With number 1 ranked Duke coming to Bloomington on Wednesday, Hoosier fans are hoping for a major upset. It isn’t unprecedented for Indiana to knock off the top ranked team at Assembly Hall. In fact, the Hoosiers have done it three times in the 46 year history of IU’s current home court. As you’d expect with wins of this magnitude, each of these games are likely etched in the memories of Hoosier fans everywhere.
Let’s take a look back at those moments, with accompanying videos that are sure to elicit a goose bump or two:
February 2, 2013 – (3) Indiana 81 (1) Michigan 73
ESPN Gameday on campus. Future NBA players everywhere including Glenn Robinson III, Trey Burke, Tim Hardaway Jr., Nik Stauskas, Mitch McGary and Caris Levert. for Michigan; and Cody Zeller, Victor Oladipo and Yogi Ferrell for Indiana. This game was a big deal. It would end up being the first of two Indiana wins over Michigan which would all but ensure the Hoosiers an outright Big Ten title.
Burke and Hardaway would prove to be difficult to contain as they combined for 43. That was enough to keep Michigan in the game throughout. Indiana was able to pull away at the end with a great balanced effort including 19 from Zeller, 15 from Oladipo, and 14 from Ferrell and Christian Watford.
Strange as it may seem, perhaps the most memorable play from this game was a missed alley-oop:
December 10, 2011 – (unranked) Indiana 73 (1) Kentucky 72
This game requires no introduction of course, and no description could do it justice in the eyes of Hoosier fans. This is a moment where every IU fan remembers where they were. More than 3 years of suffering was ended with one shot, and no one can describe it better than Don Fischer:
Similar to Wednesday’s matchup with Duke, Indiana needed to and was surprisingly able to win the rebounding battle in this one despite being a smaller and less athletic team.
Two statistics that people don’t often talk about with this game is the fact that Kentucky outshot Indiana from the field 56% to 43%, and Indiana had two more turnovers in the game 18-16. Typically those statistics would predict a win for Kentucky. How did the Hoosiers win? 9-15 3-point shooting vs. 2-7 for Kentucky, and 14-17 free throw shooting for IU vs. 10-17 for UK.
January 7, 2001 – (unranked) Indiana 59 (1) Michigan State 58
The Michigan State Spartans were the defending national champions, undefeated, and on a 23 game winning streak. Indiana was only 9-6 on the season and in need of a big win to right the ship. The Hoosiers were a year away from doing big things, but on this day they did just enough behind 27 points from Kirk Haston including this buzzer beater: