Story of the year

INDIANAPOLIS – Amid the thick atmosphere begotten of torn athletic tape, discarded iPods and sweat-soaked socks, the Hoosiers’ Conseco Fieldhouse locker room had a distinct feel.

It’s the same feel that every locker room, save one, takes on each season. It’s the feeling – really, more the knowledge – that it’s over.

This ending probably won’t trouble any but the most steadfast of Hoosier fans, not after a 6-25 season with just one Big Ten win.

For weeks now – really since Christian Watford’s commitment sent the 2009 recruiting class into the rankings stratosphere – every conversation about IU basketball has inevitably come around to next year.

Yes, winning is all that matters in this game. But not many teams get to win. And not many teams have stories like this one.

It really has been a remarkable season – not good or bad, just remarkable. Last year was likely the single most unpredictable year in IU basketball history – but this one gave it a run.

Circumstance pulled together the most unlikely of stories – a baseball player, a former walk-on with two bad knees, a Gambian, even a manager – to build the least successful but perhaps most memorable team in IU history.

Steven Gambles would know.

The junior transferred to IU from Lambuth University, a school next to impossible to find without a Google search and a compass.

On game night, he took the floor for a Big Ten Tournament game in his hometown wearing one of the most illustrious uniforms in college basketball history.

“The road I’ve been through, as far as just school and basketball, I never thought it would come this way,” Gambles said March 12. “I’ve been fortunate. It’s been a blessing.”

If you lived to be 100 years old, you might never see another season like this one.

The more this team lost, the louder Assembly Hall got – more crowded, too. And if they took the losing hard, the Hoosiers’ demeanor rarely showed it.

Players credited their coaches, and coaches credited their players. Maybe both knew anything else wasn’t an option. Maybe there was so much inexperience, they just didn’t have much frame of reference.

If there was acknowledgement of Thursday’s consequence, it was quiet. Gambles said the locker room got “emotional” after the game, but no one appeared too downtrodden. Focus had already turned to the next task.

There was some disappointment for Kyle Taber, the fifth-year walk-on-turned-scholarship-player who has had as many coaches and knee surgeries as IU had wins this season.

The senior forward walked off to applause from Conseco’s remaining IU fans, an unlikely ending to one of the most unlikely careers in IU history.

“I didn’t know what it would be,” Taber said of his tenure at IU. “It changed almost every year, it seemed like.”

No one in that locker room knew yet what the immediate future would hold. A program one year ago defined by uncertainty had it again – but in a far more ordinary way.

There won’t be a coaching search, and no roster needs to be built from scratch.

The future can be about next season, not about tomorrow. Normalcy, if such a thing exists, can return to IU basketball.

And then, at some point between now and October, the Hoosiers can start planning some payback.

“I think every game next year is gonna be a revenge game,” Nick Williams said, smiling like a man who couldn’t wait to see what the future holds. “It’s going to be a fun season.”