State fans, at least, were plentiful throughout their trek to Sunday. Thursday’s Iowa fans might have fit into a VW on a fraternity dare. I was tempted to switch my day’s allegiance rather than be associated with the yellows-clad men, but I was prevented from doing so by my inability to name a single Buckeye.
One of the yellow men noticed the Hoosier red on my body. “Who are you rooting for?” he asked with a anticipatory smile. I know he expected me to play the enemy.
“Iowa,” I said honestly. Any trepidation he carried about saying too much too loudly disappeared after I uttered that four-letter word.
“Hey, hey, hey! All right!”
License was now granted through my alliance to turn the volume up a notch, to let loose from the safety of numbers. I was adopted into the family with a slap on the back, conscripted to battle the Evil from Columbus. I had their back even as they sat behind mine.
This game had better be worth it.
Who Are These Guys?
“Retire already!”
One of the yellow-clad men seated behind me bellowed at a referee bouncing the ball at midcourt. That face above the zebra-striped shirt was a familiar, almost comforting sight having officiated at least a half dozen games I attended over the years. He looked like a Black Charlie Chaplain. I knew him as “Rucker” only because that was the name that came after frequent chants that always began, “You suck.”
This was to be the wobbly little man’s final year as a Big Ten referee. In lieu of gold watches and halftime ceremonies came cat calls memorializing decades of dissatisfaction. Not much of it was earned, of course. To be a referee in the Big Ten meant becoming the excuse for shoddy play and a lighting rod for strategic outbursts from high-profile coaches. A well-placed technical could fire up the crowd and the bench, especially if the latter fell sparse when the captain was forced to leave his sinking ship.
Rucker went unnoticed by me for years, eliciting only the occasional smile at his similarity to the Little Tramp. In Indiana, there was a long history with the man that extended far beyond my time with the program. His on-court ruling cost the Hoosiers a key possession and eventually victory in one high-profile game, earning him infamy in local quarters. Every school had at least one of these, of course. For the Illini, there was no greater scourge than Ed Hightower, also working this title game. There was no hope of redemption for these men, no make-up call that would return them to obscurity. From the yellow man’s reaction at the sight of him, Rucker probably wronged Iowa once upon a season.
The players congregated at center court, and Rucker advanced to meet them with a ball at the ready. One toss up, and the game was afoot.
“Let’s go Pierre,” Tim said as the freshman point guard brought up the ball. Tim, joining me for the final session, had similar misgivings about the title game participants. The balance had been won by Iowa due mainly to his wife’s peripheral association with the prep version of freshman Pierre Pierce. And, like me, he was a sucker for a good underdog.
Luke Recker was my main selling point, but there were other factors I could consider. As an Illini fan, both Iowa and Ohio State started low on my totem pole, but good hoops and little offense over the last several seasons had taken away the edge. Both had some Bob Knight connections, too. On one hand, there was Knight’s alma mater; on the other, his lead player from the last Hoosier national champion. Throw in Pierce and Hoosier native Brody Boyd, and the choice was simple.
Scoring against Ohio State was not. The Hawkeyes regressed to the sluggish start that had nearly failed them on Thursday and Friday. A Recker foul triggered an early timeout barely two minutes into the game and the Buckeyes up 9-0. Chauncey Leslie quietly got the first Iowa points, but the team was again down by 14 with eight minutes to go. Recker picked up two fouls and could not get untracked.
“Huh,” was all I could muster.
The yellows behind me mustered more. Expletives and ill will gushed forth from their mouths at volumes certain to be be picked up by courtside microphones a section below. The acoustics were bolstered by seats left vacant when half of the 18,596 sellout crowd failed to show. Tim and I exchanged widened eyes. It was our silent hope that a strong showing by Iowa in the second half would clean up the monologue if not tone down the treble.
“Who are these guys?” I muttered.
The leading Hawkeye finished well. Recker got his team off the court at the break with an eight-point deficit to overcome in the next hour. But for the first minute or two, Iowa had a lead.
After the players cleared the floor, the Roesslers and I edged forward to see what manner of circus act would be our entertainment for the next 15 minutes. A big white cardboard check was carried out to center court. A few tailored suits followed. The PA lauded a large contribution by the Big Ten Conference to the 911 Fund, and polite applause accompanied the photo-op handshake. The whole thing took a minute … including the walk off of the court to the Big White Bank where such checks were cashed.
“That’s it?” I asked.
