Column: Teaching an old tradition new tricks

I’m willing to bet this was the first time in Assembly Hall’s 40-year history that blow-up guitars, imitation Ray Bans and Usher shared the same floor that was once graced by Bob Knight’s airborne chair.

Yes, guard Victor Oladipo singing Usher’s “You Got it Bad,” with the rest of the men’s basketball team serving as backup dancers as part of the introduction for Saturday night’s Hoosier Hysteria, was a welcome change.

The well-performed R&B act showed me IU Athletics is trying to gradually make IU’s version of Midnight Madness a spectacle that appeals to every member of a 16,100-person audience.

And that’s not an easy thing to do.

As a Blue Ribbon basketball program so deeply rooted in tradition, Indiana has struggled in past years to infuse contemporary entertainment appealing to a younger generation of Hoosier fans into a season kickoff that is sure to celebrate IU’s pristine past.

The three-point shootout and dunk contest preceding the team’s scrimmage have become staples of Hoosier Hysteria and are entertaining at times.

This year, sophomore Will Sheehey dazzled a packed Assembly Hall with his slam via a pass he threw off the backboard to former all-state high school soccer-player-turned-IU-guard Daniel Moore. The teammate headed the ball from the far corner of the paint back to Sheehey, who threw it down for a contest-clinching jam.

It is worth noting Sheehey accomplished all this while wearing retro IU basketball shorts hiked halfway up his thighs.

But aside from these memorable moments, Hoosier Hysteria dragged on for me as the usual repetitions of the annual event took hold.

Toward the end of the evening, it seemed the crowd agreed with me. People slowly filed out of Assembly Hall before it was through.

Hoosier Hysteria isn’t designed just for me, though.

Isn’t it for the highly touted recruits taking their official visits to IU? They represent the future of the program.

Or maybe it’s for the throngs of Hoosier faithfuls that made Saturday night the best-attended Hoosier Hysteria of the Tom Crean era.

Then again, should Hoosier Hysteria be for the students? The mass that makes up the largest student section in the nation and is a mere 199 season tickets away (7,601 of 7,800) from selling out that monstrous Crimson Guard segment?

The truth is, Hoosier Hysteria is for all these groups. The tricky part is appeasing all of them.

Alumni and long-time season ticket holders are not going to appreciate, much less understand, a live musical act from the Top 20 charts as much as the student body or a high school senior submerged in present-day basketball culture.

Conversely, the out-of-state IU freshman and five-star recruits might not be able to identify Keith Smart nailing a game-winning shot as he drifts toward the sideline in the 1987 Championship Game.

Regardless of its Hoosier hoops IQ, the diverse group inside Assembly Hall was all there for the same reason and expected to see something that kept its interest.

There needs to be some balance between the rock show ego-fest the folks in Lexington put on and a mundane snoozer that follows the same script of intro video, player walk-out songs, three-point contest, dunk contest and scrimmage.

Hoosier Hysteria and IU Athletics as a whole are on its way to finding this medium.
I hope to see this metaphoric see-saw continue to balance with an event that seamlessly blends the new with the old.

Who knows? Maybe next year, we’ll see Cody Zeller and Jordan Hulls belting out a duet of Lady Antebellum’s “Need You Now.”