After a nearly six-month hiatus, IU basketball will return to Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall this weekend.
Hoosier Hysteria, the annual event signifying the start of the men’s and women’s basketball seasons, will take place at 4 p.m. Saturday in Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.
"Really good weekend this weekend with Hoosier Hysteria for our fans and our players, their families, our staff," IU Coach Archie Miller said. "Generally just kickoff week so to speak. So it's exciting."
Arena doors for the event will open to the public at 2 p.m., and the second half of IU’s football game at Rutgers will be shown on the videoboard inside the arena.
Admission for the event is free, but fans are encouraged to bring canned goods to the arena to donate to the Hoosier Hills Food Bank.
Prior to the event, parking lots around Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall and Memorial Stadium will open at 12:30 p.m. But fans who plan on arriving early in the day to stand in line will have to park in the Fee Lane parking garage.
This year’s Hoosier Hysteria will take place nearly a month ahead of when the 2017 event took place. This comes as a result of the NCAA Division I Council approving a proposal in January allowing the men’s and women’s seasons to start earlier in November, as well as the NCAA moving the start of fall practice up by two weeks.
As such, preseason practice can now begin 42 days before the first game of the season for men’s and women’s teams, after another proposal was passed allowing women’s teams to start practice two days earlier than in years past.
This means teams will have more off days instead of practicing each possible day.
The first men's practice of the season will be Monday.
Miller said it's been a much different experience for him entering his second season as IU's coach than his first.
"Once you get to the end of your first year, you take inventory," Miller said. "You look back on what needs to be done, and you go right to work on it, which we did."
As for Saturday’s events, it will be largely business as usual for both Hoosier squads.
Introductions will take place for each IU player on the men’s and women’s teams, and Miller, along with IU women's basketball coach Teri Moren, will address the crowd.
A three-point shooting contest will take place involving men’s and women’s players, and the men’s team will have a dunk contest and a scrimmage.
"I think as we start college basketball season, tip-off this season, there's just such a different familiarity with everyone," Miller said. "There's such a different comfort level with everybody. Just understanding who you deal with every day and who you talk to every day, how your family is doing every day."
A banner will be raised Saturday as the women’s team will unveil its 2018 WNIT Championship banner during the event.
Fans who attend will receive free schedule posters for both teams. After the event, players from both teams will be available to sign autographs in the concourse of Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.
For those who can’t make it to Bloomington, Hoosier Hysteria will be streamed on BTN Plus/BTN2Go, a subscription-based streaming service for Big Ten Conference events.