Teenagers with brooms moved around the court like dry Zamboni machines. Nary a juggler in sight. I felt gypped. “This is the title game!”
In the absence of quantity halftime entertainment, my friend and I caught up on tales of work, fatherhood (imminent, in his case) and how much Tom Gordon’s injury would hurt the Chicago Cubs that summer. We juggled topics at least as deftly as Saturday’s act tossed bowling pins. It was enjoyable, even with a ten-pound headache throbbing behind each word.
That pulse picked up its pace when the yellow men began cheering again. It was obligatory since Reggie Evans and Pierce provided the inspiration on the court with a 6-0 Iowa run to start the second half. Ohio State head coach Jim O’Brien called a timeout to regroup. Suddenly, it was a game again. The score was 37-35, and the Hawkeyes could still play their way into Recker’s third game-winning, buzzer-beating shot in as many days.
It was not to be. A Yugoslav senior guard named Savovic made sure of that.
Known to me only as Number Twenty-One, Boban Savovic displaced Recker as the man of the hour. His three-pointers early in the game sparked the first-half blitz that put Ohio State in front. Now, Savovic was again busting loose from beyond the arc, building the Buckeye lead to 51-43. Recker and company again cut it to three, but legs tired from four straight days of work could not keep up the the State clones. Number Twenty-One finished with a game-high 27 points and became a lock for game MVP.
“Who do you think will make All-Tourney?” Tim asked while waiting for the Buckeye lead to finally stop growing at 19.
“Well, let’s see …”
I pulled out my notes and pawed through scrawls on a green ledger pad. Going into the tourney, I wanted to add some interest by tracking the top performances and projecting the top five. As anonymous Ohio State teammates continued coasting toward a post-season title, Tim and I reviewed the options.
By my pen, the leading player was Luke Recker. By far. He probably could have made the team after beating Wisconsin. As the tournament’s leading scorer and with a four-day resume that included the two biggest shots of the event, Recker was now a lock and a front-runner in the race for MVP. His only apparent competition was Brian Brown of Ohio State. Number Thirteen had just seven points in this game before disappearing into early celebration, but his first two contests were strong. If not the best player, then Brown certainly belonged in the top five.
The rest of the field was murky. Reggie Evans was probable, especially on his way to an 8-rebound, 13-point game against the Buckeyes. He had been taken out of some games completely, though, and would probably only make the cut if extra votes were awarded for playing on Sunday. Tim threw Ohio State Numbers Four and Thirty-Four — Brent Darby and Terence Dials — into that same bag. As with all of the Ohio State stars, they both played at least one mediocre game and would have to bump some stronger players on the coattails of a pending title.
In past seasons, one of the also-rans was recognized, but never more than one. That left a few possibilities. Michigan’s LaVell Blanchard had the best scoring, but Dusty Rychart proffered a well-rounded line in the Minnesota boxscores. The best Hoosier was A.J. Moye, outshining starters Tom Coverdale and Jared Jeffries with his energetic play in limited minutes. Frank Williams merited consideration but got demerits for vanishing down long stretches of his games. Perhaps another Hawkeye, like Pierce or Boyd.
“Rychart,” Tim said definitively.
Notably absent from our short list was Savovic. “He’s player of the game, for sure,” said Tony, who joined us at the tail end of our selection process. “But he did nothing before that.”
Just another face in the crowd of cloned Buckeyes, Number Twenty-One was barely an afterthought. We had already bumped his teammate Dials to make room for Rychart. If an opening should emerge on the first-team roster, we figured the freshman star had first crack at regaining his spot.
“We’ll go with Recker, Brown, Evans, Darby and Rychart,” Tim announced to the the group. “Recker gets MVP.”
I glanced up at the score and the clock. Our private ballot had consumed almost eight minutes. During that time, the basketball had grown stagnant. One minute watching white-shirted men with shaved heads blurred into the next, and all of Luke Recker’s 21 points faded in the washout 80-61 Buckeye lead. I credited Recker with a lot of intangible power, but not even he could make a 19-point bucket as time expired. The Hawkeyes settled for a final three.
The yellow men vanished more quickly than Iowa confidence. Buried deep in my game notes, I hadn’t regarded their departure until Tim noticed the relative silence. “Boy, there’s guys like that in every section,” he said. “We sat in front of some Indiana fans yesterday who talked like that.”
“Yeah, I suppose it’s the same everywhere.”
On the court, the referees huddled casually to chat. Hawkeyes wandered toward the locker room, while Buckeyes pointed to a few fans they recognized in the stands. The game ball danced rhythmically beneath the hands of the Black Chaplain. In the end, Rucker was still bouncing the ball, once more surviving his critics.
Final Score: Ohio State University 81 – Iowa Hawkeyes 64
Player of the Game: G Slobodan Savovic, Ohio State
(Honorable mention to Luke Recker and Reggie Evans)
At Road’s Bend
“One good game,” Tim shook his head. “One good game, and Recker, the tournament’s all time leading scorer, is robbed.”
We guessed wrong on only one of the five All-Tourney slots. Boban Savovic, the leading performer in the title game, capitalized on the short-term memory of attending journalists to launch himself over Dusty Rychart and one teammate to make the five-man squad. Not only that, but Savovic’s final game also shot him past Luke Recker, inexplicably, as the best player of the weekend.
“He had two game-winning shots, scored a mess of points and played four games,” I griped. “Yet a guy who was indistinguishable from his teammates until today shoots lights out for abut 30 minutes and he’s the best player?”
The Big Ten tournament was over. Players milled around, exhausted in victory and defeat. The Buckeyes, donning white championship shirts and caps, waved to an appreciative crowd. Head coach Jim O’Brien got hugs from his troops, several of which just concluded their final seasons at Ohio State. Savovic was once such senior, and relished his own performance as much as those who witnessed it.
A makeshift stage was erected at the far side of center court. On it sat the golden ball serving as the league trophy. The champions swarmed around the hardware and raised it unison as cameras clicked away.
Watching the ceremony from behind, it was easy to imagine the more familiar silhouettes of Indiana players. Until the Senior Day victory over Northwestern a week earlier, I had never seen any Indiana team hoist any gleaming symbol of success. In my tenure, there were no Big Ten titles. There were precious few March victories and little respect for the long string of 20-win seasons. Hope and promise laid a squatter’s claim on the places in my mind reserved for such memories.
The 2001-2002 season was not over for the Indiana Hoosiers. A tough tourney draw would send them out west for the second straight year. Utah was an unenviable draw for IU as their first-round opponent. Though Indiana outclassed the roster, the Utes head coach — Rick Majerus — possessed a spotless record in opening tourney games and some Indiana roots to spark karmic confusion. The former Ball State coach was a frequent member of the short list to replace Bob Knight at Indiana and remained there until Mike Davis had his interim tag lifted. A repeat of last year’s early exit would probably keep Coach Davis under the microscope and return Majerus to the AD’s rolodex.
If the club cleared that hurdle, a hot Southern California team awaited, followed by the immovable object and irresistible force of all brackets — Duke. Just playing that game would guarantee Davis lesser Knighthood as it meant two wins and a return to the Sweet Sixteen for the first time in several graduating classes. Beat Duke, and the sky is the limit.
The road to Atlanta could not be seen from Conseco Fieldhouse. Win or lose, though, it was a marvelous trip to take.
Some fans slept along the way. They passed the time riding in silence except to request a wake-up call upon arrival. I hated these people. Not simply because they shirked the responsibility to cajole our squad to play its best. They also ignored the view, the best part of any journey.
Some landmarks were massive. The record-setting 17 three-pointers in one game. Coach’s 40th win. Others were subtle and simply beautiful. Finding the open man off of a double team, then penalizing the opponent’s aggression by sinking the shot. The synchronized dance of five Hoosiers playing zone defense for the first time. Antoine Davis dribbling a ball half his size, oblivious to the post-game emotion filing out of Assembly Hall. The road cannot be defined by the shiny hardware hoisted at its end.
Perhaps that, ultimately, was why I respected Bob Knight so much as a coach. It wasn’t that he wanted to win. He wanted to win beautifully.
My pilgrimage ended with a short, brisk walk back to the hotel with my friends. We reflected on the weekend, admiring Luke Recker’s shots without contemplating the man. We engaged in brief speculation about a different day when different teams made the shots. An Indiana-Illinois match would have electrified the Fieldhouse, crackling with each swish of nylon. Or Indiana-Purdue, so the journey could venture near the Dark Side. Closing my eyes, I wished success to the Boilermakers in the next season, if only to heighten a later fall. I opened my eyes and found basketball waiting, once again, on the horizon.
Brackets end in misery for all but a select few. Elation is the payoff. Disappointment is always the bet.
A small price to pay for glory.